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Dave Matthews Band said they were going to take the year off from touring, but nobody said the band wouldn't be playing live.
It looks like DMB will stage four "mini-festivals" billed as the Dave Matthews Band Caravan this year, as announced on the band's Warehouse fan site.
A statement from the band obtained by Billboard.biz says, "2011 is our 20th anniversary as a band and we want to celebrate by playing music together. While we are still taking the year off from touring, we have decided to plan four multi-day, multi-artist music events that will take place this summer. We will be sending out save the date emails and announcing more information soon but we wanted to share the news with our fans first."
So far the bad has only announced the regions and dates for the first two events, presumably to get fans geared up for the road trips. Announced on the website are June 24-26 in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region; July 8-10 in the Midwest, and TBAs in August and September. DMB will perform a headlining set each night. The band says exact locations, lineups, ticketing and lodging info will be forthcoming.
DMB is the top-grossing band in the world for the period 2000-2009 according to Billboard Boxscore, and grossed more than $62 million and drew more than a million fans last year, so taking a year off the road is no small matter. Dave Matthews vaguely alluded that DMB might jam together this year in an interview with Billboard last December.
"Next year, although we're not going to hop on the same train of buses and drive around North America, I have no doubt we're going to get together, whether it's in front of people or whether it's in some room somewhere, and make music together, because this is my second family," he said.
Looks like it will be in front of people...lots of people.
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