The music is mild, the audience wild

“We’re having a great time! I’m so wasted! Come party with us!”

So slobbered a young woman into her phone sometime near the end of the Dave Matthews Band show Friday at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, exclamations that perfectly encapsulated the mystery of the DMB since its breakout year of 1994 (a mystery, at least, to people who have only a casual familiarity with the group’s music): Exactly how has this band, playing this kind of music, managed to become so insanely popular?

It seems like such a band-to-fan mismatch. DMB plays a horn, violin and acoustic-flavored type of pop-jazz with funk, R&B;, folk and gospel flavorings, sort of what Sting was trying to pull off in the ‘80s. Matthews Band fans, however -- not all, but certainly a good-sized chunk -- act like they’re at a Raiders game, thanks to the copious amounts of pot and alcohol they merrily ingest before and during each concert, providing every venue the group frequents with an aroma that reeks of booze spewed across the floor of a head shop.

These fans are clearly around for the party. But Matthews Band music is hardly party music. It’s safe, non-threatening and sometimes mediocre -- call it Grateful Dead music for Republicans. If one of those inoffensive modern art sculptures you usually see in front of bank buildings could play guitar, it’d probably play Matthews Band covers.

That’s not to say the music is totally without merit. Each member is a first-rate instrumentalist, particularly violinist Boyd Tinsley, whose solo during “Lie in Our Graves” on Friday was fairly rousing, as was a crafty keyboard turn by touring member Butch Taylor later in the same tune. Songs like “Dreamgirl” were contemplative and spiritual -- even “Rapunzel,” a number that’s about a sex act, had a warm, hymnal aura enveloping it.

As for the quartet of new songs they unveiled, well, they sounded like Dave Matthews Band songs, which was just fine for audience members who would never want their heroes to deviate from what they’re used to, anyway -- nothing too sonically weird, experimental or challenging, just more of the same extended jams that undoubtedly provided the soundtrack for drinking games and bad dancing up on the amphitheater lawn.

A bit of a shame, actually -- you have to wonder if the Matthews Band has trapped itself in what’s become a cash cow (it’s consistently one of the top-grossing touring acts every year), because listening to Matthews, Tinsley, Taylor, drummer Carter Beauford, bassist Stefan Lessard and horn men Leroi Moore and Rashawn Ross, you got the feeling that these guys could cut some decent straight-ahead jazz albums if they wanted to, or take on something else more aurally adventurous -- but that if they ever did hang such a left turn, they’d lose most of their alcohol-fueled cult. That could be a great thing, though -- after all, all good parties have to end sometime.

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Dave Matthews Band

Where: Hollywood Bowl

When: 7 tonight

Price: $45 to $65

Contact: (323) 850-2000