While everyone else was freezing their ass off on Tuesday, December 13, thousands of Dave Matthews Band fans packed in to the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia for a classic DMB show.
Click to see pictures of Tuesday night, courtesy of PE Zen master photog Brian Hineline.

AND....

Read an interview with Dave, which was published in the Dec. 14 issue of Philly EDGE, below.

Banded together
Dave Matthews Band doesn’t take audience for granted

By Ryan Alan
Philly EDGE Correspondent

After a solo CD and tour, Dave Matthews, hailed as no less than the biggest rock star in America by Rolling Stone, is excited to be working with his musical family again -- the Dave Matthews Band.
It is almost an understatement to say that, through the years, DMB has been a very powerful creative force, selling 30 million-plus albums and 10 million concert tickets.
"We’re not really good at long-term plans, so it’s amazing we’ve gotten this far," Matthews quips.
Last week, the band released “Weekend at the Rocks,” a live CD/DVD combo which was recorded last September at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado. Their latest studio album, "Stand Up," their first non-live recording together in three years, came out in the spring.
The DMB line-up remains Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer Carter Beauford, violinist Boyd Tinsley and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Matthews says that everyone is an equal contributor to a “great band.”
"We all seem to be in a very good head space right now about the new music and about the direction that it’s gone. We’ve been having a lot of fun playing it."
Matthews theorizes that fun will continue to translate into unpredictable live performances, including next Tuesday’s show at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia.
“There’s going to be a handful of new songs in the show. But I’m not really 100 percent sure exactly what’s going to happen. We just go out and play,” he says.
“Hopefully we play with as much joy as we can and that’ll come across and hopefully people will be convinced of how much of a good time we’re having."
It’s usually the afternoon of a show that the band talks about what they might play that night, he says. "And certainly nothing is set in stone," Matthews says.
He references the example of Trey Anastasio, whose philosophy, he says, seems to be: "You can pretty much guarantee that there’s going to be something new every night that’s never been seen before. We just don’t know what it is until we come up with it."
Matthews: "I expect something, but I can’t predict what it is yet. We’ll play some of the new songs, and some of the old songs, and we will play them with the closest to a band (feel) that we can manage."
Whether it is playing to a festival audience, such as last June’s Bonnaroo Fest in Tennessee at which the DMB headlined, or an indoor DMB gig, there is a similar approach, Matthews suggests.
"I think we always come to play, and figure that in order to keep the audience we have to blow them away every time," he explains.
"When we walk off the stage we might think more about the effect and some nights are easier than other nights, and some nights it’s effortless - and some nights it’s, you know, like trying to dig a grave with a teaspoon. But all the time it’s knowing that you have to really come play like it’s the last time you’re ever going to play. And I don’t know if that comes from just the guys in the band, but I think it’s probably not an uncommon way to feel about it."
He does not take the audience’s support for granted.

"I’ve become sort of preoccupied, while I’m playing for an audience, with making sure when they leave that they’re even more excited than when they came. Whether or not I managed to do that or not, or we managed to do that or not, is another thing. But at least, you know, it’s a reasonable thing to attempt and also not to be too scared to get over that fear, because I still have -- I think everybody does – a bit of that fear of being trampled. Not literally, but just by the size of things. You’ve got to keep a perspective."
Keeping it fresh for themselves and the audience, while still fulfilling fan expectations, is not a simple balancing act, he implies.
"We love to play and that’s what we do. We don’t say, ‘This is the right way to do it,’ or ‘This is the wrong way to do it.’ I think you sort of know when things are going nowhere, but also you sort of you know, you hope you know, if things are going somewhere. Aside from that I don’t think I could honestly say that I know how we keep it (that balance) that way…You know, we just show up."
Spontaneity can’t be overstated, he implies.
"You can’t really improve on spontaneity. Creativity, when it’s not shined, when you can see the construction lines on a drawing, makes you feel far more connected, and I mean truly connected."
Encouraged to speculate on the future of creativity in general, Matthews responds, " I think that it’s safe to say that people will always want to make, at least attempt to make, creative things, you know, whether it’s music or art or film, and there’ll be people who will attempt to package it in a more profitable way, and try to succeed in one way or another. And then in that way we’ll sort of bounce back and forth in bigger and in less impressive manners."
“Someone has one original idea, and then there are 100 imitations,” he says. "And of those 101 things, you know, for me personally, I just always hope that at least I have a good idea and a little less an imitation. Of course, I certainly find inspiration places."
He believes live music will always find a way to survive, and people will always be drawn to it.
"I think people do get tired of things being packaged for them. I think people do grow tired of being spoon-fed, and if it’s not every generation, it’s sort of every couple or every half-generation."
Matthews acknowledges there is a dark quality to some of the latest generation of his songs, but he also believes there’s a lot of hope to be found in many of them.
"These are pretty dark times, in many ways, so if we’re just singing about bubble gum, or temporary gratification, then, you know, our heads truly are up our butts, so I’m glad people think it’s a little bit darker."
Some of the older material was a little dark too, but perhaps a little more tongue and cheek and a bit more ambiguous, in some ways, he suggests.
"But I try to keep ambiguity as my ally, so as to not become too easily targeted for doing anything too specific. You know, I can dodge the arrows when I can."