Aaron B.
Awesome show and assigned seating sucks. Thats two thoughts that I took with me when I left. The highlights of the show were:Two Step was pretty awesome and was suprised to see Stefan playing the slide on electric during the intro. Then they played Angel from Montgomery and I think the girl behing me was willing to bear Dave's child when he started playing. Then they started playing #41, and then I was willing to bear Dave's child. Leroi had an awesome solo during that tune. Boyd then tore it up in Lie in Our Graves. He was jamming so hard that some of the strands on his bow became unraveled, which justs proves how awesome he is and how much energy he puts int his music. He also did during Watchtower. The band had a pretty good jam in the middle of Recently that had everybody moving and dancing. Then they played Rapunzel and had yet another kick a** jam. I heard Long Black Veil for the first time and thougt it was a pretty cool mellow tune. I've heard a few different Watchtowers before but this one had to have been the best I have ever heard. About the assigned seating, about halfway through the first song, people started jumping the barricade between general admission and assigned seating. Things then got crazy with people getting on abandoned seats. The people front and center passed their seats to the front. And Dave a few songs into the set added something like," I guess the chair thing didn't really work out. But thats o.k. As long as everyone is cool down there, then everything's cool." But a few people were bitching that they payed 50 bucks for their seats. In my opinion, their shouldn't be seating at a Dave Matthews Concerts, because first of all, who sits during a Dave show, second, chairs just take up space which could be used so more people can get close to the stage, and third, 50 bucks is too much to pay to have an assigned seat.

CJ C.
This won't be the typical Dave Matthews Band concert review, in fact, it will be far from it. My wife and I had called early the morning the tickets went on sale three months ago, and had been lucky enough to get second row seats at Southpark Meadows. Our tickets were lost in the mail, however, and I had a sinking feeling the past couple months that we would show up to find people in our seats. My suspicions were right, and when we showed up as the opening band walked onstage, we found two people in our seats. FORTY-FIVE minutes later, we finally got to sit in our seats after proving we bought them to about TWENTY DIFFERENT event staff people (and royally pissing off the people who probably bought our original tickets that were lost in the mail from a scalper...). I could go on and on about the quality of assistance we recieved from the Southpark staff in this, but I have bigger things to complain about, and want to get to the meat of it. We sat down just in time, as Dave and ! the guys walked out on stage. Our seats were perfect. Second row, right section, just outside the center aisle. For those of you lucky enough to never have been to Southpark Meadows, the stage is literally in the middle of a field with a big concrete slab in front of it. There were about forty rows of sixty chairs on the concrete slab, surrounded by a temporary fence to keep the general admission people out of the seating area. There were well over 20,000 people in attendance. We were able to enjoy our great seats for roughly the amount of time for Dave to get to the second verse in the first song. Apparently, the temporary fence surrounding the seating area collapsed, because by the time the first song was over, there were well over 400 people in front of us (even though we were still in the second row). Very quickly, we were forced to stand on the seats we had paid $50 for just to be able to breath, much less, see the band. As Dave wrapped up "The Stone", and started into the second song, "Don't Drink the Water", the situation had only worsened. So many people were pushing foward into the center aisle, in front of the front row, and yes, even in between the rows, that there just wasn't any room anymore. People started folding up their chairs and passing them forward to make more room. The event staff were completely overwhelmed and outnumbered by this time, and were pretty much forced to just grab the chairs as they were passed up to keep people from getting injured by them. At this point, I realized if we were going to get out halfway easily, we had to do it then. My wife was already in tears, not only because she was scared (she's really little), but because she had been so excited about our good seats and the chance to see the band so close, only for it to be taken away from us two minutes into the show. I finally fought my way to the front wall and had the event staff pull my wife over so we could get out. So that's why, before the third song was even over, we were waiting in line with about 75 other bruised and pissed people trying to get a refund. I had to read the setlist online to find out what songs Dave played at a concert I had second row seats to. Kinda sad, huh? So what mistakes led to this disaster? 1) The event staff was undermanned, undertrained, and unorganized. 2) The venue is obviously below standard. 3) You can't put up a temporary fence and expect it to hold back 20,000 people. 4) Should Dave had said something or stopped the show? I don't think so, by the time the first song was over, it was too late to establish any sort of control, and stopping the show would have only pissed off an already frenzied mob. I think that Southpark Meadows should be seriously investigated before being allowed to host any other shows, and I truely hope that no one got hurt last night. I also hope that Dave Matthews' tour manager will look into alternate venues here in Austin next time they come around. Feel free to email me with any opinions you have.

