Life is Short, but Sweet for Certain

September 12, 2025

I was debating if I wanted to write this blog post as I hadn’t really planned on it (and I’m a big planner), but as I was recalling the events of a recent trip in my mind, I decided it would be fun to memorialize what I remembered, and specifically the feelings I experienced.  After all, so much of this blog has been sharing details of my life, not just thoughts on the film industry.  So, if you are here for my hot takes on movies, don’t worry, I’ll be back in two weeks for a look at some new releases, including the highly-anticipated film from Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.  This week, though, is all about a trip that was a reminder of the joy of live music, time with family and the simple things in life.

Twice in a Lifetime Experience

A year ago, I shared the details of our trip to the Gorge Amphitheatre in central Washington to see my favorite music artist, the Dave Matthews Band.  If you missed that one, or want a refresher, you can find those ramblings here.  The short story is that the venue is located on the banks of the Columbia River with an incredible desert landscape all around you.  The picture at the top of my website is one that I took last year shortly after I picked my jaw up from the lawn after first witnessing the view. 

Every year, DMB concludes their summer tour with three shows at the Gorge.  It is the destination venue for every serious fan, and because it’s in the middle of nowhere, everyone (literally everyone) has to commit to traveling to the shows.  This isn’t your local venue 90 minutes away.  Even if you are coming from Seattle, it’s three hours away.  And there is very little around the Gorge, leading most of the attendees to spend the weekend on the massive campground next to the venue.  In case you were wondering, we rent a house about 40 minutes away – this guy is too old to be camping, it’s not for me. 

Now, why would you want to see the same band multiple times in one weekend?  Well, the band knows that their fans see several shows throughout their tour, so they change their setlist every single show.  You literally have no idea what they are going to play on any given night.  They also know that fans will attend multiple shows in the same city, so they will not repeat any songs if they are playing back to back nights.  You can always count on variety when you go to a DMB show.

Last year, we had an incredible time.  My wife and son, his girlfriend, my sister and our cousin were the crew who assembled for a once in a lifetime experience.  Well, at least that’s what we thought.  About halfway through the weekend, my son’s girlfriend decided to call my bluff after I kept using that phrase.  “Well, it could be twice in a lifetime, right?”  I am rarely left speechless, but I had no response, because deep down I knew she was probably right.

Flashforward a few months when we were seeing the band again at our local venue in Connecticut.  We were a few songs into the first show when I felt the adrenaline of seeing this band live again, leaned over to the two of them and said, “Ok, we’re going to the Gorge again next year.”  And thus the planning began.  Now, my sister and cousin weren’t able to make it this year, but friends of our son and his girlfriend were able to join us.  He plays in a DMB tribute band with my son and they are both lunatics (ahem, fans) like us.  So, it was fantastic to have two new members of the crew to experience the Gorge for the first time.

And So It Begins….

As we were waiting in the Denver airport for our connecting flight to Spokane, I spotted a couple wearing DMB shirts.  Clearly they were headed to the Gorge.  I struck up a conversation while in line to board the plane and it turns out they were sitting behind us on the flight.  They had seen the band several times before (including a trip to South Africa!) but this was their first trip to the Gorge.  They were attending with a group of people that had all met when seeing Dave and Tim Reynolds at their annual shows in Mexico.  That’s the thing about this band – you meet random people from all over the country at a concert and have an instant bond. 

Before the flight, we shared our collective DMB experiences, and I gave them wristbands I had made.  Oh yeah, one thing we learned last year was that fans bring homemade DMB themed souvenirs (wristbands, stickers, bracelets, keychains) to exchange with other fans.  Our son’s friend made incredible DMB themed friendship bracelets in the style of the Eras Tour.  Those were a big hit with our crowd and others we met throughout the weekend.

As they were asking about how long we’ve been fans, my wife pointed out that she doesn’t really go to the shows.  She went with me (God bless her) for several years, but once my son was old enough (and became interested in the band) he became my concert companion.  She explained that she was there for the experience and would be going to one of the shows, the first night when we were sitting on the lawn.  She’s not really a concert person and while she admires what the band does, especially in the variety of their sets as a reward to their dedicated fans, she doesn’t like jam bands.  “I just get bored when the song goes on and on and on.”  I can understand that, as I feel that way sometimes too.  “Watch, they’ll open with a 20 minute version of Seek Up at the show she attends,” I said.  Three of us laughed.  Hold that thought.

