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Special Photo Gallery - DMB Northerly 2021
Posted by Joe M in Tour News at 6:13pm on Tuesday, Aug 17th, 2021For many it has been way too long since there were Dave Matthews Band shows. Some have been lucky enough to see one of the first 11 shows. Some have no choice but to be more patient and wait a bit longer. You may have forgotten what it's like to be at a DMB show, or even what the members look like, ha. (How's that Carter COVID beard looking?) Ants has you covered in pretty much every other aspect, we figure might as well cover you from that perspective too.
So we enlisted the help of long time Ants member Boywonder44 to help us capture some of the energy from this band returning to touring in a special photo gallery. (In a more professional settings Boywonder44 likes to be referred to as Brett Bergen. [We don’t get why either.]) He recently attended the Northerly Island (Chicago) weekend, joined our Ants tailgate (Thanks to everyone that came out!), brought his camera, and we’re lucky enough that he’s sharing some of his shots from the concert with the community. (If you want to check out his other live concert photography, you can see them here. He's previously shot TR3, Umphreys McGee, 311, STS9 and a slew of others (ie, DMB, ha.))
Click on the Dave image to the left to go through the gallery of ~60 great photos.
(To view from DMB Hub App, click on the Dave thumbnail after you click here .)
Thanks to Brett for sharing! Let the reminiscing begin. And for those still waiting to attend upcoming show, may the countdown go a bit speeder for you!
Tour Central Liberations
Posted by Matt Yette in Site News at 8:43am on Monday, Aug 9th, 2021
Allowing the term some creative license for a play on the literal definition, in this context "liberation" is meant to indicate that a song has been "set free" of "oppression;" aka "It's been a long time since this song was played." The power of our Tour Central database has allowed us to dig deep and offer up dynamic insight on this phenomenon. Thanks to Tour Central, we're able to show not only every liberation ever achieved, but also what each tour's historical liberation list looked like, and what songs were liberated during that run of shows in a "point in time" style. And we've taken it even further: we treat liberations relative to their performer, so you can track Dave & Tim, or Dave solo as separate liberation lists. We've even integrated liberations with your My Tour Stats page, so you can view all the liberations you've ever witnessed (even ones you might have not been aware of!), and others can also view your list. Even the DMB Hub Stubs have gotten into the act, awarding you stubs based on not only how many liberations you've seen, but if you've seen some variant of an "uber" liberation.
With that in mind, what constitutes a liberation? Admitting that it's a very subjective measurement, a line needs to be drawn somewhere, and we've drawn that line at 150 shows. While we go into the criteria more deeply on the Liberations area of the site, 150 shows represents somewhere around three full years of concerts in the band's modern era, and that feels right to us when determining how long a song should go before being considered "liberated." It's also what drives our "liberation factor." 300+ shows are considered a 2x liberation, while something that hasn't been played in 1200 shows would be an 8x! While we also track number of days since a song's last performance, that metric isn't deterministic in our system. The band's brief 2017 hiatus, and last year's cancelled tour come to mind as two recent examples that push us to value shows over days. We're sure this will continue to be the subject of debate, and that's cool with us. We aren't saying it's the only way to view things, just that it's our way of looking at it for the sake of the feature on Ants!
You'll find liberations front and center on our updated Tour page in Tour Central, and from there you can head over to the Liberation area, where you can break down the data by artist and sort by all manner of metrics to view the data how you prefer. We hope you enjoy the additional insight into just what makes a Dave Matthews Band (or Dave & Tim, or Dave solo) show so special, as well as our recent addition of DMB Hub Stubs and Tour Central Advanced Search, and thank you for your continued support of Ants!
DMB Hub Stubs on Ants
Posted by Matt Yette in Site News at 7:36am on Thursday, Aug 5th, 2021
DMB Hub Stubs are now integrated into the antsmarching.org website, so anyone with an Ants account can earn, view and share their stubs! Every Ants member already has a link to their Tour Stats at the top-right of every page on the site. Once there, you'll now find a new section on the left hand column for your DMB Hub Stubs. Clicking the Stubs icon will bring you to a page dedicated to displaying your Stubs "trophy case," and there's also a link to generate the same Stubs Passport that you can share from the app, but now you can do so right from Ants!
