Dave Matthews Band recently played at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wisconsin that was sure to be a great show from a great live band. I couldn’t wait because not only would I see DMB live, but another one of my favorite groups, The Roots, were set to open the show.
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Dave Mathews Band
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 Traffic
Yahoo! Maps
Alpine Valley
East Troy, Wi
August 25, 2007
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I was given a pair of tickets so the first order of business was I had to pick amongst my hundreds of friends (number is an approximation and is rounded to the nearest hundred) to see who would be able to come along for the overall experience. Little did I know that this was not only going to be an experience but also one of the worst days of my very young life!
So Saturday arrived and I learned that The Roots were set to go on stage at 7:00 PM. With that in mind, my chosen friend for the evening and I decided that it would be best to try and leave a little early since we only had lawn seats. We left around 3:00 PM thinking that not only would we beat the Chicago traffic, but we would also beat what many know as “the Dave Mathews Band is playing so we better leave early” traffic. According to Yahoo! Maps and Alpine Valley's website, the drive should be no more than 3 hours.
I was ready to embark on my adventure. Not only was this the first time that I would be seeing DMB and The Roots but I would also be photographing my first show too. I left with as much enthusiasm as anyone would in this situation. The drive for the most part to Alpine Valley was surprisingly a very steady pace. Little did I know that my trusty MapQuest would not be taking me all the way by highway. Instead it was a lot of two lane streets with stoplights every few blocks. My frustration grew and grew with every red light that I encountered.
Even though the frustration level was starting to rise, I was easily calmed down by my passenger who ensured me it would all be fine. To ease our nerves we cracked jokes and told stories of our present and our past school experiences. So we were making the best of it.
When passing through the border of Illinois and Wisconsin, I immediately received that familiar scent of the state that is known for its cheese. However, it wasn’t cheese that I smelled, instead a strong whiff of the beautiful Midwest farm land animals. As you can imagine this only added to my exciting car ride experience and was adding to my stress level.
Finally we arrived at the final stretch around 6:30 PM so we still had time to make The Roots. I was giddy with excitement; in fact I was so excited that I even let a truck pull in front of me. I kept telling myself “this is the final stretch and I am almost there.”
Shortly after letting the car into the one lane that was heading northbound on 120, I realized that the line was not moving. I said to my friend, “ah don’t worry, this is typical DMB traffic.” But, here is where I was wrong, not only wasn’t it currently moving but it didn’t move for over 2 hours. In fact, I should have peeled out of the line when I saw that I hadn’t moved in 45 min. But being in an unfamiliar area, I decided to stick to the driving directions that were given to me.
After waiting over two hours and still not moving I decided to no longer depend on one of the greatest tools that mankind has used for centuries. I instead pulled out an old fashion map to find an alternate route. I quickly pulled a U-turn (to people that use slang a uie, pronounced u-e) and headed towards route 43 and took it all the way to the venue. This newly discovered route took about 30 minutes. From here, I had mixed emotions, I was happy because I was finally at my destination, but I was also pissed that I was so late and The Roots had come and gone. Finally parked, I checked the clock to realize that DMB had already gone on stage and probably played through ¾ of his set already. I had missed my opportunity to shoot a great show (you see the typical photo policy is first 3-songs and no flash) and now had no images for my review. Oh no, my review, what review?
When we finally found a spot on the lawn, DMB started their second encore, I was furious. Since I had been on the road so long, I had to use the bathroom. Of course by using the bathroom, I was able to complete the night by missing the encore as well. After that I decided I had enough, I was so furious I decided that we just needed to get home. In the end I probably spent a total of 20 minutes inside the venue.
Walking back to the parking lot I came to the sudden realization I had no idea where I parked. I was so excited to get out of the car that I did not even think to make a mental picture. Pacing all the lots I was pretty sure I needed to murder someone. Eventually we found it and knew that my horrible experience was slowly coming to a close. The drive back was tiring, in fact I was so tired that I missed my exit and in turn got us into a traffic jam on 80 at Midnight. I eventually dropped my friend home and headed back to my place to “crash” into my pillow.
So for those of you that actually read this here’s a tip or two. If you are going to see DMB, make sure you pack some food for the long car ride, and leave extra extra early, perhaps even camp out the night before. Even if you think that you are leaving early, leave even earlier.
As for the music while I was in a Port-o-John, well it sounded great even in its muffled state. It was probably the one brief moment that I was able to truly relax. Yes, my highlight was feeling great pissing in a stinky toilet with DMB as my soundtrack, life is sweet.
• Photos are from their show at the Tweeter Center on 06-18-04
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Written by Guest on 2007-09-12 21:27:53
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