LiveBonnaroo

I remember walking out of my very first Dave & Friends show and thinking, hot damn, that was incredible. Dave played so loose and the show was so different from what DMB shows are—not better, but different, and a breath of fresh air. I hope we one day get a Live Trax, ideally 12/13/2003, but in the meantime this will have to do. Look, this is a really fun show to listen to, and the only choice for high quality D&F, but it's not without its bumps and what have you. Hard to pick highlights, but I'd go with DODO, UP AND AWAY, STAY OR LEAVE, SAVE ME, NANCIES (more mid-set D&T performances, please), GOOD GOOD TIME (best-ever performance of the song IMO), TOO HIGH, HEY BULLDOG, and THANK YOU. On the other hand, Dave is all over the place during TROUBLE (although the jam is fantastic), he absolutely butchers TELL ME SOMETHING (I otherwise love how they do it), and Trey messes up the lyrics to FIRE. I also don't particularly care for BATHTUB GIN—just not my cup of tea. Ultimately I rate this as I do, and not higher, because there are definite rough points in the show (in fairness, they didn't play a whole lot, and not for five months before this). It's more than a novelty—it's a really great show—but it doesn't quite earn a higher rating from me. Rated 2 on a scale of -1 to 3.