Watch Dave Matthews Band Honor Sixto Rodriguez With ‘Sugar Man’ Cover At Cape Town Concert In 2013

Dave Matthews Band released pro-shot video of the late Sixto Rodriguez’s “Sugar Man.” The footage comes from DMB’s December 1, 2013 concert in South Africa at Cape Town’s GrandWest Casino and Entertainment World.

The December 1, 2013 show was the second of two concerts in Cape Town marking DMB’s first performances in Dave Matthews’ home country of South Africa (Dave was born in Johannesburg). While Detroit-born singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez, who passed away on August 8, never found much commercial success in the U.S. early in his career, his influential records made an impact on an entire generation of South Africans and helped to foster anti-apartheid actions.

“Rodriguez sang about the beauty and power of the overlooked people that were all around him,” Matthews wrote shortly after news of Rodriguez’s passing. “They were the heroes of his songs. He sang about the city, the poor, the hustler and the hustled, the dealer and the addict. He also made you want to fight for a better world. He sang up from the bottom. I love him.”

But Rodriguez’s success and influence in South Africa was unbeknownst to the singer-songwriter for decades. Rodriguez’s curious and maddening story — including a widely believed rumor that he was dead — was related in the 2012 documentary, Searching For Sugar Man. “Sugar Man” is the opening track on Rodriguez’s 1970 debut album, Cold Fact, and one of his most popular songs in South Africa.

So it was fitting that Dave Matthews, who got to meet his hero in 2022, chose to debut “Sugar Man” for DMB’s first show in the country of his birth on November 30, 2013 to kick off the encore. Dave also began the encore with the song the following evening, from which the recently shared video is from.

Watch Dave Matthews Band cover Sixto Rodriguez’s “Sugar Man’ in South Africa below:

Dave Matthews Band is returning to South Africa for the first time since 2013 later this year. Find info on the show and Dave Matthews’ full tour routing below: