Zachary Lindeman

The Long Way Around

Some people count concerts.

I count chapters.

Somewhere north of 550 shows, spread across 30 years of tours, the music stopped being the point — and became the excuse.

The excuse to travel.
The excuse to gather.
The excuse to keep showing up year after year, city after city, season after season, chasing a familiar sound that somehow never plays the same way twice.

Dave Matthews Band has been the constant. The through-line. The rhythm section of my life. It’s the most shows — and it’s not even close. Other artists had phases, moments, chapters. This had continuity.

Tours became seasons.
Venues became landmarks.
Songs became timestamps.

You stop saying “remember that year?” and start saying “remember that tour?” because life lines up more cleanly that way.

And somewhere along the way, the crowd stopped feeling random.

You start recognizing faces before names.
You learn who always shows up early.
Who never misses a Sunday show.
Who somehow always has an extra ticket when it matters most.

You learn people’s rhythms before their last names.
Who needs space during certain songs.
Who disappears mid-set and comes back smiling.

Who dances like it’s their first show, even when you know it’s not.

There’s something rare about friendships built without obligation.

No work ties.
No family expectations.
No shared history before the music.

Just repetition.
Trust.
Time.

Parking lots became confessionals.
Lawns turned into therapy sessions.
Long walks back to the car became the place where big life decisions were quietly spoken out loud for the first time.

Careers changed.
Cities changed.
Bodies changed.

The music stayed — but it didn’t stay the same.

Songs you once screamed suddenly made you still.
Lyrics you ignored started landing harder than expected.

And if I’m honest — I go to these shows to see my friends and forget about life for a while.

To step out of the noise.
To put the phone away.
To exist in a few uninterrupted hours where nothing is being asked of me.

The band gives us the space.
The people fill it.

The shows stopped feeling like events and started feeling like reunions — not the formal kind, but the easy kind. The kind where you pick up mid-sentence like nothing changed.

No explanations needed.
No scorekeeping.
No pressure.

You show up when you can.
And when you do, you’re welcomed like you never left.

That kind of friendship is rare — especially as life gets heavier.

The First Night (1996)

Every long story has a first true moment — the one you don’t recognize as important until years later, when you realize everything traces back to it.

Mine was 1996, at Riverbend Music Center.

I drove there in my red Jetta GLI, windows down, summer air pouring in, my best friend in the passenger seat. No GPS. No glowing phone. Just half-remembered directions and the confidence that we’d figure it out.

Tickets were $20.
Lawn seats.
Cash.

That alone feels dystopian now.

We didn’t think of it as a show. It was just something to do on a summer night. Something live. Something that felt a little grown up without actually being grown up.

We laid in the grass for half the night, staring straight up at the sky — bodies tired, minds wide open. No rush. No urgency. No awareness that this moment would harden into memory.

And then it happened.

Satellite drifted out over the lawn.

Lying there, staring at the stars, something clicked — quietly, permanently.

This wasn’t just music.
This was atmosphere.
This was permission.

Permission to feel small and infinite at the same time.
Permission to stop thinking forward and backward and just be.

I didn’t know I was being hooked forever. I didn’t know this band would become the most shows by far. I just knew something felt different.That night ended casually — the way most important nights do. We walked back to the car. Talked about nothing. Drove home like nothing monumental had happened.

But it had.

When the Music Became Permanent

By my early twenties, this wasn’t casual anymore.

Shows stacked. Miles logged. Summers loosely shaped around tour routes. I was already forever hooked — and then came Raleigh.

I was visiting a friend at college. One of those spontaneous trips you take when time still feels elastic. That night was different from the first note — the band locked in, the crowd present, everything aligned.

Later, back at the apartment, I finally turned on my phone.

Fifty missed calls.

Almost no one even had a cell phone yet. I’d left mine behind without a second thought.

My grandfather had passed.

Grief has a way of claiming moments on contact. That show split cleanly into before and after.