As veterans from last year, there was much less stress in going to the show compared to last year, as we knew what to expect.  Where to park, what time to arrive, what to pack for tailgating, when to head over to the venue, the various spots to check out (including optimal photo opportunities), and when to grab our spot on the lawn.  Everything went smoothly as we got into the venue and headed to the magical spot where you enter the main venue at the top of the lawn.  You crest the hill and overlook the lawn, with the stage at the bottom of a massive hill and the (literally) unreal landscape behind you.  It’s a classic spot to grab pictures – not only of the landscape, but the reaction of first-timers seeing the view, which my son’s girlfriend did for their friends first impressions.  It was time.

That night’s show was fantastic.  Our son’s friend correctly predicted the opener – you guessed it, Seek Up.  Now, this one wasn’t quite 20 minutes, but about 7 minutes into the opening jam, my wife leaned over to me and said, “Does this song have any lyrics?”  “Yes, but they are easing their way into the weekend,” I replied.  Throughout the concert we got so many older songs, which is widely viewed as the best time for the band.  In fact, we later learned that the newest song played that night was from 2006.  They busted out a song that they hadn’t played in ten years that had the crowd cheering.  They brought out a guest violinist to play on two of their iconic songs.  It’s a long story, but part of the band’s signature sound in the early days was the violin solos of a founding member who parted ways with the band (in less than amicable ways) about seven years ago.  Since then, the violin parts have been performed through a combination of keys and horns, but there is nothing like the original violin.  And this guy was awesome.  His appearance at each of the three nights was like an adrenaline shot of nostalgia.  When he exited the stage Sunday night to cheers of “Sign him up!” he must have thought he was dreaming.  The night closed with Two Step, one of my all-time favorites, featuring the lyric that I chose for the title of this blog post.  Truly, a wonderful night.  Little did we know that we had something more special in store for the next night.

Let’s Run It Back

As we gathered on the patio Saturday morning, sipping our coffee and enjoying breakfast, we were recapping the previous night, marveling at how many great songs were played.  What was still on the table for the next two nights?  Are there any great songs left?  Oh, yeah, don’t worry.  There are plenty of options still on the table.  How do we know all of this?  Well, we are (self-diagnosed) lunatics and have great memories, but we get assistance from a few websites that track all of the shows in meticulous detail.  That’s how we knew the previous night included a song not played since 2015.  The website also lets you create an account and mark which shows you’ve seen, so you can see all of the stats for every song you’ve ever seen live.  That’s how I discovered that I last saw that song at my first show in 2001.  I know, true nerd shit.  Then I discovered something else about the previous night’s show. 

“Hey, they didn’t play anything from Before These Crowded Streets last night”.  Now, it’s not unusual for the band to play no songs from one of their albums at a show.  They have released twelve albums, plus frequently perform unreleased songs they have written, as well as cover songs.  But the fact that they didn’t play anything from what is considered their masterpiece album was a little….strange.  “Well, you know Bela’s opening tonight.  Maybe they are just saving those songs for him to guest on.”  “Yeah, maybe they’ll just play the whole album.”  Laughs all around.  The second night featured Bela Fleck and the Flecktones as one of the opening bands and he played banjo on a few of the songs on the album.  He has also joined the band on stage several times over the years, sitting in on a few songs.  Hmmm, that would be funny.  But park that thought, I had another task at hand.

About a week before we began our travels, I saw a post on Facebook by a friend and former colleague.  She was at Olympic National Park, where we visited last year after our trip to the Gorge.  I commented that I was happy she was able to visit it, adding to her incredible list of national parks she has seen over the last several years.  I was amazed to learn that she has now visited 49 states and can’t help but be impressed at the dedication to explore this country’s incredible wonders.  After my comment, she sent me a message – “Guess who I am seeing in concert on Saturday night?  I don’t know any of their music.  I am only going for the experience.”  Yup, she was going to the Gorge.

We made plans to meet up before the show and managed to connect on the concourse for a celebratory drink.  We hadn’t seen each other in several years, but it was great to catch up on our current lives, recall some fun memories working together, take the obligatory selfie, and enjoy the incredible vista at the Gorge.  We enjoyed the view from the rooftop bar which overlooks the whole venue, while providing an incredible view of the sunset.  We casually listened to the Flecktones and as they were wrapping up, I realized I needed to get down to my seats before DMB hit the stage.  We said our goodbyes and I navigated my way through the ever-expanding crowd getting in place for the show.

Wait, Did That Really Happen?

