Friday, December 12, 2008

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow...

Just discover a horrible thing, which I have no idea why didn't come to my attention earlier. LeRoi Moore of Dave Matthews Band passed away on August 19th this year, and I feel deeply saddened. As most people who know me are aware of, for me DMB are head and shoulders above anything else.

I remember how my brother introduced me to Under The Table And Dreaming probably 13-14 years ago. From that point on the music and lyrics of the band has had great influence on who I am in many ways. Two of the most beloved aspects for me has been the lyrics of Dave Matthews - ranging from love to hate to death to life to pure lunacy - and the ethereal horns of LeRoi Moore, always making me wonder how he made that up. Songs like #34, I Let You Down and Proudest Monkey are the first to jump to my mind, but on virtually any DMB song he has a strong presence. You might not notice his influence at first, but the songs without his contribution would not nearly reach the level they do.

A few years back I managed to see Dave Matthews with Tim Reynolds in Berlin - and what an experience! - but I have never seen the whole gang at once. This was really one of my big goals, just to stand there in the crowd and enjoy their shower of good music. I guess it wasn't meant to be.

The band keeps playing, the music keeps rolling, but it never will be quite the same, without the one man horn section.

The horse he kept running / the rider was dead / I hung my head / I hung my head

2 comments:

Vivek Menon said...

Hmmm...I didn;t know tht too...DMB is definitely one of the best there has been...Aug 19th too - My birthday.

Lazlo said...

Quite bad news really. Oh well, it reminds us of the greatness of DMB and that nothing lasts forever...