Everyman With a Guitar

Question: What did one Grateful Dead fan say to the other after the drugs ran out?

Answer: This band is terrible!

That hoary old joke did not apply to the faithful who packed Dodger Stadium on Tuesday to see the Dave Matthews Band, one of the Dead’s most successful little-brothers-in-arms.

By the end of almost three hours of endlessly rambling jams, the singer-songwriter-guitarist and his group had outlasted the smell of pot smoke wafting through the seats--yet still the people screamed for more.

Indeed, those who paid for the privilege of being at the sold-out show (which also featured Macy Gray and Angelique Kidjo) certainly got their money’s worth. But if you weren’t a member of Dave Nation, you might have wondered how this band could last a decade, sell some 20 million albums and consistently land among the country’s top concert draws, all on the strength of being just OK.

Well, the DMB is nothing if not a comforting reminder that there’s plenty of drama in being painfully ordinary. After all, you don’t have to be a nihilist or an outlaw to want to cut loose sometimes. Drawn from the group’s new album, “Everyday,” as well as earlier collections, Matthews’ poetic and playfully head-tripping songs were freaky without being too weird or rebellious.

And the music crafted by Matthews with violinist Boyd Tinsley, reed man Leroi Moore, bassist Stefan Lessard and drummer Carter Beauford--and sometimes with additional keyboardist Butch Taylor--was an intricate cross-pollination of folk, rock, soul, jazz, funk and country that sounded exotic. Yet the easy, familiar grooves didn’t incite listeners to do anything more dangerous than dance down the aisles.

Matthews exuded Everyman approachability as he sang, often with gusto, about life, death, love, sex and the end of the world in the elastic manner of a less histrionic Sting. The new material was generally more streamlined and boogie-oriented, the result of Matthews’ collaboration with mega-hit-making producer Glen Ballard. “Everyday” features Matthews playing electric guitar for the first time on a recording, but he stuck mostly to acoustic on Tuesday, the better to spin out that rhythmic, folky jingle-jangle that underpinned almost every tune.

Fans reacted most favorably to such upbeat older selections as “What Would You Say,” which rollicked agreeably enough and featured guest John Popper of Blues Traveler wailing on harmonica. But although the long jams and segues leading to longer jams were crowd-pleasers, they rarely were musically adept enough to be compelling, despite the players’ solo flourishes and such cool-sounding bits as Tinsley’s wah-wah violin.

In truth, the well-coordinated video work projected on six giant screens was more dynamic, focusing on each musician at logical moments and creating an approximation of intimacy within the giant space.