Dave Matthews Band LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY

Personnel: Tim Reynolds (guitar); Jeff Coffin (saxophone); Rashawn Ross (trumpet).
Audio Mixers: Nolan Sipe; John Alagia; Brian Scheuble.
Recording information: Citi Field, New York, NY (07/17/2010).
Photographer: Danny Clinch.
Eleven official live albums in one discography is an awful lot, but Dave Matthews manages to throw a few surprises in on 2010's Live in New York City. A double-album capturing their second night at their July 2010 stint at Citi Field, this finds DMB downplaying their big hits -- the biggest here is the ballad "Crash into Me" -- in favor of moody selections from deep in his catalog, including songs from Matthews' 2003 solo album Some Devil. This lends the performance a meditative quality unusual for such a large setting -- even the extended numbers (five songs clock in over ten minutes, two of them over 15) don't dig deep so much as float, the improvisations relying on texture instead of groove. It's a subtle difference, one that matters only to the dedicated, but it does mean that Live in New York City winds up with a different flavor than its ten predecessors. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

• Format: CD
• Genre: Pop