Dave Matthews Band Welcome Guests for Night Two in West Palm Beach
Dave Matthews Band, photo by Bill Kelly
Dave Matthews Band are now properly into the throes of their summer tour, and over the weekend the ensemble took the stage at West Palm Beach, Fla.’s iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre for the season’s first multi-night run. The jam septet’s second night followed an action-packed opener with more special guest appearances and a few setlist additions.
Dave Matthews Band set off their show on Saturday, May 30, with “Typical Situation,” the B-side from 1994’s Under the Table and Dreaming that hadn’t been deployed as a show opener since 1995. After cycling through more reliable inclusions like “Why I Am” and a stripped-down “Grace is Gone,” the band lit into a series of tour debuts, adding “Raven,” “Recently” and Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain” to their 2026 live repertoire. For the latter, the band welcomed Brazilian flutist and saxophonist Carlos Malta, a regular collaborator who returned for his first sit-in with the band since 2019 on Friday night. Malta wrapped up his guest spot by switching from his sax to the flute for a moving solo rendition of Matthews’ classic “Lover Lay Down.”
In the last lap of Saturday’s show, Matthews and company called on fiddler Jake Renick Simpson, who first crossed paths with the group last year as an accompanist for Lukas Nelson and has sat in with DMB 11 times since. Simpson’s strings drew the audience in with a solo intro to “Broken Things,” and he remained in the mix for segued takes on “Warehouse,” “Jimi Thing,” “Word Up!” and “Pig.” To cap off the main portion of their performance, the band welcomed Malta once more for a closer of “The Last Stop,” and after “Sister,” both of the evening’s guests returned in the encore for a riotous “Ants Marching.”
Dave Matthews Band will move on to Raleigh, N.C.’s Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek on Friday, June 5, then continue with 25 further live dates through their three-night return to the Gorge from Sept. 4-6. Find tickets and more information at davematthewsband.com.
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