Dave Matthews & Friends

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Dave Matthews & Friends
Dave Matthews and Trey Anastasio
Background information
Origin	Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Genre(s)	Rock / Jam band
Years active	2003—present
Label(s)	RCA
Associated acts	Dave Matthews Band
Members
Dave Matthews Trey Anastasio Tim Reynolds Tony Hall Brady Blade Ray Paczkowski

Dave Matthews & Friends is an American jam band that was put together for a tour to support Dave Matthews' solo debut, Some Devil. Most of the musicians participated in the album's production. The band consists of:

Dave Matthews — rhythm guitar, lead vocals
Trey Anastasio — lead guitar, vocals
Tim Reynolds — lead guitar
Tony Hall — bass guitar
Brady Blade — drums, backing vocals
Ray Paczkowski — keyboard

[edit] History

Several members of the band have long histories playing together. Matthews and Reynolds met in the 1980s at Miller's in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Matthews was a bartender and Reynolds and his band TR3 played on a regular basis. Matthews and Anastasio met while Matthews' band, the Dave Matthews Band opened for Anastasio's band, Phish. Paczkowski and Anastasio met in Burlington, Vermont and have been playing together in Anastasio's various solo projects since 2001. Tony Hall later joined Anastasio's solo band, Trey Anastasio Band (formerly 70 Volt Parade), in 2005.

The band came together as guests on Matthews' debut solo album, Some Devil, and, after its release, went on a 12-stop tour in the winter of 2003 and 2004. The band made its public debut as the musical guest on the November 8, 2003 edition of Saturday Night Live, performing "Save Me" and "So Damn Lucky".

Dave Matthews & Friends have also performed at the Bonnaroo music and arts festival on June 11, 2004, the Vegoose music and arts festival on October 29, 2005, and also headlined a 3-day cruise in February 2006. [1]

[edit] Music

The live shows of Dave Matthews & Friends consist of two to three different segments.

Most shows open with just Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds on acoustic guitars, playing Dave Matthews Band songs, similar to their past acoustic tours together.
The majority of the performance has the full band playing songs from Some Devil, as well as some cover tunes. One particular song the band has embraced, "Sweet Up and Down", was from the unreleased Lillywhite Sessions that was only played a few times by DMB early in their 2000 tour, and was not among the majority of the sessions' songs re-recorded for 2002's Busted Stuff.
The third segment, not done at every performance, features Dave Matthews and Trey Anastasio on acoustic guitars, with Matthews playing a DMB song (usually "Everyday") and Anastasio performing a Phish song (usually "Bathtub Gin"), with the two singers singing verses from each other's songs.