It's difficult for me to remember a good time, or a bad time, that isn't highlighted by listening to Dave Matthews Band music over the last 15 years. Whether it was something tough that I was going through, or something happy that I was enjoying, it seems that DMB has been a constant over that time.

With that in mind I went to the Staples Center tonight absolutely fired up to have an amazing time. I haven't seen them in about a year and a half, last checking them out at the MGM in Vegas in March of '07, so I was beyond excited to see my boys tear it up yet again. Instead of a sick time though, I was greeted with the fact the LeRoi Moore, the saxophone and winds player in the band, had passed away from complications in an ATV accident suffered a few months earlier. Despite this, the band chose to soldier on and play the show tonight...

I would love to sit here and say that I could have done the same in similar circumstances, but I honestly don't think I could have. Even as an audience member, I couldn't shake the fact that 'Roi was no longer with us. There just was no way that I could enjoy the show at all...something ridiculous, like my 60th show of theirs...and I actually left during the encore which I NEVER have done before. It was just so foreign to me that anyone could be laughing, singing, or dancing, when something so terrible had just happened. I mean, one of the founding members of my favorite band of all time had just died and there just wasn't any chance that I could think of anything else. In truth, my heart was broken...Poker TV



I don't really know what else to say. I hope that in the coming weeks I will be able to see them again, in Berkeley in September, and be happy...celebrating 'Roi and what he brought to the music of the band, but tonight I am just sad and unable to think much past what has happened today. The music world has really lost someone special today, as well as the DMB community, as well as me in specific. It breaks my heart that I will never hear...

"...and that's my good friend, LeRoi Moore on the saxophone...", ever again...

Today has been a very, very sad day...

peace,
J