We’ve got 19 days, 13 states to visit, 11 Dave Matthews Band shows to see, 4000 miles to drive, hundreds of people to register to vote, and dozens of bags of travel-sized cookies to eat on the road...
...but first, we gotta figure out how to keep our tent from blowing into the streets of Wichita.
Here’s the team:
Keli Tucker
Hometown: Eufaula, AL
Favorite DMB Song: What Would You Say?
Spirit Animal: Penguin
Role if we were in a 90s boy band: The bad boy
Jamil Apostol
Hometown: Reno, NV
Favorite DMB Song: #41
Spirit Animal: Bear
Role if we were in a 90s boy band: The heart-throb
Shannon McGee
Hometown: Huntsville, AL
Favorite DMB Song: Ants Marching
Spirit Animal: Kitty Cat
Role if we were in a 90s boy band: The playful joker
Jeff Simonds
Hometown: Castleton, NY
Favorite DMB Song: The Idea of You
Spirit Animal: Probably an overweight squirrel.
Role if we were in a 90s boy band: A grumpy yet lovable roadie
Bertha (the van)
Hometown: Some Enterprise Car Rental in Missouri
Favorite DMB Song: Drive In, Drive Out
Spirit Animal: Guinea Pig
Role if we were in a 90s boy band: Guy who sells the tee-shirts
Things kicked off in Kansas with a dinner of that famous Wichita delicacy: pizza-tacos. What’s a pizza-taco, you ask? Well—try and picture a pizza-taco. Do you have it pictured? There. You’ve pretty much nailed it.
But, the pizza-taco is so much more than just a delicious pre-concert meal. It’s a lesson for our journey. We may live in a divided country (Republicans and Democrats, Capitalism and Democratic Socialism, Red-states and blue-states, etc.), but if a pizza and a taco can come together in (greasy) harmony—maybe there’s hope for all of us.
Our first stop was Intrust Bank Arena. Once we finished fighting the winds by tying our tent to breezeblocks (spoiler alert: it didn’t help), we met the crowd. People had been queued up for hours (it’s true... we saw them pre-pizza-taco!) waiting to start Dave Matthews Band’s summer tour with a bang. They were ready to register, ready to say hello, ready to dance, and (in at least on case) ready to “do something weird to catch one of Carter’s drumsticks” (I don’t know exactly what that guy was talking about—but it’s probably best not to guess).
The team might only have one show under our belt, but there’s one thing we know for sure: Dave fans are the best.
And the band repaid the crowd with an incredible show to kick summer off. New songs. Old classics. A catchy tribute to Prince. And ending the whole thing with “Grey Street” had the crowd pretty happy with how they decided to spend their Wednesday night.
It was a great way to begin our 4000 mile journey.
The next day, we packed Bertha up with a month’s worth of supplies and hit the road. We’ve got shows in Dallas, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, and we’re ready to see some great music, meet some great fans, and register some voters.
...but probably no more pizza-tacos. One a month is already one too many.
NEXT DESTINATION: The Woodlands, TX
