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Dave Matthews Band PREMIERE ISSUE Europe 2009 [Bama Rags/RCA] JOHN FOGERTY His dream comes true

PAT METHENY “You are my obsession!” Dave EXCLUSIVE A new way to play

ALICIA ORIANTHI Matthews sings during “Seven”—no This is it KEYS + doubt taking the worshipful words right out of his one-track- How exploring classic PERFECT LIVE SOUND sounds pointed her TV’S BEST BANDS minded audience’s mouths. It will indeed take a certain kind to the future of obsessive to spring for Europe 2009, a not-inexpensive four-disc set that uses one DVD to present a nearly three-hour London show from last summer, then spreads an even longer

Italian gig across three CDs. It’s a DMB devotee’s dream and a FIGHTING THE ‘LOUDNESS WAR’ jam-band hater’s night terror. Or is it? This might actually be the JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 VOLUME 01, ISSUE 01 PERIODICAL $5.95 U.S. / $6.95 CANADIAN set you’d put on—in small doses—to convince unbelievers. The COVER_FINAL.indd 1 1/11/10 1:39 PM group was touring behind (and playing nearly every track off) their best album to date, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, a Dave Matthews Band Europe collection of extremely accessible, electric guitar-oriented, horn section-driven songs whose relative succinctness is maintained 2009 in these punchy arrangements. The economy of those pop-funk tunes is balanced out here, of course, by jams as un-succinct as “This might actually be the a 21-minute expansion of oldie “#41.” This might be considered set you’d put on to convince heresy by acolytes of the core combo, but it’s the supplementary members—guitar electrician Tim Reynolds, trumpeter Rashawn unbelievers.” Ross, and the late LeRoi Moore’s replacement on sax, Jeff Coffin—who push these shows into overdrive, especially at the all-but-orgasmic climax of “So Damn Lucky.” It doesn’t hurt that Matthews has progressed as a songwriter since trademarking his deceptively happy-go-lucky sound of the mid-’90s, adding more tension, sensuality and genuine celebration to the recent material emphasized in these epic sets. –CW

- M Music & Musicians

January/February 2010