We're excited to expand this feature from DMB Hub to the site as a whole. With a new DMB tour comes renewed energy, and we hope you all enjoy the new features that we continue to add to antsmarching.org. In that vein, we wanted to give a special shoutout to our Ants+ members, without which we couldn't continue to operate. Your support is greatly appreciated! As Ants approaches its 20 year anniversary, we strive to continually create innovative features, providing Dave Matthews Band fans with the best experience next to actually being at a show!
If you have an iPhone and aren't familiar with DMB Hub, give it a download! It's completely free, ad- and tracker-free, and plugs you into the latest DMB shows via our Live Setlist push notifications. And as we mentioned, there are hundreds of live recordings available to stream, in no small part due to our amazing taper community!
Tour Central Advanced Search Now Available
Posted by Matt Yette in Site News at 8:41am on Tuesday, Aug 3rd, 2021
Sure, Tour Central has always had "search" since its inception. Technically. But for once, technically correct is not the best kind of correct. It was a very basic version that let you search show data fields as if they were text. Sometimes it would work; often times it didn't offer the flexibility to be any sort of useful. It had been on our list, literally, for years (decades?), and we actually managed to put it together in the summer of 2019, but then life happened, and it got put on the back burner.
Ants Tour Central has always been the foundation of the site, with an advanced database that was built from the start to be a powerful and flexible means of storing data about the band's performances. It's been tweaked and extended over the years, but at its core, was intelligently designed to scale as it has over the better part of two decades. The power and flexibility of Tour Central has enabled us to bring this advanced search engine to the site!
The Tour Central Search Engine allows you to search for a single song, or multiple. You can stipulate that any song is an opener, a set closer, in the encore, or the encore closer. Or, you can string multiple songs together and turn up shows where those tunes were played in order. All of these options can be filtered by further metrics, such as guest, venue, artist and show date range. On top of that, you can also have it only display shows that are streamable on DMB Hub, or available to download on Ants. You can even check the box to only search against shows you've seen, so you can create a lot of personal queries. And when you've built your favorite searches, you can save them to your Tour Stats, so they're always accessible (and sharable!).
With a new tour comes renewed energy, and Ants is getting a ton of work poured into it, in various areas (more to come on that!). Stay tuned to Ants for the latest as we roll out more features, and we hope you're enjoying the tour so far!
Ants Podcast 106: Back in the Game
Posted by Matt Yette in Podcasts at 1:11pm on Sunday, Aug 1st, 2021
While Apple's built in Podcast app is a great app for listening to the Ants Podcast, an alternative that some might enjoy has emerged: Overcast. Overcast is a great, free podcast app that has gained a lot of popularity since its release. If you're looking for another app for your Ants Podcast fix, give it a try!
We are also now on Spotify! Check us out!
DMB Catch-Up: New Album, New Songs, New Tour
Posted by Joe M in Album News at 8:55am on Saturday, Jul 17th, 2021
First, let’s put this year in some context. Has the debate been settled if we increment our age during COVID lockdown year or not? Well with DMB and in the spirit of ‘no asterisks’ we do, and 2021 marks the band’s 30th anniversary! The anniversary itself fell on March 14th, the date of DMB’s first show 30 years ago. While there wasn’t much fanfare on the actual date, this year is set up to be a milestone year beyond just the number. Already with exciting highlights to look forward to this year, but hopefully there’s even more untapped we don’t yet know about. (Especially if compared to the commemoration of the bands 25th anniversary with a special vinyl box and hometown Charlottesville show.) But enough daydreaming, let’s recap what we know at this point.
We chunk this out into 3 topics: New Songs, New Album, and New Tour.
First up: New Songs
DMB Catch-Up: New Songs (part 1)
Posted by Joe M in Album News at 8:55am on Saturday, Jul 17th, 2021
Since the last concert you’ve attended there are two new songs that have debuted, both Dave solo (for now?) Those include Singing from the Windows and The Ocean and the Butterfly.
Singing From the Windows, a finger-picked acoustic (capo’ed 6 string) song, debuted on 3/26/20 for the Verizon Pay It Forward Live (the first one). A song inspired by the videos that went viral of Italy residents singing outside their windows together during quarantine.
Watch/Listen to Singing From the Windows
And the other, The Ocean and the Butterfly, a strummed acoustic (6 string) song, debuted on 10/18/20 for a webcast fundraiser for Save Our Stages (an organization seeking to give aid to independent music venues.) The performance occurred at The Jefferson Theater in the downtown walking mall of Charlottesville, a venue DMB performed at back in 1993, and a frequent spot of after party/concert performances when the band plays hometown John Paul Johns Arena, often with DMB connections or DMB visitors.
