New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Dave Matthews Band
DEVOTED FANS KEEP THE BAND COMING BACK TO CONNECTICUT
Most people are lucky to catch their favorite musician live at least once in their life let alone 354 times. But that’s just what Wallingford’s Dino Fernicola has done.
Fernicola has made it lifelong passion to see the Dave Matthews Band, who he has been regularly seeing since 1998. He’s been so inspired by DMB that he’s even opened his own business with the same acronym, Dino’s Modern Barbershop in Wallingford.
“A DMB concert is more than just music — it’s the new friends made, the tailgating and following them brings you to places you may never have gone to if it wasn’t for following the music you love,” Fernicola said.
Fernicola is just one among the thousands of Matthews fans in the state who make it a yearly tradition to catch the 90s icon during his annual summer tour.
Over the past three decades, nobody has played outdoors in Connecticut more than Matthews. That is a fact, according to Jim Koplik, President of Live Nation Connecticut and Upstate New York. “It’s a record — nobody has played 50 times,” Koplik said. “Dave is unquestionably the number one live performer in the history of Connecticut, outdoors.”
Koplik said he has been booking Matthews in the state since 1995 and since then, he has performed close to 50 shows in Connecticut.
Matthews’ 49th show will come this week when DMB performs at the Xfinity Theatre on June 18. The big 5-0 will be his headlining performance with DMB guitarist Tim Reynolds at Bridgeport’s Sound On Sound music festival on Sept. 25, according to Koplik.
“The Dave Matthews Band connects me to my past. It was a time where I was wild and free, with no cares in the world. “
The de facto leader of DMB has become a live music staple in Connecticut, with his concerts being a sort of ritualistic coming-of-age activity for New Englanders. Songs like “Crash Into Me” and “Ants Marching” have become anthems for his ever-growing audience of “frat bros,” 80s and 90s babies and everyone in between.
For some fans, the DMB live show is also a time capsule that brings them back to a time and place. Sarah Hull, a greater Hartford area wedding photographer, recalls Matthews’ 1997 show being her first concert ever when she was 16. She remembers getting dropped off to the show by her aunt, who parked at a nearby McDonald’s until the show was over.
“The Dave Matthews Band connects me to my past. It was a time where I was wild and free, with no cares in the world,” Hull said. “It’s hard to believe that over two decades, and many gray hairs later, I’ll now be bringing my own child to rock out in the same place where I used to.”
Matthews’ roots run deep in Connecticut and can be traced back to his first performance at Hartford’s Trinity College in 1993. Over time, Matthews has performed at venues all around the state that include Toad’s Place in New Haven, Belle Haven Club in Greenwich and the Xfinity Theatre in Hartford, where Matthews plays his yearly summer concert in the state.
“A DMB concert is more than just music — it’s the new friends made, the tailgating and following them brings you to places you may never have gone to if it wasn’t for following the music you love,” Fernicola said.
According to setlist.fm, Matthews has performed over 200 different songs since first playing in the state in 1993. This includes originals, covers, instrumentals and teases across different projects. His Connecticut shows have become notable among fans, with three shows even being immortalized in Matthews’ “Live Trax,” a series of live albums that spotlight standout shows from Matthews’ career.
Koplik attributes Matthews’ success in Connecticut to the state’s leaning into his target demographic — a white collar, male-dominated audience, according to Koplik. Beyond demographics, Koplik believes that Matthews’ music is as endearing today as it was in the 90s is because of its rock-solid song structures based around ear-catching melodies and rhythms. “I find that his music has great melodies and melodies last forever. I think whether you look at Dave, Billy Joel, Elton John or anybody who’s a real songwriter, I think melodies are the secret to longevity,” Koplik said.
Outside of the music, Matthews is a down-to-earth individual who is likely to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger, says Koplik. “I’ll be having dinner and he’ll sit himself next to me like he’s a regular guy and have dinner with me. I’ll turn to my left and there will be Dave Matthews,” Koplik said. “It comes across on stage too.”
And for those wondering, Matthews has a favorite place for Connecticut pizza. That would be Sally’s Apizza.
