Growing up, I was never much of a concertgoer. I didn’t understand the allure. “I own the albums, why should I pay extra money to see them repeat it?” was my thought process.
But then, in mid-college, I traveled with some friends to see the Dave Matthews Band. Although their CDs lived along with many others of mine, I wasn’t a huge fan. But something changed after I saw them live.
It was more of a communal experience, like seeing a movie in the theaters as opposed to at home. Beyond becoming a concert enthusiast, I became a lifelong DMB fan – or so I thought.
One of the most memorable concerts was at an outdoor venue in Boston. It was raining throughout the opening acts, and there was concern that it might be canceled. I was praying it wouldn’t be true.
By this point, the Dave Matthews Band were my favorite live performers.
When Dave finally took the stage alone, the crowd went crazy as he picked up a twelve-string guitar to open with the song “JTR.” The chorus is a refrain of the words “rain down on me.”
Each time he belted it out, the energy of the crowd intensified. “He’s crazy,” I recall thinking. In retrospect, it was just stupid. The amount of electricity on that stage could have killed him. And as it turns out, nothing has changed.
Even after emigrating to Israel, some 20 years post-college, Dave Matthews still played a prominent role in my Apple Music library. It could have been due to nostalgia or the fact that well into my 40s, DMB – despite the death and estrangement of two band members – was still producing solid music.
And I wasn’t alone in my admiration. My wife and brother-in-law were also fans. Some of our best memories were attending concerts together when we visited “the old country.”
But then, like so many other artists we love, politics got in the way.
I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard of it. “You don’t know what he’s been saying?” a colleague asked me over breakfast. “Oh no,” I replied.
“Are you sure you want me to tell you this?” he asked. I had to know.
Matthews opposes Israel's offensive following October 7
Since October 7, Dave Matthews has been a vocal opponent of the Israeli offensive. Concerts were littered with statements about how all war was wrong and that the war in Gaza was a genocide.
I remember sloughing off Dave’s lefty politics in my youth. At the time, I wasn’t much of a news buff, so it didn’t bother me.
Who could argue with a message of peace?
However, in the last two and a half years, many concerts have ended with him holding up signs of “Stop the Genocide” and
“Stop Killing Children” while draped in a keffiyeh.
It was just too much. The sad day finally arrived when I deleted all of his music from my library. My brother-in-law and I still send each other messages every now and again about the band, but none of them are positive.
A few weeks ago, a favorite comedian of mine, Pete Holmes, shared a bit about how everyone unilaterally stopped eating Subway sandwiches. “One day in the late 2010s, we all got a wireless transmission. No more Subway. And no more Dave Matthews. It was the same day. No more DMB and no more BMTs [a type of Subway sandwich].”
“I wish I had gotten the memo,” I wrote to my brother-in-law. It would have saved me a lot of heartache.
But sometimes, there are those who just can’t leave bad enough alone.
Apparently, Dave Matthews has finally felt the financial ramifications of those of us who had to leave him behind. A video is making the rounds online of him reading a prepared statement to a crowd at one of his concerts.
“It is no secret that I disagree with the policies of Israel and the United States and the treatment of the civilian population in Gaza and the West Bank,” he began. “That should by no means be twisted into anyone thinking I’m bigoted or antisemitic in any way at all.”
Dave then lists numerous famous Jews, indicating society’s debt to their various world-changing contributions.
He also shared that he was attending his best friend’s son’s bar mitzvah on October 7, which was interrupted by the horrible news. If he had stopped there, it wouldn’t have made up for all that he had done, but it would have at least been a quasi-positive statement.
“The violence born out of that day against the Palestinian people is no less horrific and multiplies the death and suffering over and over.”
There’s something missing in this statement. Dave, you skipped over a major detail in the story – Hamas and the atrocities they waged on the Jewish people. What resulted from October 7 was not and is still not about vengeance.
If Israel could have neutralized the threat of the terrorist organization that raped and burned women and children without any collateral damage, we happily would have.
With the ever-present threat of rocket fire from Iran and daily drones from Hezbollah, the attacks are relentless.
Multiple terrorists from the West Bank infiltrated an Israeli town and gunned down six innocent civilians. And a vehicle-ramming attack recently occurred near the entrance of our town as my 15-year-old daughter was making her way home.
We held our breath until she arrived safely.
Working for peace is not wrong. We Jews pray for it three times a day. But you’re pressuring the wrong side. Israel has consistently strived for peaceful coexistence with its neighbors – yet defending ourselves is non-negotiable.
To demand only peace when killers are at your doorstep is as foolish as standing on an electrified stage in the middle of a lightning storm.
The writer is a rabbi, a wedding officiant, and a mohel who performs britot (ritual circumcisions) and conversions in Israel and worldwide. Based in Efrat, Israel, he is the founder of Magen HaBrit, an organization protecting the practice of brit milah and the children who undergo it.