Watch/Listen to The Ocean and the Butterfly
(We’ll hold off on describing anymore of the song so that you can form your personal opinion. Feel free to join the discussion on the forums of your thoughts.)
[cue infomercial voice] But that’s not it, there’s more! [end infomercial voice]
There are some more songs we know are being worked on but we haven’t heard them yet. How many more we don’t know. Dave says a couple more than you can count on two hands, but we also have indication that it’s as high as 26 ideas/songs (but that number may include not just new songs, but existing songs to work on in the studio. More on that in a bit.) Dave says some songs are raucous rocking, some songs are really sweet, and some songs are "retro music" that he's excited about.
One of those is Walk Around the Moon, and we may have a new album thanks to it (full updates on album in part 2). The hype on this song is about as high as you can get, a dangerous and possibly unfortunate tag because of the extra inspection it will derive as a result. But Dave says (at least in the moment) that Walk Around The Moon is one of the best songs he’s written. (wowzers, ha) The birth of the song starts out in The Haunted Hollow Studios (DMB’s own studio built in the woods of Virginia) where Dave worked with Rob Evans (longtime DMB inner circle in lots of roles, but primary lead Recording Engineer) The song initially developed over just 2 hours of work and instantly stuck out to Rob. Rob had constantly been working to convince Dave to start having Carter get involved in the different ideas they were working on, but it was Walk Around the Moon that finally convinced Dave to bring Carter into the studio (and start a writing/recording session together.) Dave says the song is about taking a walk in the woods, and some connection to mushrooms that isn’t clear at this point.
The only other item to add about the new songs is some of the instruments played on them. It appears Dave has dove deeper into the ukulele. Dave recently had two new ukuleles produced to take on tour and has been pictured playing one while rehearsing with the band. So unless Sweet is about to get a very heavy tour rotation (ha), it seems like a new song(s) with ukulele is(are) very likely. Also, some of the new songs have been noted to have Carter on an electric drum set, but is this just for ease of recording ideas early in the process (vs multi-mic recording a drum set), or is this an instrument that actually makes it to the final versions? (It would be interesting if/how electric drumming would translate in some form/fashion to the live show if used in new music.) A couple Moog synthesizers of Buddy's were pictured, and effects pedals for Rashawn’s horns. And lastly, Stefan has commented that he played standup bass on a couple songs, and he’s been pictured playing an acoustic bass in tour rehearsals, something new outside of the acoustic set days.
(Continue reading on about New Album.)
(This article is one part of a 3-part series on New Songs, New Album, New Tour. See them all here.)
DMB Catch-Up: New Album (part 2)
Posted by Joe M in Album News at 8:55am on Saturday, Jul 17th, 2021
As mentioned, it started with Dave and Rob Evans playing around and doing some writing last year, prior to September. And as mentioned, they brought in Carter to participate. The process progressed well, enough that they then brought everyone else into the studio to record pieces, and John Alagia (long time DMB Producer) also looks to get involved. It was a unique process because they were overcautious with being safe during COVID. They were tested frequently, wore masks, stayed distanced, etc. Dave mentioned Stefan playing in a hazmat suit with gloves. The horns were last to come in and record. (A point that some fans are reading into. Because what else can we do? ha) This all wrapped by the end of October and we didn’t have much more in the way of updates for months after (presumably over this quiet period the (initial) mixing and song recording structure was taking place, along with composition of orchestral parts.) The next update we saw was in mid-May with orchestra recording in LA (with Dave, Stefan, Rashawn, Buddy, John Alagia and Rob Evans participation.) Followed by Dave, Buddy and Rashawn returning to the Haunted Hollow studio after, and joined by Tim, to do some more recording. Based on recording of orchestra parts in the studio, presumably at least some songs are deep into being finalized. But also historically, there have been other times orchestra parts have been recorded but were never released. Hopefully that’s not the case here, which leads to the next question. What’s next/timeline?
