The future is no place to place your better days.
I was walking through the then brand new Virgin Mega Store in Triangle Square, Costa Mesa, just one year after moving to Orange County when a CD displayed on one of the listening stands caught my eye. The description said the band fused jazz, folk, and rock. I picked up the headphones and immediately heard a meaty, funky saxophone.
Minutes later I left the store with that CD in hand, and for the next ten years, a Dave Matthews Band CD was always somewhere in my CD changer. I became a member of the Warehouse fan club shortly thereafter, and saw the band six or seven times on their annual visits to the southland. Although my musical tastes have shifted over the last few years, the band's first three albums remain as nostalgic favorites, and their recurring theme of living life in the moment resonates deeply with me even today.
I wasn't terribly into grunge or gangsta or Britpop, and my interest in electronica came and went. Dave Matthews Band, however, played the anthems of my twenties.
It was LeRoi's horn that first drew me to the band on that day in Costa Mesa. His horn now silent. His horn that will be missed.