Now, even though the band mixes up their setlist every night, there have been some (somewhat) predictable aspects of their shows over the years.  As the show progresses, you can guess a few different possibilities for the closing song and encore.  The openers used to feature a handful of staples, but this year the band has been mixing up the opening song at almost every show.  It’s almost like Dave is preparing the setlist thinking, “They’ll never see this coming.”  On Saturday night, they opened with their cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, a song they have been performing since their early days.  It was a unique choice as it’s usually saved for the closing of the main set, or the encore.  To open the show?  That’s weird.  How weird?  They hadn’t done that since 1993.  Ok, pretty cool.

They proceeded to play a few more songs and then welcomed out one of their crew members, a guitarist in his own right, to play on one of their songs.  They do this a few times throughout the tour, but it’s usually towards the end of the set, not this early.  Now, my son’s girlfriend is (to put it politely) not a fan of this guy – he hams it up on stage and she has a point.  He’s not the main attraction and kind of takes advantage of his one song on stage to make the most of it.  When she groaned as he was announced, I said, “That’s ok, they’re getting this over with now so they can play the whole album.”  We all laughed. 

The early part of the set included songs titled You Never Know and It Could Happen, which my son pointed out later might have been cute Easter eggs that Dave put into the set as a coming attraction to what was about to happen.  Has my love of Taylor Swift Easter eggs somehow infected his brain?  I hope not.  Anyway, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones came out on stage to join the main band for an epic rendition of #41, a crowd favorite from their album Crash.  A fun moment, but they still hadn’t played anything from Streets.  Then we got the opening track.  OK, cool, this is a fun one, and a song they frequently play.  I glanced at my son and his girlfriend, our collective minds thinking, “Well, if it’s going to happen, here we go.”

We all know that the next song on the album is a rarity, only played a few times a year and featured Bela on the recording.  If he comes out on stage, it’s in play.  When he emerged on the stage to cheers and Dave uttered, “Uh-oh, Bela came back,” my anticipation began to rise.  And then they played The Last Stop.  First off, this is one of my favorites and since it’s rarely played, I was thrilled.  After the initial reaction, more exchanged glances.  I’m starting to get irrationally excited.

I leaned over to the woman next to me, who traveled down from Seattle for just this show, and said, “We need to manifest Don’t Drink the Water,” which is the next song on the album.  She asked why and when I explained, her eyes lit up. 

After The Last Stop concluded, two facts emerged.  First, Bela needed to stay on stage (he did) since he played on the next song on the album and second, my son spotted the guitar Dave plays on Don’t Drink the Water and his girlfriend leaned over to me and said, “Ryan says it’s happening.”  When the song began, I became more excited and more irrational.  The guy in front of me turned around and said, “Holy shit, you just called this song!”  He didn’t put it together yet.  It was on.

The next hour was a blur.  I remember getting excited to hear each song on my favorite album in succession, even though I knew what was coming and that I have seen some of those songs performed many times over the years.  After each song, I turned to my son and his girlfriend and said / screamed some combination of “I am losing my mind” and “He’s not fucking with us, right?”  Alas, they were not and it was really happening.

I am usually pretty reserved at concerts, but this was the one night where I was that “irrationally excited guy”, and I didn’t care.  We were experiencing something historic.  The band had never done this before.  Granted it’s not groundbreaking for an artist to play an album in its entirety during a show.  Pearl Jam did this a few times several years ago, and Bruce Springsteen did this many times with his most iconic albums.  Hell, he even organized an entire tour around playing all twenty songs from The River every night.  But for a band who has toured for 35 years to do something they’ve never done before, with no advanced warning, and with their best album?  This was special. 

As the last song from the album concluded, we were emotional, giving the band a hearty round of applause.  I was actually surprised there wasn’t a more enthusiastic response from the crowd.  I discovered the next day while talking to other fans that a lot of people didn’t realize what was happening in the moment and only figured it out later, or after the show.  Sure, we had speculated about it that morning, so it was on our minds, and we are (self-diagnosed) setlist tracking lunatics, but it seemed strange there weren’t more people losing their minds. 

My son made a good point that most people today don’t think about “albums,” they think about “songs.”  They aren’t listening to an album cover to cover, they are listening to a playlist on Spotify.  He’s probably right and it’s kind of sad to me (as an old music fan) because there is something special about the concept of an album.  I think about an artist meticulously figuring out how to place each track on the album to tell a cohesive story.  Albums like Born to Run, Ten, Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Rumours.  You could go on and on.  And Before These Crowded Streets is another example of an album that fits together like a tight jigsaw puzzle.  Hearing it performed live, in the same order as when I first listened to it, was truly a memorable experience.  Needless to say, the phrase, “Did that really happen?” was repeated many many times in conversation and text messages in the two weeks since we witnessed history.

