DMB fans’ lifelong dance starts on mall

We’ve danced in the risk of each other. Would you like to dance around the world with me?

— “I’ll Back You Up,” Dave Matthews Band

They chatted on a fan site, met on the way to a West Coast concert, talked on the phone, visited and, after a cross-country move, came together.

Friday morning, in a chalk message written on the Free Speech Monument on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, Jeff Leiendecker asked Laurel DeFrance to join their fortunes in marriage and dance around the world.

Morning java

It started with a morning cup of java and friends at the Mudhouse Coffeehouse and Espresso Bar as a precursor to Friday evening’s Dave Matthews Band gig at the John Paul Jones Arena.

“I wanted to ask her here in Charlottesville because it’s where I grew up and it’s still home, even though I live in New York state,” Mr. Leiendecker explained before the big question. “It’s also where the Dave Matthews Band got its start and the band is the whole reason I met Laurel.”

Coffee in hand, the friends meandered toward Miller’s, discussing the band and musing about how it brought them together, nearly eight years ago.

Back then, recovering from a divorce, Mr. Leiendecker attended his first Dave Matthews Band concert.

“I was looking for whatever made me happy and I was looking at going to a show,” he recalled. “I joined a fan club Web site, looking for tickets, and, after buying them, I monitored the discussion board for a while. Then I started to post.”

He attended a concert, snapped a shot with his cell phone camera and posted it on the Web. Some Web site members recognized themselves and a friendship was born.

“I met more and more people on the site and at concerts and, in 2006, we decided to fly out to Denver and five of us would ride together to a concert at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington state,” he recalled. “Laurel was living in Washington and invited us to stay at her house so we could have a soft bed and a shower before the concert.”

Mr. Leiendecker and Ms. DeFrance hit it off.

“It was obvious there was something there, even though we didn’t even share a kiss that whole time together,” Mr. Leiendecker said.

Keeping it quiet

Keeping the pending proposal quiet as they slowly walked the bricks, the friends chatted, sipped and checked out the mall milieu. The couple recalled keeping in touch from different coasts and how Mr. Leiendecker returned west for a visit and found that something was still there.

They remembered how, in January 2007, Ms. DeFrance packed her bags, picked up a fellow fan/friend and drove to New York state to be with Mr. Leiendecker.

“She drove through three lake-effect snowstorms to get there,” he recalled. “We’ve been together since.”

Arriving at the Free Speech Monument, Ms. DeFrance was surreptitiously led by friends toward the monument’s far end while Mr. Leiendecker stood by his proposal, written on the monumental chalkboard by his parents, Peg and Bob Leiendecker.

As Ms. DeFrance approached and read the message, Mr. Leiendecker knelt and proffered a ring. They embraced and, expressing shock and surprise, she said yes.

What the Dave Matthews Band has brought together, let no one put asunder.