Dave Matthews Band hits all the marks at Tweeter.

Byline: Scott McLennan

COLUMN: MUSIC REVIEW

MANSFIELD - Another summer, another Dave Matthews Band tour.

Fortunately, the band itself does not approach the task as mere routine. Opening its summer tour Wednesday at the Tweeter Center, the Dave Matthews Band crafted a thoughtful and often galvanizing performance that stretched across two hours and 45 minutes. The band touched on all aspects of its career, reaching back to its 1994 break-out album "Under the Table and Dreaming" for "Dancing Nancies" and looking ahead to a new album with a handful of new songs, including a great country dust-up that the band debuted before the sold-out house.

The core DMB - Dave Matthews on guitars (mostly acoustic) and vocals, Carter Beauford on drums, Stefan Lessard on bass, LeRoi Moore on sax, and Boyd Tinsley on violin - had company, with longtime associate Butch Taylor on hand to play keys and more recent recruit Rashawn Ross pumping trumpet into the mix. Things really got busy when Xavier Rudd, who opened the show, blew otherworldly rhythms through his didgeridoo and when sax player Sam Kiniger joined late in the show to further bulk up the horn section.

The DMB opened with a nice, slowly built version of "Crush." The way the band could keep the tension of the jams intact while coursing through a light and buoyant reading of the song pretty much indicated that nobody was feeling rusty.

Matthews' claim that the band would take things easy on its first night back to work could only be considered a joke in that he made the remark after running through a rigorous song pattern consisting of the jazzy "You Might Die Trying," an over-the-top rendition of "Dancing Nancies" that featured a staggering array of solos (most notably by Tinsley), and a pretty, calypso-tinged version of "When the World Ends" that featured Matthews playing a 12-string acoustic guitar.

If this is taking it easy, there is no way the roof will stay on venues the DMB plays later in the tour, a road tip that just added a free concert at Virginia Tech as a way of helping that community work through the shooting tragedy that occurred there in the spring.

The DMB got its start around Virginia, and many of the interesting musical recipes cooked up back then still work for the band today. Beauford's deft sense of rhythm and powerful rock dynamics give the DMB the clout to command a crowd. The other guys simply play off of that platform, bobbing and weaving in and around each other's melody patterns and rhythms to create stuff with deep grooves and interesting twists. As a writer and singer, Matthews is capable of turning out range of material, from hippie existentialism to foreboding laments to frothy pop. With a set list that contained "Grey Street," "Crash Into Me" and "Stay (Wasting Time)," the Tweeter crowd got a little taste of it all.

After the glossier turns of the last DMB record, "Stand Up," it was nice to hear a contrasting sound in the newer songs, such as the premiere of the untitled piece Matthews sang with a simmering rage as he dove into its themes of abnegation and frustration.

The night contained many athletic musical workouts, but none more trippy than when Rudd wailed on his didgeridoo as the band unfurled a spaced-out version of "Don't Drink the Water," which enjoyed a prologue of sorts in the form of a rubbery reading of Daniel Lanois' "Still Water."

The band returned to the Lanois songbook for a soulful take on "The Maker."

Kiniger arrived to put some funk into "Jimi Thing," long a jam warhorse for the group. But with Kiniger, the band really opened up on "Louisiana Bayou." This deep cut from "Stand Up" featured crazed violin playing from Tinsley and punched-up, joyful horns.

Twice during the night, Matthews delivered solo songs. The first, "Sister," is a neat new little Beatles-y gem. When Matthews opened the encore segment with a solo reading of the jig "Corn Bread," it seemed more like an excuse to show off a weird hybrid resonator guitar he found in a shop near his Seattle home.

But all was made right when the rest of the DMB fell in to cap the night with "Two Step," a celebratory piece long used to stir the crowd, and done this time with all the fervor and frenzy afforded the song. Sure it was another night with the DMB, but the magic of the group is the way it can make a night feels like no other.