When it was announced a few months ago that Dave Matthews Band would be making their UAE debut this year, I have to admit that while I was incredibly excited about it, I also had a few doubts. Would they be able to fill the massive venue? After all, even frontman Dave Matthews admits that they mainly tour across North America. Weather-wise, October tends to be a little early for outdoor events, so would fans be able to stick around for the entirety of one of DMB’s notoriously supersized shows? And most importantly, will Matthews and band mates Carter Beauford, Stefan Lessard, Boyd Tinsley, Tim Reynolds, Rashawn Ross and Jeff Coffin be able to take the heat?
Well, the answers to those three questions are: no, kind of and 100 per cent yes.
For question one, DMB is the sort of group you listen to when working on an assignment, going on a long road trip or baking muffins in the kitchen… So they’re the kind of laidback band that are better suited to a more intimate venue than the mammoth stadium-like capacity of du Arena. They simply don’t have the global fan base that Bon Jovi — who performed to a sold-out crowd the week before at the same venue — has.
Unsurprisingly, Thursday night’s concert consisted of an arena of which more than half of it was empty. Credit where credit is due, though, to organisers Flash Entertainment for bringing high calibre artists to the region; this wasn’t the right venue for them.
Which leads us to the question of hosting concerts in outdoor venues in October. It’s certainly a gamble, and frustratingly, humidity refuses to go away at the moment. Before DMB took to the stage, it was rumoured that they were going to do two full sets, playing from 8pm until midnight. That didn’t go to plan, and they ended up on stage at 8.50pm, kicking off with One Sweet World, followed by the tracks Satellite, #41, Don’t Drink The Water, and You and Me. We tried to get to the front, but one minute in and it became difficult to breathe, so we proceeded to go stand on the side of the venue near the entrance. By 10pm, fans started to make their way out; I asked a couple of them why and they said it was due to the weather. I also spotted a couple of girls pass out from what looked liked heat exhaustion, with them requiring first aid assistance.
Finally, this may have been one of the highest-humidity venues that DMB have played in a long time, but ever the professionals, the guys didn’t show it. In fact, the group played right through to 11.30pm, making the two-hour, 40-minute show what we think is the longest concert to ever be held by a single artist in the UAE. Stopping every few songs to exclaim that “it’s really hot”, Matthews and co. gave a performance to remember, with a total of 18 songs that ended with All Along The Watchtower.
One notable absence though was their 1996 hit Crash Into Me. But considering the band never know what they’re going to play until “a couple of hours before we get on stage” it seems that it just wasn’t meant to be for Abu Dhabi.