Couple things play on what’s next. Even baring album completeness there’s the business/strategy side of things. One in particular that’s unknown, is how important is it to the band to extend their current streak record. Currently, the Dave Matthews Band holds the record for the most consecutive studio albums to debut at number one by a band (with 7 after Come Tomorrow.) If extending that streak record is important to the band (and I wonder what importance the fanbase puts on this), then they’ll want to deploy a marketing and release strategy to give themselves the best chance to earn number 8. For Come Tomorrow, the (gimmick) strategy was with each concert ticket purchase you received a copy of the album . So does that mean that the release of a new album will need to be timed for when a new tour gets announced and sold? (That will be a ways out seeing as the band is booked through November with already sold tickets.) You’ll be relieved to hear that Billboard chart calculations no longer account for albums part of ticket sales in the same way, so while it’s not a ‘no’ it sure doesn’t have the same attraction to do it that way again (and thus wait until next tour.)
The album doesn’t have to be finished to start marketing it (but it does have to have the proverbial tunnel with light at the end of it.) And with mentioned indications of serious progress, it’s been interesting why a marketing train hasn’t started up. Does the band see the light at the end of the album making tunnel yet to start the marketing train? Or is the album still a work in progress. This is the part that causes DMB fans PTSD. In 2014, two years after the release of Away From The World, DMB started working on material for a new album. What happened from there was a long 4 year period of making Come Tomorrow, and resulted in a gap of 6 years of no DMB studio album. (We are at 3 years since Come Tomorrow.) I think there’s a lot of promise about how this latest album work has come together that it won’t repeat the lengthy ways of the Come Tomorrow release. So let’s presume remaining album work is in the works to complete it, and that final mixes were listened to (as we’ve heard mentioned) and the mix is approved (as we hope, or at least only needing minor changes.) If that’s the case, then when can we get an official announcement?
(Marketing Team Enters Zoom Call) Do you leverage the excitement of the start of the tour with an album announcement? Leverage the excitement of a new album to help feed the tour (sales)? I’m sure the marketing team would like that, if the case we should be hearing something within the next week as the tour kicks off in Raleigh, NC on Friday July 23rd. Another possibility is the new album release gets slated for late in the year (holiday buying time, with a supporting indoor tour. Ha, wishlist.) and don’t want to announce too far in advance. The interesting part of touring with new songs without an album on the immediate horizon is, if the songs morph they may want to go back and re-record.
(Side note: We’re pulling for an album title of What. iykyk)
Join the album discussion/debate on the forums in the new album thread.
(Continue reading on about New Tour.)
(This article is one part of a 3-part series on New Songs, New Album, New Tour. See them all here.)
DMB Catch-Up: New Tour (part 3)
Posted by Joe M in Tour News at 8:54am on Saturday, Jul 17th, 2021
(Regression: Is it really a “summer” tour? Ha It starts in late July, sure, but ends in November. I guess ‘Late Summer into Fall’ doesn’t have the same ring.)
(Regression 2: Personally, I wouldn't mind if the delayed summer start stuck around long term. All those people trying to schedule summer life events/weddings/etc. always worried how it will sit once DMB tour dates are announced. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the first ~6 weeks of summer open without that worry? (Edit: Tell me you go to too many DMB shows, without telling me you go to too many DMB shows. I’ll go first.))
So what can we expect? Well we can say pretty confidently that new music will be performed this tour. Based on photos from tour rehearsal (very grateful that band members & management have shared), the band members have been playing new instruments that they haven’t before and/or were spotted in the studio, like the additional ukuleles, acoustic bass guitar, and the Moog sytheniziers (that were brought into the studio) are now part of Buddy’s rig. On top of that Rashawn has frequently tagged social media posts of rehearsal with #newmusic So we have that to look forward to.
Let’s also consider where we left off: the two shows at the start of 2020 before the world was changed (Vegas, and Innings Festival), and how the Band teased what was to come. We saw the returns of songs like The Riff, Stolen Away on 55th and 3rd, Beach Ball and Sweet Up and Down. Excitement was pretty high following those one-off shows. So are these songs still in line to be played after the cancelled tour? In promising news for at least one of the songs, but maybe an indicator for all of them, the band practiced Stolen Away on 55th and 3rd during tour rehearsals recently. On top of song returns, the sets from the two shows saw Come Tomorrow album songs take a step back from the setlist makeup. The Come Tomorrow album was the top played album by song performances for the Summer 2018, Fall 2018, Summer 2019 and Europe 2019 tours. The two 2020 shows had just 2 Come Tomorrow songs each night. (The actual song Come Tomorrow was played at both, but it was likely to be in heavy rotation in an election year.) So does this trend of less songs from Come Tomorrow also stick post-cancelled tour? (New music doesn't hurt that.)