“He loves the pizza in Connecticut,” Koplik added.
Meet some of Connecticut’s biggest DMB superfans Jack Bouffard, Ridgefield
Danbury’s Nick Molinaro vividly remembers running into the legendary Jack Bouffard at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Wash. In fact, Molinaro and a friend were chatting about him the day before the show but Molinaro had no idea who he was talking to when he started chatting with a stranger at the show.
“We started chatting about [Connecticut] and Danbury and he introduced himself as Jack Bouffard. Twenty thousand people at The Gorge and I found Jack, the same person my buddy was talking about the day before,” Molinaro said.
Bouffard is somewhat of a local DMB legend, having attended 209 shows. He plans on adding 11 more to his count this summer.
“I started becoming aware of DMB in 1998 when ‘Dancing Nancies’ became a mainstream radio hit,” Bouf
fard said. “I went to the show because my friends were going and it blew me away.”
His passion to see Matthews on tour inspired him to power through his chemo treatment for Hodgkin Lymphoma in 2008. He was even able to tell Matthews himself about how his music inspired him through the healing process.
“When I was diagnosed ... my goal was to get better in time for the tour’s May kick off. Two weeks after I finished chemo, I was at the first few shows of the tour and my friend on the crew put me in a seat by the soundboard so I could sit or stand without an obstructed view,” Bouffard said. “A week later, I got to tell Dave about how his music got me through the tough months and help me heal. I later learned, he pointed me out to the other band members as ‘the guy he was telling them about.’”
Micaela Marshall, Fairfield
One of Micaela Marshall’s earliest DMB memories was almost a life-altering one.
“[I] almost cut my foot in half on a broken bottle when I was 15 at the Meadows when they had riots,” Marshall said.
Those 1999 shows were among Matthews’ most notable in Connecticut, with rioting outside the venue resulting in 55 arrests, according to the New York Times.
However, that is just one memory among the 85 shows that Marshall has attended since seeing the band for the first time in 1998. That obsession with the band has spilled into her daily life; she even named her two dogs after a DMB cover song and album — “Little Feat’s Dixie Chicken” and “GrooGrux King,” respectively. You can also spot Marshall zooming around Fairfield County with the license plate, “DMB 41.”
Kaitlyn Clegg, Stamford
Kaitlyn Clegg grew up listening to the music of Dave Matthews but over the past five years, his music has taken on a deeper meaning.
Clegg met her boyfriend, Jered, through their mutual affinity for the music of Matthews. “Like many couples now, we met online and before we even had the chance to meet in person, we had tickets to a Dave and Tim concert,” Clegg said.
The couple’s first show was at the Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, N.Y. on June 6, 2017. Things went so well that they went to the show the following night at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J. The following summer, the couple went on a trek to catch 13 shows across the country.
“To say that Dave Matthews Band has changed my life is an understatement, it has been my source for pure happiness and love. I cannot wait to hear them and see them live again this year,” Clegg said.
That love for Matthews has also translated to their dog, who they adopted prior to the start of the pandemic and properly named “Dave.”
Jenn DeJulio and Teri Kovacs, Danbury
Growing up, many of us wondered what our teachers were like outside of the classroom. For students of Jenn DeJulio and Teri Kovacs, teachers at Ridgefield High School, they know their passion burns bright for DMB.
“They immediately know we’re the best friends that go to DMB together,” DeJulio said. “We both have band flags and photos of us at concerts in our classrooms. Just today, my students were joking with me because all the suggested videos on youtube were live versions of DMB songs when I opened it to show a Vietnam clip. Our obsession might be our identity.”
There is a 10 year age gap between the two teachers as well as a 10 year gap between their first shows. DeJulio took Kovacs to her first Matthews show in Hartford in 2009. Since then, the two have met band members, traveled out of the country for shows and even got matching “firedancer” logo tattoos.
“A DMB concert is like being in a room with something you love that everyone else loves as much as you. It’s pure joy,” DeJulio said. “The songs have coded to our DNA at this point.”