Dave Matthews Band’s Only Show At CBGB Was With … Yo La Tengo

In early 1991, Dave Matthews Band came together in Charlottesville, Virginia. The nascent group performed in March of that year at a benefit held at Trax and in April at a Charlottesville Earth Day event.

According to the band’s official website, “[t]he official gig for the newly conceived Dave Matthews Band was May 11, 1991, at a private party held on the rooftop of the pink warehouse on South Street in downtown Charlottesville. Regular gigs soon followed at two local clubs – Eastern Standard and Trax Nightclub.”

Over the course of 1991 and into 1992, DMB began to expand its reach as the group started playing outside of Charlottesville in and around the state, occasionally crossing over to North Carolina or Washington D.C.

One of Dave Matthews Band’s first shows outside of their familiar region was a trip to New York City in July 1992 to open for The Authority at The Wetlands. A month later, DMB made another visit to NYC for what is believed to be a gig opening for Joan Osborne at The Wetlands, but this time a second performance was scheduled at the venerable punk rock venue CBGB.

According to the extensive fan-run database DMBAlamanc.com, the band’s August 21, 1992 performance was their only time taking the stage at CBGB. The venue, which opened in Manhattan’s East Village in 1973, hosted countless punk rock, new wave and hardcore concerts in the 1970s and 1980s, hosting bands like Talking Heads, Ramones, Television, Patti Smith Group, Bad Brains and dozens of others.

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The Wetlands, which, like CBGB, closed several years ago, was the burgeoning 1990s jam scene’s main venue, so it made sense for DMB to play there in July 1992 and again the following month. Perhaps less logical was the bohemian-leaning group getting booked the next night at punk rock mecca.

CBGB was known for booking shows with lineups loaded with many bands. The venue also was known to have bands play between headliner sets and get back the compact stage again for another set after the headliner finished their show. Both situations were in play when Dave Matthews Band got booked at CBGB the same night as headliners, Yo La Tengo.

The August 21, 1992 lineup at CBGB also included Chain Gang and Love Child. Formed in New York City in 1977, Chain Gang was one of the first bands to release music on Matador Records, the label that has released every Yo La Tengo album since 1993. Love Child was a short-lived NYC-based punk group that formed in 1987 at Vasser College. The group released a pair of albums before disbanding not long after being on the August 1992 bill at CBGB.

Yo La Tengo’s mainstay husband-wife co-founding members, guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley launched the band in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Two years later they were a viable live act gigging regularly at Maxwell’s in Hoboken and elsewhere around the area, like landing spots on lineups at CBGB. After cycling through several bassists, James McNew completed the still-intact lineup and in February 1992 appeared on his first Yo La Tengo album, May I Sing with Me, which was their last before signing to Matador.

Yo La Tengo was on tour in support of that album when they headlined the show at CBGB. On August 21, 2014, Kaplan shared memories of his experience that night in NYC

Twenty-two years ago today, we’re at CBGB with Chain Gang and Love Child. Shades of the old CBGB, we play two sets: the first one is quiet and includes the premiere of “A Worrying Thing” [which would appear on their 1993 Matador debut, Painful] the encore for the loud set is our one and only performance of the Terraplanes’ ”Evil Going On.” Sounds like a full evening of entertainment, does it not?

If you said yes, then you clearly didn’t spend a lot of time at CBGB, who were famous/notorious, call it what you will, for adding one more group to mop up after the headliner. If the band was lucky, there’d still be a few people in the club when you went on; there surely wouldn’t be by the time you finished (as we learned first-hand when we played the late late show for our 1985 Bowery and Bleecker debut). And for the most part, that group would never be heard from again, as was the case on this night when the night concluded with an act called … let me check my notes … the Dave Matthews Band.

The setlist for Dave Matthews Band’s lone performance currently remains unknown and outside of a few photos, there does not seem to be any audio or video evidence of what was played.

Yo La Tengo’s setlist, mentioned by Kaplan above, featured two varied sets. An online fan account of (uncirculated) video of Yo La Tengo’s performance notes that Kaplan told the audience, “This is the sort of setting where we normally do practically all covers, so we thought we’d do none, just to be contrary.”

The fan notes also indicate that at the end of the first set, Kaplan said, “Get well soon, Jerry.” The comment was likely a reference to Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia who had at the time recently fallen ill, forcing the Dead to cancel shows including a September 1992 run in New York City.

Following the August 21, 1992 concert at CBGB featuring both Dave Matthews Band and Yo La Tengo, one group would continue to carve out success outside of the mainstream, not relying on radio hits, touring regularly while performing a vast catalog of original songs and covers, delivering different setlists from show to show and frequently performing two sets with songs that can be improvised to stretch 15 minutes or longer.

Of course, the other group is the Dave Matthews Band.

Footage of Yo La Tengo performing the May I Sing With You Track “Detouring America With Horns” captured at CBGB not long before Dave Matthews Band would make their lone appearance at the club, can be viewed below:

Yo La Tengo Setlist (via www.deeperintomovies.net)

Set: One: Swing For Life, Alyda, A Worrying Thing, Detouring America With Horns, Down to the Sea in Ships (Dump), Upside Down, Can’t Forget, Nowhere Near, Drug Test

Set Two: Five-Cornered Drone, Double Dare, House Fall Down, Tired of Waiting for You (The Kinks), Barnaby, Hardly Working, Satellite, The Summer, Artificial Heart, [Unknown Song], Mushroom Cloud of Hiss, Sudden Organ

Encore: Evil Going On (The Terraplanes)