Concert Reviews
Dave Matthews Band powered through a setlist of favorites at Mansfield’s Xfinity Center Friday night.
Dave Matthews Band plays Xfinity Center on June 12, 2026. Gary Dzen
June 13, 2026 | 1:22 PM
3 minutes to read
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Dave Matthews spent a good chunk of Friday’s concert at Mansfield’s Xfinity Center trying to convince himself and his audience that it wasn’t that hot out.
A set-time temperature pushing 90 degrees combined with a tropical dewpoint to make things downright sticky in the pavilion. At several points during the show, Matthews remarked on how cool and breezy a night it was. The power of positive thinking could only do so much as sweat poured off him, leading to several strategic towel-downs.
And yet through a 20-song set spanning Dave Matthews Band’s 30-plus year catalogue, it was hard to find a low-energy moment, even with lead guitar and vocalist Matthews (59 years old) and drummer Carter Beauford (68) having long ago aged out of the frat boy jam band demographic.
The opening chords of “Pantala Naga Pampa” started Friday night’s show with an immediate test. On the album Before These Crowded Streets, PNP segues into Rapunzel, a high-energy song with a funky 5/4 time signature. For the past two tours the band has been throwing fakes, playing PNP into other songs to spice up the setlist. Friday night in Mansfield was fake-free. Early plays of “What Would You Say” and “Granny ” followed “Rapunzel” and stuffed the early set with favorites.
Show highlights on Friday included “Seek Up,” an opus of a song about our place in a world where some of us have the dispensable income to go to concerts, and children in some countries go hungry. “Crush” is a monster of a song live, with a perfect chorus (“Am I right side up or upside down?”) to sing along to with 20,000 of your friends and neighbors. Beauford is an ageless powerhouse in general but shines with a solo at the end of this tune in particular.
Dave Matthews Band plays Xfinity Center in Mansfield. (Gary Dzen)
While Beauford got his deserved praise from the Mansfield crowd (plenty of “Let’s go Cah-tah’s” were yelled), the engine of the band may be bassist Stefan Lessard. Dave once called Lessard’s playing “melodic,” which you can hear pretty clearly on a song like “Crush.” But on “You Might Die Trying,” a brooding-yet-upbeat number, Lessard’s bass is the constant thump driving things forward. The horns, and here we’re talking about Jeff Coffin on saxaphone and Rashawn Ross on trumpet, make this song brighter and nail every note.
We need to talk about “Jimi Thing,” which ranked 67th on a rankings list of DMB songs published on this website last year. While that song may not be a personal favorite, it’s absolutely a crowd favorite. Smelling weed in the air is so synonymous with DMB shows that it’s become a bit of a trope, but it’s especially true during “Jimi,” which pleads with the substance, “If you could keep me floating, just for a while.”
The band’s lineup has been consistent for years now, with guitar whiz Tim Reynolds adding a more electric feel to songs that were once entirely acoustic, and keyboardist Buddy Strong backing up Matthews on vocals. Several shows this tour and last have featured violinists in the mold of departed band member Boyd Tinsley, but there was no such guest in Mansfield.
The defining moment of Friday night’s show came during the set closer “Tripping Billies,” a song about living for the moment because death could come anytime. (Let’s face it, most Dave Matthews songs are about that). After nearly two-and-a-half hours of playing and with “Billies” reaching a crescendo, Matthews broke a string on his guitar. A tech quickly came out to offer him another but he deferred, choosing to close the song and the set with the broken string. As Beauford closed the song with a funky take on the rhythm, Matthews held his broken guitar aloft and stared skyward, forming a kind of altar.
You never know what tomorrow will bring, so you might as well keep playing.
Setlist: Dave Matthews Band at Xfinity Center, 6/12/2026
- Pantala Naga Pampa →
- Rapunzel
- What Would You Say
- Rhyme And Reason
- Granny
- Old Dirt Hill (Bring That Beat Back)
- Jimi Thing
- Walk Around The Moon
- Funny The Way It Is
- Seek Up
- When The World Ends
- Crush
- Black And Blue Bird
- Let’s Dance
- Stay Or Leave
- You Might Die Trying
- The Space Between
- Tripping Billies
–Encore–
- Peace On Earth *
- Too Much
Gary Dzen
Gary Dzen is deputy editor of sports and culture at Boston.com. A graduate of Bates College, he has worked at Boston Globe Media since 2005.
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