Live At Folsom Field, Boulder, Colorado

Album Review

Even after Dave Matthews scuttled recording sessions with producer Steve Lillywhite in 2000 and turned to Glen Ballard to co-write and produce what became Everyday, he and his band performed songs from the abortive sessions in concert, and they eventually reworked the material into the 2002 album Busted Stuff. This, the fourth Dave Matthews Band live double CD, catches the group on July 11, 2001, filling its two-and-a-half-hour set with songs from the Lillywhite sessions and Everyday, even though the former were unknown to the band's audience at the time (at least, those members of the audience who hadn't downloaded the then-unreleased material). In fact, "JTR," the second song here, didn't make it onto Busted Stuff and is thus earning its first legitimate release on this album. Busted Stuff songs "Big Eyed Fish," "Bartender," and "Digging a Ditch" work well in their concert treatments and come off as excellent additions to the band's live repertoire. The eight Everyday songs are another matter. As they do on the album, they sound distinctly different from the band's other material, thrusting Matthews forward and revealing tighter song structures (which, in the DMB world, is not always a good thing). But the good news is that, as opposed to the abbreviated studio album arrangements, the performances here are more stretched out, giving the band more to do. Of course, the concert also features older Matthews material, and that brings listeners into the Grateful Dead world of multiple performances on record. This is the fifth time that "Crash into Me" and "All Along the Watchtower" have turned up on a Matthews disc, and for some listeners, that's at least a couple too many. But don't try to tell the band's fans that.