As the show concluded with crowd favorites Satellite, Tripping Billies and one of their earliest hits, What Would You Say, to close the show, I was literally jumping up and down.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my son’s girlfriend point her phone toward the stage and record the last moments of the final song.  She pointed her phone toward me and said, “OK, what’s your immediate review?”  I can neither confirm nor deny that there is video evidence of me irrationally screaming “Awesome!” like a crazed teenager seeing The Beatles or Taylor Swift for the first time.  In my defense, she later told me that during the show my son told her, “My dad’s reaction is the correct reaction to be having to what we are seeing.”

Should We Just Go Home Now?

All kidding aside, we did utter that phrase the next day as we wondered how on Earth the band could top what they did the previous night for the final show of the tour.  We joked that they could play Abbey Road in its entirety.  And no, they didn’t top themselves with the third night, but there were still some terrific songs we got to see.  My son and his friend both got to hear a song that they’ve been chasing for several years, but alas my son’s girlfriend didn’t get her wish.  She tried her best, playing Write a Song over and over again all weekend (I’m still hearing it in my sleep), trying to manifest it into the setlist.  Maybe next year?

Speaking of which, it didn’t take me nearly as long to decide to make this adventure an annual tradition as it did last year.  As an avid fan of the band, I’m game to see them as much as possible, especially when you consider they are in their late 50s / early 60s.  They won’t be doing this forever.  You have to take advantage of life’s moments when they are upon you.  But I wasn’t sure if my wife would be up for another trip to the Gorge.  She had fun at the show she saw (pretend drumming with glowsticks will always increase the joy factor), but she is not a DMB lunatic (yet?). 

But a funny thing happened the morning after the second show.  This year we decided to fly into Spokane as it was a shorter and easier drive to the house than our trip from Seattle last year.  Unfortunately, there aren’t any direct flights to Spokane from our area, so we had to connect in Denver.  As we were casually talking, she said, “Yeah, I think next year we should fly into Seattle.”  “Next year?”  Ok, time to start looking for rental properties.  Seriously, we added two new members of the crew this year, and my sister and cousin are eager to return.  Our other cousin is also interested in attending.  We all had a fabulous time seeing the band play at Jazz Fest in New Orleans in 2019 and as I have learned over the years:  Life is short – buy the tickets and go to the concert.  So, it looks like we are making the journey again in 2026. 

And I’m so thankful to have a partner in my wife who not only tolerates, but encourages me, to pursue the things I love in life.  While she is not a concert aficionado, she is supportive of her family and finds things to have fun on these trips, and we get to take a side trip afterwards.  This year we stayed in Golden, Colorado for a few days, did some exploring of the town and local vistas.  We saw the beauty of nature, including a mountain lake and a hike around Red Rocks, which was incredible.  No, we didn’t see a show there, but we did get to see the amphitheater during the day, which was really cool (but not as great as The Gorge – I’m biased).  And while we walked around the park on our hike, we heard that night’s artist (80s legend Billy Idol) doing his soundcheck.  So, that was cool.

As we made our way home from our weary travels, I was reflecting on this trip and the wonderful memories we made along the way.  Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I felt the need to memorialize everything I could remember and share it in this blog.  And something hit me as I was organizing my thoughts for this post.  I have seen so many concerts over the years.  In fact this month marks 40 years since my first show (Boy, doing that math in my head SUCKED).  I have been fortunate to see some of the legends of music history – McCartney, Springsteen, Elton John, Billy Joel, Clapton, Van Halen, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, and of course, Dave Matthews Band.  Best show ever?  Too hard to choose.  Most memorable show?  Well, two come to mind. 

The first is the Taylor Swift Eras Tour show I saw with my daughter in a monumental monsoon in Foxborough, Massachusetts.  Not only for the incredible spectacle of that iconic show, but the sheer ridiculousness of watching Taylor perform, along with her band and dancers, in the most rain show that has ever rain-showed (exact quote from the queen herself).  The second would be the Before These Crowded Streets show at the Gorge with my son.  The fact that I got to experience those two memorable evenings with my kids made me realize that with all of the bullshit going on in the world, I will always have those little moments and memories that I can take myself back to whenever I need a smile. 

Now, it’s time to start planning for next year.

Thanks for reading.