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Let’s see. The Dave Matthews Band is playing tonight in Palm Springs, Fla., where tickets start at $63.
How much easier will it be for Northeastern Pennsylvania fans of DMB music to come to the River Common Amphitheater in downtown Wilkes-Barre this evening and listen to A Proud Monkey, the Scranton-based Dave Matthews tribute band, in a free outdoor concert?
The music starts at 6 p.m. with opener County Lines playing a mix of country and pop. That band will be followed by A Proud Monkey, whose members proudly promise “the most passionate tribute to the music of the Dave Matthews Band that we think you can find on Earth.”
Striving to recreate as authentic an experience as possible for the fans, A Proud Monkey founder Dustin Switzer, of Dallas, said he even switches guitars the way Matthews does.
“Dave Matthews in a regular show uses seven or eight guitars,” Switzer said. “Sometimes he uses one specific guitar for one song, like a baritone guitar, which is a very deep, low-tuned guitar. I basically acquired all the instruments he uses, and I switch a lot. We’re probably the only band on the planet (besides DMB) that can do that.”
“I spend a lot of time on eBay,” he added with a laugh.
Switzer said he expects tonight’s concert to include such DMB hits as “Crash Into Me” and the popular “#41” as well as “the deep stuff that some of the hard-core fans are into,” like “The Stone” and “Squirm.”
About that last number, Switzer said, “I personally think it’s a song about how once people get so close minded to one ideology it doesn’t allow them to hear anyone else’s rational opinion. They get stuck going one way. Maybe it’s a song about finding common ground in the middle.”
Switzer, who estimates he’s seen the Dave Matthews Band in concert “about 58 times in 21 years … since I was a junior in high school,” said their show “has always been a mix of rock and pop and jazz. As they progressed and got older they started exploring all sorts of musical territory so they might sound exactly like a Police song or exactly like U2, but they always maintained that jazz sound.”
In addition to Switzer on guitars and vocals, A Proud Monkey includes Jon Ventre on bass, Mark Woodyatt on violins, David Mattock on keyboards, Josh Orlando on drums and vocals, Carl Krupa on horns and flute and Neil Nicastro on electric/acoustic guitar. The name of the tribute band is a play on the DMB song “Proudest Monkey.”
Luzerne County Manager David Pedri predicts a great time for concert-goers who attend tonight’s show, the third in a series of free Rockin’ the River concerts to be held at the River Common Amphitheater.
“Everybody from little kids to senior citizens and everybody in between has been enjoying the music,” Pedri said. “People are patronizing the food trucks and buying a beer from Susquehanna Brewing Co., and best of all, enjoying free music.”
“A total of about 2,000 people attended the first two concerts, and we’re hoping to get another great turnout this Friday (July 26) with these two great bands.”