Perhaps one of the biggest draws to DMB is that they’re good to their fans. It’s hard to find any other major act in the music industry today that’s as fan-friendly as DMB: annual summer tours, show taping, mixed up setlists (though some will argue this depending on the year in question), and an abundance of band-fan interaction are a huge part of what makes DMB so alluring to hard-core fans. The sum total of all of this results in more than just following a band around; it’s about actually being a part of something.
Social networking has allowed certain members of the band to have greater contact with fans and really engage in a one-on-one dialogue. Most notably through this, bassist Stefan Lessard has emerged as the great DMB fan advocate, in large part due to his Twitter account. More than any other band member, Stefan seems to understand DMB fans constant quest for what have become setlist rarities (or in some cases, non-entities). In the past few months, Stefan has become somewhat of a hero by mentioning his own desire to bring songs like Crazy-Easy, Minarets, and Last Stop back into rotation. Beyond this, recently he’s even doled out some advice on actually getting more rarities back in play: “Start chanting other songs other then Two Step and watch things start to happen.” (2/22/10) “It is amazing what you all as a group can get done, keep on the Last Stop as well, might just have the power to get that 1.” (2/22/10)
Besides his obvious advocacy of fan favorites, there’s an even more interesting subtext to Stefan’s tweets: No matter how small, DMB fans actually have some sort of impact on the direction setlists take. All of this speaks to an interesting phenomenon in the DMB world, which is not found in many other fan bases. DMB fans feel a certain sort of ownership of the band and the music. I recently interviewed Jake Vigliotti, co-founder of fan site AntsMarching.org, who has a very interesting (and, it seems to me, quite accurate) take on this phenomenon and how it has evolved over the years. According to Vigliotti:
“I think [the Lillywhite Sessions] really broke down the barrier between the fans and the band. Before that there was always this sort of separation. So much information made it out from those sessions. And in a lot of ways it was really the fans that got that album out and made it complete. Because the fans just dominated. Here’s the band, they come out and they’re not happy with the album. They go out and make Everyday and now they’re trying to push this album on people. And, you know, they go to a show and the whole crowd is screaming for Big Eyed Fish, which hasn’t even been released yet. The fans shouldn’t even know about it. And, yet, they’re screaming “Big Eyed Fish! Big Eyed Fish!” So the band starts playing it for the rest of the tour.
I’m not saying the band had to do that, I’m not saying it’s not good. But there’s a fine line between who runs things, who decides things. And ultimately, it’s the band’s band—it’s not the fans that get to pick out the songs. But at the same time, there’s that sort of line between, ‘OK, well, the fans don’t want to hear Angel six shows in a row; they want to hear Big Eyed Fish.’ I think that whole Lillywhite debacle is really what took the fans and sort of pushed them toward the front.”
As with every summer, it’s impossible to know what Summer 2010 holds in store for us in terms of setlists. But with the help of Stefan, the Big Whiskey promo tour a year behind us, and the recent re-emergence of Sugar Will at London’s O2 Arena on Saturday (following a tease at Amsterdam’s Heinekin Hall on 3/3/10), it’s safe to assume that this summer will be a fun one.
