At the end of the day, and especially at the end of this day at Austin City Limits, the crowd wanted the Dave Matthews Band they’ve known for the past 15 years or so. After slogging through an insistent downpour and the resulting thick, oozing mud, the guys trading chest bumps and girls woo-hooing with the regularity (and irritation) of a snooze alarm would have accepted the DMB on auto-pilot. They needed no spectacle. (Watch footage from their set above).

Dave Matthews Band, for certain, are not about spectacle. The closest they came was when a handful of red balls bounced over the crowd during “You Might Die Trying,” as the stage was bathed in matching red light. That was pretty much that. Matthews took the stage one song earlier looking, more or less, like he always has forever (gray button-up with sleeves rolled up, black pants); daring stage wear for him is a T-shirt and jeans. The band looked the same, too, or at least the same as it has been since saxophone player LeRoi Moore’s death last year: horn players Jeff Coffin and Rashawn Ross and guitarist Tim Reynolds, joining stalwarts Boyd Tinsley (violin), Carter Beauford (drums), and Stefan Lessard (bass). But the Dave Matthews Band was different on Saturday night. Or, at least it tried to be. And, at its most successful, it was.

Experience Austin City Limits in our best live photos. (more…)

Two of Seattle’s biggest artists — local indie-rock heroes Death Cab for Cutie and longtime resident Dave Matthews — took a back seat on Friday to a name even bigger than theirs: the Dalai Lama. Death Cab was the unlisted add-on to the April 11 KeyArena event, on which Matthews and longtime guitar crony Tim Reynolds were billed second to the Tibetan Buddhist leader. Even more unusually, Matthews was one of the Dalai Lama’s interviewers during a show that began in late afternoon: doors opened around 4 p.m., and the final song of Matthews’ and Reynolds’ set, “Lie in Our Graves,” shuddered to a close at 9:15. It was His Holiness’s second public appearance of the day, following a morning panel at the Bank of America Arena at the University of Washington campus; both were part of a five-day tour of the city’s larger venues sponsored by Seeds of Compassion, a local nonprofit.

The evening kicked off with an hour-long dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Matthews, clearly nervous, asked the Dalai Lama how he felt music applied to compassion: “The message of love through music may be stronger in depth,” the Dalai Lama said in part. Later, Matthews noted that as part of a gang of his schoolmates, he’d fought kids from a different school, only for those rivals to have since become his best friends.

After an hour’s intermission, Death Cab played six acoustic songs, including the new “Talking Bird” (though bassist Nick Harmer’s instrument was still plugged in). (more…)

In the current issue of Rolling Stone, Dave Matthews speaks about his endorsement of Barack Obama and what the role of musicians can be in this important election process. “Musicians, although maybe some don’t believe it, are also citizens. We all have the right to say what we think and use whatever power we have to say it,” says Matthews. For an expanded version of the interview, click here.