Photo credit: Sanjay Suchak

On March 1, Dave Matthews band blew through Sin City with its first concert of 2024. The band kicked off its year of touring with its inaugural performance at Las Vegas’ cutting-edge Dolby Live amphitheater, treating the crowd to a set heavy on DMB classics and fan service. One among the evening’s many highlights was a fresh cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” marking the dance-rock staple’s first staging by the full pioneering jam septet.

Friday’s show followed a single-set format, presenting a total of 20 songs including a two-track encore. Matthews jumped into the performance with the 2015 original “Virginia in the Rain” with an extended outro from founding drummer and backing vocalist Carter Beauford. The band continued with more originals, including two tracks from its most recent release Walk Around the Moon and the classic “Satelite” before a bust-out cover of Bily Preston’s “Will It Go Round in Circles,” last performed in February of 2006. After “Spaceman,” the group blended “The Last Stop” and a partial cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song, the song’s third-ever treatment in 25 years. This preceded the ensemble’s exciting debut of “Let’s Dance”–captured for posterity in a fan-recorded video.

Three songs later, Dave Matthews Band kept the energy high with a second debut, this time of ZZ Top’s 1979 blues-rock stomper “Cheap Sunglasses.” With that, the group entered the final stretch of the show, staging “Gravedigger” with an instrumental intro from Beauford, “Why I Am” and finally “Warehouse,” set up with a freeform jam intro featuring an interpolation of garage rock classic “Louie Louie,” to bring the main portion of the show to a close. The band came back with an encore of Hazel Dickens’ “Pretty Bird,” delivered solo by Matthews as its first presentation at a DMB show, followed by the iconic “Dancing Nancies” to send the band off into the desert night.

Dave Matthews Band will return to the road on April 2 for the beginning of its six-month world tour; for tickets and more information, visit davematthewsband.com/tour. Read on for Friday’s complete setlist.

Dave Matthews Band
Dolby Live (Park MGM) – Las Vegas
3/1/2024

Set: Virginia in the Rain, Old Dirt Hill (Bring That Beat Back), Madman’s Eyes, Looking for a Vein, Satellite » Will It Go Round in Circles*, Spaceman, The Last Stop » Immigrant Song#, Lover Lay Down, Straight Shot, Let’s Dance^, Grey Street, The Space Between, Jimi Thing » Cheap Sunglasses*, Gravedigger, Why I Am, Warehouse%
Encore: Pretty Bird~, Dancing Nancies

Notes:
~ Dave Matthews solo; Hazel Dickens’ “Pretty Bird” DMB show debut
* Bust-out of Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round in Circles”
# Partial cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”
^ Debut cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”
* Debut cover of ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses”
% Opening jam with “Louie Louie” interpolation.

Setlist via DMBAlmanac.com