Photo by Rodrigo Simas via Dave Matthews Band’s Facebook page

Dave Matthews Band opened their 2026 tour in Texas earlier this weekend. Though the veteran group performed at Memphis’ RiverBeat Music Festival on May 3 and Matthews has made a few live appearances in recent months, including his annual pilgrimage to Mexico with Tim Reynolds, this weekend’s shows kicked off the band’s first full tour since August. 

It was the end of their longest stretch off the road in a number of years, and, thus, both of this weekend’s shows featured a few unexpected surprises. On Friday, while appearing at Woodlands, Texas’ The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, DMB busted out the unreleased original “Cha Cha” for the first time since July 21, 2023. The ensemble played the tune just eight times in 2023, before shelving it until this past Friday. Then, a few songs later, Dave Matthews Band revived another long-lost number, the Away From the World cut “Broken Things,” for the first time since November 9, 2021. The song was in regular rotation in 2012 and 2013 after its release but was then put away and only performed twice in 2021. 

The rarities continued to roll out yesterday when Dave Matthews Band appeared at Dallas’ Dos Equis Pavilion. Just six songs into their set, DMB surprised their fans with their first reading of the improvisational “Kit Kat Jam” since July 26, 2013. The tune, whose form has morphed over time and which was performed as an instrumental last night, was included on the famed bootleg “The Lillywhite Sessions” and refreshed for 2002’s Busted Stuff but the band pretty much stopped playing it after 2003. The song did pop its head out a few times during the past two decades and Matthews and Reynolds worked up a duo version in Mexico last year, but the full band had not played the number in 592 shows according to DMB Almanac. Also of note, last night, Dave Matthews Band dug out the Stand Up single “Dream Girl” for the first time since 2024, when the tune was brought back after five years, following Matthews and Reynolds stripped-down rendition in Mexico earlier this year. The band also offered the Everyday single “I Did It” for the second time in three shows, after the track sat dormant from 2015 until a one-off appearance this past August.

DMB will perform at Austin, Texas’ Moody Center tomorrow.