We spent the last few days up in Chicago for the Dave Matthews Band Caravan  and had a great time. Taking Trey to his first real concert experience was overall a very positive experience. As we expected he didn’t make it all the way until the end of the show any of the days, though we didn’t leave until the encore break on Friday night. He actually slept through the entire DMB set that night. Traffic ended up being terrible even after leaving early, so each night after that Kim took Trey back to the hotel earlier to avoid the traffic. My friends had arranged for limo bus transportation back downtown and I took advantage of that those two nights.

Family Photo

The music was a really great lineup. Big surprises of the weekend for me included Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Ben Folds, and Mariachi El Bronx. I figured Ben Folds was going to be good, but I forgot just how many great songs he has in his catalog. The other two big surprises came from my friends’ suggestions and they were awesome performances. The only real let down for me was the Flaming Lips playing The Dark Side of the Moon, which I thought was going to be really good but was just really weird instead.

Chillin' On Day 2

Another  disappointment  for me came from the site that was selected for the show. “Lakeside,” as they have called it, is really just the site of a former steel mill that was shut down in 1992. Since that time it has sat vacant with most of the buildings removed but not all the bricks, stones, and other artifacts that were left behind. In front of each  stage was a large mulched area, but getting between stages could be a little troublesome, even with our super three-wheeled jogging stroller. This can’t compare to the large green lawns I’ve sat on at other festivals. Besides the ground of the grounds, the traffic nightmare from Friday night was the worst I have ever seen. We sat in the parking lot for well over an hour before moving from our row of cars and this was before the show was even completely over.

Trey Making Friends

Not everything was poorly organized though. The food stands were actually much better than the average carnival food. Also I appreciated having around a dozen craft breweries on site for purchase. Free water was available if you had your own containers, but not enough booths were there. One of my friends waited over an hour. We brought in our own  disposable  bottles,which I wouldn’t have done if water was easier to get. With all of that said, some issues are to be expected from a first time festival, and I hope that if they do this again that other changes will be made. We still had a great time and would consider it again in the future.

Ready For DMB

These photos all came from friends’ phones. I have more photos from our own camera, so I’ll get those posted later this week.

The first installment of the Dave Matthews Band Caravan started today. Though I will not be attending this weekend’s events in Atlantic City, I will for sure be in attendance for the Chicago weekend in two weeks. Kim and I have agreed to take Trey along with us to the festival. Music is a big part of my life and I’d like for him to be exposed to it from an early age. Strollers are allowed into the festival, as is reentry, so we can come and go as we please. I also have purchased some hearing protection for him to wear while we are there. Most of the planning is finished  and I’m sure it will be an excellent time for us all.

O.A.R. has a new album coming out August 2nd titled King. The have also revamped their website completely, including a page dedicated to the upcoming release. And while that is all great, my favorite part of the website has to be the Past Shows area under the  On Tour section of the site. Why is that? Well because I am powering that entire section of the site through a XML feed of data on oarsa.org. Each show has a “More Info” button that you can click to magically be taken to that show’s page on oarsa. I love it and I hope it really drives even more traffic to the site. In addition there is a nice write-up about the site (and a link to it) on the Community page. Once again these guys have proved to be the most thoughtful and down to earth musicians around.

It didn’t take long for my new favorite radio station in Cincinnati to go off of the air. Frequency 94.1 (WNNF) was playing a pretty good mix of adult album alternative up until noon yesterday, when it was interrupted by Willie Nelson and then a  hodgepodge  mix of song clips from other  genres  and even bits from WKRP in Cincinnati.

Though the mix of music on Frequency 94.1 wasn’t perfect, it was as close to a decent radio station that this city had going. I’m reading that  adult album alternative (AAA) formats always seem to fail here and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. KBCO in Boulder, Colorado is a great example of a really popular and successful station in this format. If it can work in Cleveland, why not here? I guess some things never change.

The location, lineup, and more for the second stop of the Dave Matthews Band Caravan was announced today and as I suspected it will be held in Chicago. Furthermore O.A.R. is in the lineup, which makes this nearly a must hit festival for me. My only reservation is the location that they settled on in the  south-side  of the city, which according to my friends in Chicago is a rougher area of town. Kim and I had talked about taking Trey along to the festival and hoped that we could have a nearby hotel to retreat to if necessary. However commuting the nine miles between the festival and downtown Chicago could prove to be a little difficult. I’m not backing out from going, I’m just realizing that it will take a lot more planning to make this work.

