The boys are back in town

It seems like yesterday when I almost ran over Dave Matthews while I was jogging down the Mall with my running buddies.

Time plays games with you. Yesterday could have been years ago. Yesterday could have been yesterday, given the frequency that Dave Matthews, Carter Beauford, Stefan Lessard and Boyd Tinsley frequent their old stomping grounds.

They will be back on familiar grounds this weekend, closing out their latest fall tour with two performances — one tonight, one Saturday — at the John Paul Jones Arena.

It has become a yearly happening. Much the way it used to be a weekly happening to go hear the hometown boys perform at Trax.

Why, it seems like yesterday when I went to watch one of the Coffeehouse plays being staged by a new theatrical company that called itself Live Arts. In between the comedy sketches, a thin young man sat by one of the pillars and played his acoustic guitar. I nudged my friend and said, “He has a distinctive voice. He could really be big if he meets up with the right band.”

That was the yesterday when Boyd Tinsley fronted his own band and LeRoi Moore could blow his horn with any jazz musician who stopped by Miller’s. That was the yesterday of long ago when Beauford kept time with his drumsticks on his mom’s living room chair. That was the yesterday when Lessard was preparing his high school homework.

Somehow, on one of those historic yesterdays, the stars aligned, thanks to a nudge, a recommendation, parental approval and a whole lot of hard work and talent.

Frat-house recordings exchanged hands as the band played on. The crowds got bigger and bigger and bigger until the crowds became too big. Our chance to hear our own Dave Matthews Band disappeared, and the boys from Charlottesville collected Grammies and gold records. Others discovered our band.

But thanks to a willing coach, we got to hear DMB when they made a triumphant return to Scott Stadium. Thanks to another athletic venue, we now are treated to an annual homecoming.

This weekend, the band is back, with special guests Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, for its fall 2010 U.S. arena tour. To date, DMB has sold a collective 37 million CDs and DVDs combined. “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King,” called “their most electric album yet” by Rolling Stone, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard. It was a record-setting fifth consecutive studio album to top the charts. The CD, which pays tribute to the late LeRoi Moore, has been nominated for Grammy’s Album of the Year. (It includes some of the saxophone player’s last studio recordings.)

A little over a week ago, RCA Records released “Live in New York City,” a two-disc set of the band’s sold-out July 17 concert at Citi Field in Buffalo, N.Y. It features everything from the yesterday at Trax to the yesterday of, well, yesterday.

I remember a yesterday in Blacksburg. A friend pointed to my purple hat.

“Who is Dave Matthews?” she said.

“You will know one day.”

Today she does. We all do. And we are glad they are home again.