In the encore, Dave played Angel from Montgomery.

That night became my all-time favorite — not because it was technically the best, but because life reached in and claimed it.

Suggesting something I’ve learned since: the shows don’t just soundtrack your life — they absorb it.

You don’t choose which ones matter most.

They choose you.

Loss Shows Up Every Time

Loss always shows up.

It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t wait for permission. It just arrives — usually somewhere mid-set — when a song just opens something...

I don’t think I’ve been to a show in years without shedding a few tears. Quietly. Privately. The kind that surprise you because you thought you were fine walking in.

When my mother passed in 2016, Granny stopped being just a joyful, celebratory moment. It became hers.

She loved being a mom. She loved being a grandmother.

That wasn’t something she did — it was who she was.

That song carries that energy perfectly. Warm. Proud. Grounded. Full of life without needing attention.

Now, when it starts, she’s there.

Not symbolically.

Not nostalgically.

Just… close.

Other songs hold other people.

There’s a line that gets me every single time —

“I am still here dancing on the ground.”

That lyric doesn’t feel triumphant to me. It feels intentional.

Still here. Dancing. Showing up.

This is how we show up for the people who can’t.

Because the way we live — the way we move through the world, the way we choose joy, connection, presence — is a reflection of the people we carry in our hearts. The ones who shaped us. The ones who didn’t get to stay as long as we wanted them to.

Every day becomes a quiet tribute.

And then, out of nowhere.. “Sitting on top of the world, let our legs hang free.”

Thats Brett’s.. He was the first friend I ever lost — far too young — before I understood how complicated pain could be, or how someone could be hurting deeply while still showing up in the world.

LIOG became a place where I could put him. Somewhere open. Somewhere gentle. Somewhere that didn’t try to explain what can’t be explained.

That’s the gift of this music.

It doesn’t fix grief.

It doesn’t clean it up.

It doesn’t rush it toward resolution.

It carries it.

The memories.

The LoVE.

The souls of the people who helped make us who we are.

You can cry. You can dance.

You can do both in the same song.

Judgement free.

There’s an unspoken understanding in this crowd: we’re all carrying something.

And when the lights go down and the music swells, I feel it clearly —

They’re still with us.

In the songs.

In the memories.

In the way we keep showing up.

Still here.

Dancing on the ground.

Why I Still Go

Last summer, we lost a brother, Daniel Bower.

And I’ll be honest — there are nights I am so burned out on Dave I can feel it in my bones. I know the cues. I know the transitions. I know what might be coming before it does.

By any rational measure, I’ve had enough.

And still… I go.

Not chasing novelty.
Not chasing the perfect setlist.

I go for the memories.

To remember the old ones.
And to make new ones — because grief doesn’t mean the story stops. It just means the chapters carry more weight.

And then Dave says it:

Stay (Wasting Time)
“Stay up and make some memories.”

Okay, Dave. I think I will.

Because now that line feels less like a suggestion and more like a responsibility.

To show up. To keep the circle alive.

To honor the people who can’t stand next to us anymore by continuing to live fully.

The Long Way Back

In the end, this was always about people.

Friends who saw me across decades — not snapshots.
Family — the ones I was born into and the ones I found along the way.

These bonds weren’t built from convenience.
They were built from time.
From choosing the same place again and again, even as everything else changed.

And when I trace it all back, it lands where it started.

1996

Riverbend.

A red Jetta.
$20 lawn ticket.

Laying in the grass, staring up at a sky that felt impossibly wide.

The stars were beautiful — not because they were extraordinary, but because I noticed them. Because time slowed down enough for me to look up and feel connected to something bigger.

All these years later, that feeling still finds me.

Sometimes in a lyric.
Sometimes in a hug.
Sometimes in the quiet before the encore, when everything feels suspended.

That’s why I keep going.

Not to chase the past — but to stay connected to it.
Not to escape life — but to remember how to live it.

And every once in a while, I look up again.

The stars are still there.