The previous year of Dave web streams has also brought exciting developments. Pay for What You Get and Halloween were played by Dave and Carter together as part of “The Warehouse Session” / Warehouse Vol. 10. Dave broke out Dodo (!!!) on December 13th for Endangered Rangers stream. And during the second Verizon Pay It Forward Live event Dave performed Beach Ball (again), Up and Away (!!!) (first time in 15 years), and Break For It (!!!) (only played 7 times previously, back in 2010.) This would be a very welcome trend to also bleed into the 2021 Tour.
Thankfully we don’t have much longer to wait to find out where the 2021 Tour will take us. It starts Friday July 23rd at the Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek. Maybe everyone will get a chance to watch it? Wouldn’t that be nice. :)
At this point I think sentiment across the community is a lot of thankfulness, which is quickly followed by excitement. We’re here for it and along for the ride. If you’re just getting back on the DMB train, we got you covered. If you don't have it by now (you're crazy), download the DMB Hub app for your iPhone/iPad. DMB breaking news alerts, live song performance notifications, full setlists, streaming show recordings, setlist game, personal stats, badges, and more! (We just added some new badges you can earn too!)
Even if you don't have an iOS device, follow (with notifications) @dmblive for live show song updates, and @SetlistGame for game fun. And don't forget to subscribe to the AntsPodcast. Lastly, enjoy some debate or banter over in the Ants DMB forums. Looking to meet some new DMB friends at your next show, or want insight/tips about a venue? Head over to the Tour Forum and the associated venue thread to chat with others attending.
Know which shows you're attending? Add them to your personal tour stats ("I'm Attending"), either via the DMB Hub app or Tour Central webpage. That way we can make sure you don't miss any upcoming personal stat milestones! Happy Tour Time Everyone!
(This article is one part of a 3-part series on New Songs, New Album, New Tour. See them all here.)
DMB 2020 Summer Tour Confirmed Affected
Posted by Joe M in Tour News at 3:32pm on Wednesday, Apr 22nd, 2020This news should not come as a surprise given COVID19 pandemic, but the Dave Matthews Band 2020 Summer Tour has indeed been affected (in addition to the current confirmed cancellations of Australian shows and 2 festivals.) What may be a surprise, is this was decided weeks ago and still no information has been published.
The latest update on the state of the tour comes via Jeff Coffin during a hosted session titled "Keeping the Beat" that took place last night (4/21). During the session Jeff Coffin mentions "the Dave Matthews Band tour as been pushed back until at least the end of July / early August. And that was a few weeks ago that it was pushed back that far."
The information, while to the point, still spurs lots of questions, which you can understand band management, touring company, promoters and venues are all trying to work out (not only for DMB but for other bands.) Questions such as; Will the shows be cancelled or postponed? (A designation that could impact the possibility of refunds.) Which/How many shows should be affected initially/totality? Will the dates be rescheduled? Will there be refund options? Can people keep their seats if they choose? How will future scheduling work when the future of mass gatherings is unknown? The struggle of how much information to share when you don't yet know all the answers, and what is an over or under reaction.
The band's tour schedule had them playing through to West Palm Beach, FL on July 31st and August 1st, and then having the month of August off (as they typically do.) The optimists out there will view August as a prime time to look to reschedule shows. But with 24+ shows affected prior to the West Palm Beach shows, that's a significant amount to reschedule. As planned now the tour would pick back up September 2nd in Vancouver prior to the Gorge on Labor Dave weekend. (With complications already associated with the rescheduled Summerfest and existing show dates.)
Other major acts have already announced cancellations, including Dead & Co, Taylor Swift, Bon Jovi, the Biebs, etc. (some of which stretched into September originally, as the DMB tour currently does.) Also mayors of major cities, like L.A. and New Orleans, are recommending that all festivals, concerts, and large events be cancelled for the rest of the year. And possibly the most telling for the live concert space is from Live Nation President Joe Berchtold, who was asked specifically when the live-concert business would restart, said “That’s actually a question that can’t be answered right now." (via CNBC’s “Squawk Alley”.) He mentioned “There’s a long way to go" and discussed the idea of no concerts for 15-18 months.
We'll keep you updated as we gather more details. But in the mean time you can catch Dave Matthews perform this Friday, April 24th at 5:30PM ET on earthdaylive2020.org in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Or you can check out the latest addition of DMB Radio on SiriusXM Radio (initially) on channel 176 or on the app under Rock. And don't forget to pick up your firedancer face mask on the DMB Store.
