A Strum Down Memory Lane - DMB at Bridgewater College (02/13/1992)
by Stephen Smiroldo
April 5, 2011

A college band I was in back in 1991-1992 called "Birds with Wings" (I know silly name) was given the opportunity to perform at Bridgewater College's Campus Center back in February 1992. We had played in a talent show around the Fall of 1991 to great acclaim (at least within a small population within Bridgewater - you could call them our groupies ;-). When asked to play in the Campus Center with a small cover charge we enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity.

We quickly got together, practiced a set of songs ranging from REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know it" to Gun's and Roses "Patience" to a cover song our female drummer wrote. Glenn "Animal" Fitzgerald (our bass player) came up with the band name "Birds with Wings" with extreme mixed emotions within the band. It was reluctantly agreed upon by all members in hopes the silliness would give way to a positive memorable legend.

One day, while at the cafeteria eating dinner, posters (as seen above) were plastered up in the hall and all over campus. We quickly rushed to check it out and immediately were disappointed seeing that our band information was in a little "starburst" taking up no more than 15% of the poster. The rest of the poster was occupied by date, place and time information along with prominent exposure for some band named "The Dave Matthews Band". All of us were like, "Who the heck are they?" and "I thought we were the only act?".

Concert day came and our band had to perform a sound check. The Dave Matthews Band brought all their own sound equipment and instruments which, to our frustration, replaced some of our own instruments... namely our keyboard, drums, and acoustic guitar. I was playing the keyboard as well as the acoustic on one or two of the songs and was not pleased because our keyboard had been programmed with specific instrument sounds for each song. Then, after using Dave's acoustic (which was really very nice of him to let us borrow), I was frustrated because it was an Ovation big body with the strap "hiked up" so it was almost to my neck. These are all cool in retrospect but at the time we were pretty upset.

After our sound check, Dave and Band did theirs. At the first measure (of Ants Marching), my jaw dropped. All of us looked at each other with wide eyes communicating to each other without words that "This band ROCKS!".

The rest is "history" and this concert is currently the oldest circulating recording of the Dave Matthews Band performing. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7kL0t7y-rM

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