Yesterday AEG Live announced that there would not be a Mile High Music Festival in Denver this year.

Today we announce Mile High Music Festival will not happen in 2011. We are extremely proud of our past events and very grateful for all of the wonderful support of this community. We hope to find a way to bring this amazing event back.

They seem to be indicating that the reasons are all financial.  It seems to me that the festival should have easily been a money-maker with the large number of attendees and the high ticket prices.  But I think that they were expecting it to become even bigger than it was.  I don’t think there was a big out-of-town draw for the concert, though I did have a number of friends come in for it.  I think their problems lie in the fact that there was no nearby camping, which something that is expected of most other festivals.  People don’t want to spend a bunch of money for a hotel (especially one that isn’t within walking distance) after already spending a bunch on tickets.  I hope that they learn some lessons from this, if they do in fact try to bring the event back in the future.  I would definitely like for it to return but only if some needed improvements are addressed.

Last year the Dave Matthews Band announced that they would not be touring this summer.   For the first time in many years, I would not be able to experience this summer concert staple.   However earlier this year the band announced that they would be playing  four multi-day, multi-artist music events that will take place this summer.   Today some of the dates were officially announced:

Dave Matthews Band will host four  three-day music festivals across the US this summer. The multi-stage events will feature a wide array of diverse musical talent with Dave Matthews Band performing a headlining set each night. Exact locations, lineups, ticketing and lodging info will be announced soon.

JUNE 24-26…North East/Mid Atlantic

JULY 8-10…Midwest

AUGUST…coming soon!

SEPTEMBER…coming soon!

Everything I’ve read has indicated that the Midwest dates are going to be held in Chicago.   Also rumored is that O.A.R. will be a part of this Chicago festival.   I’m definitely going to have to make that happen!

Typically I try to get this done before Christmas, but since we weren’t traveling this year I knew I would have extra time to finish.  Finally this year’s NOW That’s What Ed Calls Music is complete!

1. Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – Paris (Ooh La La)
2. Julian Velard – Joni
3. Michael Franti & Spearhead – The Sound Of Sunshine
4. Vampire Weekend – Horchata
5. John Butler Trio – One Way Road
6. Local Natives – Airplanes
7. State Radio – Calling All Crows
8. Ozomatli – 45
9. Band Of Horses – Laredo
10. Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights – Gypsy Woman
11. Martin Sexton – Livin The Life
12. Sara Bareilles – King of Anything
13. ALO – Big Appetite
14. Mumford & Sons – Little Lion Man
15. Ben Rector – Moving Backwards
16. Everyday Animals – Voice On A Stereo
17. Danielle Ate The Sandwich – American Dream

All tracks are available for download from  this site and I’ve also added them to  sendspace.com (download link toward the bottom of the page), which should be a much faster download.  Please support these artists by buying their albums and attending their live shows.   As always I hope you enjoy the compilation and happy holidays.

I finished up my recording from the Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds show that I attended a week ago.   It can be downloaded from either dreamingtree.org or antsmarching.org  using BigTorrent.   If you aren’t familiar with this technology, the show can also be streamed online at dmbstream.com.   Let me know what you think.   I’m very pleased with how it turned out.   I’d say most of the credit should be given to the excellent sound system and rather good acoustics of the 1st Bank Center.   Also the seats that I got from my buddy weren’t too bad either.   Thanks again fighty!

Last night I saw the Blue Man Group for the first time.   Kim has season tickets to a series of plays with a group of girls and one of them couldn’t make it last night, so I gladly took her place.   Having never seen them before I only really expected to see them play their PVC pipe style instruments for an hour and a half.   And while they did do plenty of that, there was so much comedy mixed in to the act.   That was the surprising thing for me.   I actually laughed way more than I expected.

Since the blue men do not speak, they rely on great visual effects and the occasional  voiceover to provide  the comedy.   Whether it be Twinkie filling shooting out of their chest, or paint flying from their mouths and drums, the visual effects are wonderful.   There is also a fair amount of audience participation, some of which has to be  staged, at least a little bit.   Regardless having members of the audience up on stage helps add to the humor and really captures everyones attention.

I believe that this national tour  just started, so be on the lookout for when they come to your town.   I would highly recommend it.   Check out the video above for brief clips from the show.