cert experience. I hope that you all had a great 4th of July, and that your summers continue to go well. Before we dive in too far, click here if you haven't caught up on the first three parts of this series, and let's review the rating system for the songs:1 = A song that I would gladly go to get a beer, use the restroom, or do anything else that I needed to do during.
2 = A song that will make me want to stay in place, but that I'll hunt down the beer man during
3 = A song that I'll dance a little to, has moments I'll love, but that I'll talk to The Wiese or text during.
4 = A song I'll be totally lost in, and one which brings me the aforementioned joy and happiness.
5 = Epic; a top ten song, or such a rarity to hear live that I am going to lose control, and might knock someone over I'm dancing in such a crazy way. MJ almost got thrown over a balcony for one of these.
Now to set the mood. The previously reviewed Noblesville 2007 show was night one of a two night stay. It was good, but night two was much better according to all reports. So, for Noblesville 2008, Holly and I decided we'd do night two, which was "always" the better night. I picked her up on my way down to Indy, and we made our way over to the show. Of course, night one had been great, and night two wasn't as good. Although, upon further review, this show was absolutely solid, and I'd be pretty happy with a set like this on any given night. This taught me an important lesson: never try to out guess DMB. Also, do the full set of shows. It's worth it. At any rate, we got there, and here's what we saw:
1. Seek Up - 5
2. One Sweet World - 4
3. Granny - 5
4. Grey Street - 4
5. Old Dirt Hill - 2
6. Pantala Naga Pampa > Rapunzel - 4
7. What Would You Say? - 4
8. Rhyme and Reason - 5
9. Out of My Hands - 1
10. Everyday - 3
11. Crash Into Me - 4
12. Lie in Our Graves - 4
13. Money - 4
14. Money That's What I Want - 3
15. Crush - 4
16. Anyone Seen The Bridge - 4
17. Too Much (Tease) - N/A
17. Ants Marching - 5
18. E: Sister - 2
18. E: Little Thing (Tease) - N/A
19. E: Gravedigger - 3
20. E: Thank You - 3
Okay, this was a nice long set of songs, going 20 deep (if you don't count the two teases in the count). It had a nice cover (Money) and a rock solid start with the three oldies (Seek Up, One Sweet World, Granny) and the always dynamic Grey Street. Honestly, I think the main reason that I discounted this show so much looking back on it was that the encore just left a lot to be desired. There wasn't one song in there which added to the show in my opinion. I know there are a lot of people who love "Sister," but I've seen it six times in concert and am not impressed. I'd take a "Baby Blue" any day. Still, 20 songs, a total score of 73 give us a show score of 3.65. So putting that up against my first three shows we see the following results:
1. Assembly Hall 2008 - 3.71
2. Noblesville 2008 - 3.65
3. Noblesville 2007 - 3.43
4. Tinley Park 2006 - 3.32
In other words, this was the best full band show yet (as I discussed last time, Dave and Tim shows set up different and might be tough to take down), and the low scores were again largely from the Stand Up album (my least favorite). My guess is that the 2009 shows, which we'll look at next, will score 3.7 and above, based almost entirely on substituting the solid Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King album for Stand Up. In fact, just to see if that thesis holds through, here are the average scores that each album gets, giving each song on the album a score from our aforementioned scale:
1. Before These Crowded Streets - 4.45
2. Under The Table and Dreaming - 4.36
3. Busted Stuff -4.09
4. Crash 3.67
5. Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King - 3.50
6. Everday - 2.17
7. Stand Up - 1.92
So, using our aforementioned scoring system, you'll see that both Everyday and Stand Up rank FAR below the other five albums. Accordingly, it stands to reason that moving away from the weakest album to an album that score 1.58 higher as a whole, on the scale, will drive the score of 2009 and beyond score up. I did not do a full ranking of Dave's solo album, Some Devil, as there are only a handful of songs he plays live from it. It is also impossible to score covers and unreleased songs, due to the large number of potential songs you could hear, but both of those categories score in the same range as the top five here. So, until next time (moments from now), only four days until DMB takes the stage.
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