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Leroi Moore of DMB Dies

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by Rocketman95, Aug 19, 2008.

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Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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Just heard from a friend. I'm very sad.

He was in an ATV wreck earlier this summer and was readmitted to the hospital.

When I get to work tomorrow, I'm going to scan my picture with him and put it up. Got to see him work his magic 21 times.

RIP.

#1 Rocketman95, Aug 19, 2008

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I knew he had been injured because Jeff Coffin from the Flecktones has been touring with DMB as a sub, but I had no idea it was a life threatening injury. As a sax player, all I can say is damn. RIP Leroi.

#2 Cannonball, Aug 19, 2008
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R.I.P.

#3 Lil Pun, Aug 19, 2008
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RIP...........very talented.

#4 MoBalls, Aug 19, 2008
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Cannonball said:

I knew he had been injured because Jeff Coffin from the Flecktones has been touring with DMB as a sub, but I had no idea it was a life threatening injury. As a sax player, all I can say is damn. RIP Leroi.
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Sounds like the injuries were originally thought not to be life threatening (broken ribs, punctured lung), but he never fully recovered. Since they mention it being a "sudden" death, I would speculate he threw a clot. Very, very sad. He was a wonderful musician and the band will never be the same.

#5 BetterThanI, Aug 19, 2008
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rumor has it he checked himself out of the UVA medical center against his doctors recommendations recently and flew to LA and died shortly after the plane trip.... even further rumor speculates that he went to LA to surprise the boys backstage at the staple center where they're playing right now.

#6 SWTsig, Aug 19, 2008
Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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SWTsig said:

rumor has it he checked himself out of the UVA medical center against his doctors recommendations recently and flew to LA and died shortly after the plane trip.... even further rumor speculates that he went to LA to surprise the boys backstage at the staple center where they're playing right now.
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The official site says he was in LA to begin an intensive physical rehabilitation program.

#7 Rocketman95, Aug 19, 2008

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RIP

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DEDGNwha880&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DEDGNwha880&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

#8 Oski2005, Aug 19, 2008
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man thats horrible, RIP...

#9 mrdave543, Aug 19, 2008
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Oh my God. This is so sad -- I heard that everything was getting better, and that he was making a recovery. This is just a crushing blow to DMB fans around the world. They did go on with the show however. So far, very mellow set -- beginning with "Bartender".

RIP Leroi Moore
+

"Life is Sweet, but short for certain" -Two Step

#10 Vengeance, Aug 19, 2008
Last edited: Aug 19, 2008
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RIP Leroi

There's a strong new sax in Heaven's brass section.

#11 IROC it, Aug 19, 2008
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Wow, knew nothing about this until I got a text from a friend about it this morning. Horrible news.

I always liked his laid back minimal solo style. Such a refreshing change from the guys who think they have to play 50 notes per measure all in the upper register. Also really liked his baritone work.

RIP.

#12 ima_drummer2k, Aug 20, 2008
Last edited: Aug 20, 2008
emjohn Member

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Extremely sad - I'm surprised they were able to play last night, I know Dave gave several nice statements to the crowd. Knowing how much of a family the band is, I have to wonder if they finish the tour and/or continue as a band.

#13 emjohn, Aug 20, 2008

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dammnit!! What is wrong lately losing such talented people!! I loved him in DMB!

#14 cwebbster, Aug 20, 2008
Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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emjohn said:

Extremely sad - I'm surprised they were able to play last night, I know Dave gave several nice statements to the crowd. Knowing how much of a family the band is, I have to wonder if they finish the tour and/or continue as a band.
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I haven't read anything about last night. I wouldn't be surprised if they canceled the rest of the tour, but I'm betting they go on as a group. They'll obviously never replace LeRoi, but Jeff Coffin has been doing an awesome job on this tour.

I just can't listen to them right now. I start tearing up whenever I do.

#15 Rocketman95, Aug 20, 2008
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ugh...so sad to hear this.

#16 MadMax, Aug 20, 2008
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http://www.ocregister.com/articles/dave-matthews-and-2130616-leroi-moore

Even if it had been a merely half-hearted performance – which it wasn't, not even close, though who'd have blamed 'em if it were? – Tuesday's inspired show at Staples Center would still linger long in Dave Matthews Band lore.

For this, sadly, was the night the group played a nearly three-hour elegy for its fallen brother, LeRoi Moore.

You could tell something was different – something wasn't quite right – from the way Matthews approached the microphone after opening with a tremendous roar through "Bartender." Clearly striving for some sort of grieving catharsis during that track's dozen-minute running time, eventually achieving a high-pitched, hollered fervency like I haven't felt shake my soul since Bono was in his prime, he suddenly looked sullen, sad-eyed, kinda lost – yet at the same time all business, as if out to impress.