Kevin B.
Definitely the most laid back, "mellow" show I've seen them play....Not sure if I like The Stone as an opener. Boyd and Stefan were really getting to show off, in fact it seems the band has given Stefan a lot of room to show us what an awesome player he is. Highlights of the show were the "slow funk groove" during Jimi, great Angel, decent #41, the best Lie In Our Graves DMB has and ever will perform, and I was really happy to hear Recently, even though Dave didn't tell us all about what some people do and what some people don't. Like the Johnny Cash cover, hope they stick with that, and a short but sweet Watchtower. Could have used less radio-play and mainstream songs, but what do you expect when you are in a crowd of 30K+?!

Kevin ".
High Points: Got to meet dave/roi before the show. about five of us were standing behind the stage (behind the chain link fence as well i might add) just chillin and watchin the band, fenton, monk...all run around trying to get thigs setup. One very very drunk man kept yelling "Dave!!!!" .. soo, he and boyd walked over. He said "sounds like yall are havin a heart attack or sumthin" "I just had to come see the "Fence People" ..."yall have fun..." and he walked away. Roi was stading next to the fence tryin to get a bite to eat...spoke to him shortly...supprisingly, only a few of us noticed the view of the band :) Dave came onstage at 8:19 and commented on the line at the porta john (he later pointed back over there and said "hope everything came out okay" During boyd's solo in graves..someone managed to throw a towell right on top of boyd's violyn. He very cooly flipped it off of his violyn and busted right back into the solo with the same fire.. They jammed out rapunzel like never before. I don't think i've ever heard them play the ending with that much power before...the end alone lasted around 4 mins....great closer... all -n- all .. dave and the boys were so on tonite...i havn't seen that much energy since the early days...more than worth the 7 hour drive :)

Parker R.
This was only my second DMB show, so I'm definitely not an expert or anything, but this show fulfilled everything I expected. It was overall very energetic and seemed to be led by Dave, although Boyd had his moments! This show was infinitely better than the one I attended lat year -8.13.98- which was dubiously known as the "Invasion of Crickets" Anyway, the band seemed much happier without that bother this time around. Highlights for me were, Dreaming Tree, Angel, #41, and the encore. Dreaming Tree was pretty unexpected and very nicely jammed out. Angel was awesome, Boyd needs to exercise the vocal chords more often, he's pretty good. #41 was great, the instruments just layered on top of eachother, it was almost spiritual or something. The encore was sick too, I never would have expected a Long Black Veil and Angel together, but nontheless I was in a pretty good mood. Watchtower was nicely played with good contributions from everyone. Not as much talking between songs, but that's understandable, seeing how the band had to make the flight from New York to Texas. Crowd was energetic and rowdy, and overall seemed pretty into it. Oh yeah, for anyone that cares, the lizards were on the amp, and no-one had any clue what the hell "Do It For Fenton" was. Great show...

Robert K.
I never thought I'd say this about a DMB show, but I was extremely dissapointed in Austin. The first 10 songs were also played three nights earlier in Dallas. In fact, there were only three songs in Austin that weren't played in Dallas. This combined with a rediculously large crowd made for a rather forgettable night. However, on the positive side, "Recently" was a nice surprise, and "Watchtower" was also quite good.

Lucie D.
The only part of this concert that was great was the band. The crowd for this concert was terrible. We felt like we were at one big frat party. We came to listen and jam to the wonderful sounds of Dave. Instead, we were pushed around by drunk people who were rude and talked through the whole concert. We were appalled by the attitude of the crowd. They only sang to "Crash" and did not appreciate the rest of the music. DMB put on a pretty good show. They had a very mellow set and played songs under tempo most of the night to keep the stupid drunks from moshing. Boyd totally jammed on the violin as usual! We will definately catch the Dallas or Houston show next summer. Hopefully, we can just mellow out and jam to the music instead of worrying about being knocked over.