Dave Matthews Band
Live @ The Arena in Oakland
Oakland, CA
October 31, 1998

Halloween in Oakland: October 31, 1998

Halloween time is upon us and Halloween night is just a few weeks away! Since this LiveDMB.com’s first Halloween, it is only fitting that we should honor it with the show that was performed by the Dave Matthews Band on Halloween night back in 1998! Without further adieu…….
Halloween night, 1998. After back-to-back California stops in San Jose and Sacramento, Dave Matthews Band arrived at The Arena in Oakland on a Saturday night in the thick of their fall tour behind Before These Crowded Streets, the album they had released that April. Toots & The Maytals opened, and a crowd of nearly 16,000, many of them in costume, packed the house.
What unfolded over the next two hours and six minutes has been hailed as a classic ever since. Tim Reynolds, who joined the band for the entire tour, and Chapman Stick player Greg Howard were on stage for the whole show. It opened with Don’t Drink the Water flowing through Heartbeat Intro and Pantala Naga Pampa into Rapunzel, then settled into Crush, Two Step, and a moving Dreaming Tree. Six songs from that album made the set, including, fittingly, Halloween, launched by a Carter Beauford solo.
Warehouse and Tripping Billies kept the energy climbing, and then came a first. Saxophonist Joshua Redman made his debut with the band, elevating the rarely played I’ll Back You Up and a 13-minute Jimi Thing. From there, So Much to Say rolled into Anyone Seen the Bridge and Too Much, which stretched out with Golden Years and Fame outros. Crash Into Me nodded to Dixie Chicken, and All Along the Watchtower closed the night with a Greg Howard solo intro.
The night proved strong enough that the band later chose it for an official archival release, Live Trax Vol. 39, on November 4, 2016. We’re proud to keep the story of that evening alive in The Vault, for anyone who was there and everyone who wishes they had been. Press play and hear Halloween in Oakland, 1998.