"We got some bad news today," he told the quickly quieted crowd. It was a heavy blow: Saxophonist and founding member Moore – DMB's own Clarence Clemons – who had suffered health complications ever since sustaining serious injuries from an ATV crash on his Virginia farm in late June, had died earlier that afternoon at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, not far from where the band would play hours later. He was 46.

"(He) gave up his ghost today," Matthews said matter-of-factly, "and we will miss him forever."

That Matthews and his mates were able to soldier on so valiantly with an often profoundly moving and largely unsentimental performance wasn't just admirable – it was downright astonishing. What's more, it spoke to the inexplicable but immense healing power of live music.

"We're gonna raise our spirits up a little bit," the generally easygoing but this night stoic icon explained to the crowd after finding his smile as "Proudest Monkey" smoothly dovetailed into the roiling syncopated figure of "Satellite" and drummer Carter Beauford started letting the spirit stir him. "It's always easier to leave than to be left," he pointed out. And yet, as he acknowledged later in the set, before a hearty cover of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer," "There's nowhere I'd rather be than with my family on stage."

Naturally, the band turned the evening into a de facto tribute to Moore – something it has done at tour stops all summer, actually. But now there was a shift in tone: Where before heavier moments were meant to conjure good vibes for the ailing Moore, here those epics took on a distinctly funereal tone.

Granted, little about the selections was outright dour. Though accompanied by the bleak visual of raindrops cascading down a window pane, the soaring, shining finale of "So Damn Lucky," for one, felt as if the glory of heaven were opening up before the musicians' eyes. The relatively new African-derived gospel groove "Eh Hee," meanwhile, arrived like a celebration of the circle of life, with an evil-slaying Matthews insisting he'll "drop the devil to his knees."

But then there was the added resonance to the hopefulness that emerges amid the identity-crisis storm of "Dancing Nancies." There was the Johannesburg lull of "Water into Wine" to bring a tear – and there was Tim Reynolds' solos on "Proudest Monkey" and the closing "Two Step," yearning wailing like you get from Nils Lofgren on a good night, to do the crying for us.

There was the parting sorrow of the rarely aired "Loving Wings" and the baptismal cleansing of "The Maker." (The hypnotic refrain "river, rise from your sleep" that concludes that latter piece was as calming as a Ladysmith Black Mambazo lullaby.) Then there was the most wrenching moment of all, at least for me, when the ensemble dusted off "The Dreaming Tree," a moody epic that recalls the elegiac intensity of Sting's "The Soul Cages."

And yet this hardly came across like a strictly solemn occasion. How could it when Matthews also led his group (including Moore's ace replacement, Jeff Coffin from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones) through the stress-relieving exaltation of Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" and the skin-shedding funk of Gabriel's "Sledgehammer"? How could it when for all its introverted indulgence it also made room for crowd-pleasers like "Crash into Me" and "Ants Marching" and the all-you-need-is-love optimism of "Everyday"?

"That's professionalism," I heard one fan say to another outside afterward. Yes, but there was more than the-show-must-go-on determination happening here. Who can know what Matthews, Beauford, fiddler Boyd Tinsley and bassist Stefan Lessard were remembering and feeling and mourning in song after song? What was evident in their joyful noise this night, though, was just how much staggering on stage with battered hearts might have been their only option.

Remember: They had spent the better part of two decades making music with Moore; this is how they related to one another most. First time Matthews heard Moore play, he recalled as the encore began, was in a bar in Virginia: "He leapt on the cash register – 'cause standing had become something of a chore at that point. And he played the most beautiful rendition of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' I've ever heard.

"If I could, I would," he added, as if to say why he wouldn't attempt it, before instead offering a haunting rendition of his own "Sister." Indeed, all that he – and they – could do here was richly revive some of Moore's favorite songs, disappear into their frameworks, savor lyrics that now had new meaning – and deliver the emotional immediacy the moment demanded.

It was brave, it was brilliant – it was a performance unlike any I've ever seen Dave Matthews Band give.
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#17 emjohn, Aug 20, 2008
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ATVs sure do kill a lot of people. One almost took Ozzy, too.

RIP

#18 Surfguy, Aug 20, 2008

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Thought it said Demi Moore... whew

#19 SuperBeeKay, Aug 20, 2008
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SuperBeeKay said:

Thought it said Demi Moore... whew
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that wouldnt have been so bad...

#20 Nice Rollin, Aug 20, 2008

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