Thing to Do #29: Meet Your Idol

In Thing to Do #17, I mentioned that while meeting Kyle Petty was exciting, to accomplish Thing to Do #29, I had to meet Dave Matthews.

My love affair with Dave Matthews began when I was 15.  Under the Table and Dreaming had probably been out for about a year and I got the album for my 15th birthday.  I still have it, although its scratched and skips on Satellite and Dancing Nancies.  I grew increasingly fanatic about DMB, purchasing each CD as they came out (even all the live ones) and always going to the concert when they were in town (of course, buying the tour shirt too).  I didn’t follow him around the country like some my age did, although I did go as far as Cinncinnati, OH to watch him once.  I had the fire dancer sticker on my car, posters on the wall, and wore those t-shirts till they literally fell apart.

The closest I ever got to him was at a very intimate concert I lucked into getting tickets for at Wait Chapel at Wake Forest University.  I was only about 10 rows back, so maybe only 50 yards away.  It was just him and Tim Reynolds and the audience sat the entire time, rather entranced by the music going on before them.  Its the only time I’ve heard Satellite (my favorite song) played live and to this day, Live at Luther College (that tour’s live CD) is the Dave Matthews album I still play the most.

A few years out of college and I guess the fanaticism had died down.  I haven’t even purchased their last two studio albums, not to mention their plethora of live CDs (if you didn’t know DMB is rather notorious for putting out live albums, usually at least one a year).  Last June, Leroi Moore, the band’s saxophonist, died from complications from an ATV accident.  I feel like I’m drifting away from them.

(The following is going to seem like a rant, but its relevant, I promise)

I would say that I’m odd, only because people have always told me that I am.  I’m not sure if people say this because I actually am, or if everyone thinks everyone else is odd for not thinking like them.  I kinda hope its the latter, but rather suspect its the former.  I know I really don’t like doing things that seem others seem to enjoy (although I’ve always believed that somewhere along the way, certain ways were somehow approved for the masses and no one actually likes doing these things, they just fake that they are enjoying themselves just to fit in).  I’m terribly introverted and have almost crippling social anxiety, so the prospect of just going out for an evening can make me nauseous if I don’t know exactly who will be there, what we will be doing for the evening, how long we plan to be there, etc.  When meeting people for the first time, I never know what to say, I feel flustered and am mostly trying to find a way to get out of the conversation as quickly and politely as possible.  I don’t drink very often, which actually gets me peculiar looks when I’m the only one at the table that’s drinking a Coke (peer pressure still exists as an adult).  Eventually, one day, when someone asks why I’m not drinking, I swear I’m going to tell them I’m an recovering alcoholic just to make them feel bad. 

And I actually don’t really like music, not the way most people seem to obsess about it.  I mean, I usually have music playing when I’m at work or in my car, but its the background of my life.  I often don’t know who’s singing the song or what the name of it is.  I don’t listen to the words and don’t know what the song is about (imagine my surprise when I really listened to “Lola” for the first time).

I say all of that to say this:  if I don’t like crowds of people, drinking, or music, what business do I have in going to concerts?  I’ve tried and I really just don’t have a good time and I make everyone else have a miserable time because I’m there being Debbie Downer.  BUT I will still go to Dave Matthews concerts.  Yeah, I don’t really want him to play new stuff; I don’t know the words and I can’t sing along.  But when he plays the “old” stuff (anything from Before These Crowded Streets or before), tears flood to my eyes and I’m transported back to that simpler time, before bad economies and lay offs, before mortgages and bill collectors, before marriages and divorces and marriages, when I was just a college student with big hopes and her whole life laid out on a silver platter before her.  I cling to that feeling as long as I can because it only comes for 3 hours a year in the form of songs that jam on for 13 minutes and a light show.  I need to have that release, if only for a little while, to remember that life was once perfect and uncomplicated (although at the time I’m sure I thought it was drama-filled and difficult).  It’s probably not the “right” way to enjoy music, to be a fan of a musician.  But the Dave Matthews Band is that symbol for me and it would be heaven on Earth to one day meet him and tell him what he has meant to me over the years (although I know me and if I actually ever got to meet him, I’d be so tongue tied, I’d probably just stammer something stupid and smile like an idiot.)

So I guess I was in the mood to pour a little heart out today.  Anyone who’s touched you, that you’d love to meet?