Dave Matthews Reveals What Concert Made Him Cry, Plays New Songs On ‘Colbert’ [Watch]

Dave Matthews stopped by New York’s Ed Sullivan Theater to make what will presumably be his last appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert before the long-running late-night show comes to an end this spring.

Matthews, who is gearing up to launch his summer tour in May, sat down with host Stephen Colbert for a brief but wide-ranging chat before performing three songs for the live studio audience.

After praising the devotion of Matthews’ fans, Colbert opened the interview by asking which performances had most moved or influenced him.

“There’s a lot of great shows in my life,” Matthews said before landing on an unsurprising answer: David Byrne.

Recounting his emotional reaction to Byrne’s most recent tour, Matthews admitted, “I’m so happy I was just crying the whole time.” He went on to heap praise on Byrne’s multidisciplinary artistry. “He’s the truest of artists. He’s [a] visual artist, and he’s [a] lyrical artist, and he’s subtle, and he’s smart and he’s funny, and he’s—anyway, he’s all good things wrapped into one.”

Colbert then turned to Matthews’ friendship with the late Jane Goodall—the beloved primatologist and anthropologist who passed away in October—asking how the two first met. Matthews described a chance backstage encounter at Live Earth, the landmark 24-hour, seven-continent concert series held on July 7th, 2007, to raise awareness about the climate crisis. He recalled that Goodall was unsure how to address the massive crowd, then did a charming impression of chimp vocalizations to greet an audience of 60,000 people.

Finally, Colbert asked about Matthews’ childhood memory of seeing folk legend Pete Seeger in concert—the first show he ever attended. Matthews called Seeger “a perfect human.”

“He was so eloquent. He had such a clear idea of what right and wrong was. He lived in a house with no electricity until his end,” Matthews said. adding warmly, “The last concert he played was Farm Aid and we played together.”

He also shared an amusing anecdote about meeting Seeger at a swanky hotel. “I was staying at Peninsula Hotel—just like Pete Seeger wouldn’t,” he joked. He went on to recount how the already elderly Seeger had trouble going down stairs, but rather than taking the elevator, he slid down the banister.

Matthews capped the appearance with a solo rendition of “Don’t Drink the Water”, which he described as a song about genocide told from the perpetrator’s perspective. “I’m the villain in the song,” he explained. “Nowadays it feels like a lot of us are villains, or at least a part of a villainous world, so I thought I’d play that song. I don’t mean to be the villain, but that’s what the song is about.”

He also offered Colbert a gracious sendoff: “I love you, and I’m so sorry your show is coming to an end.”

After “Don’t Drink the Water”, Matthews stuck around for a web-exclusive bonus performance of “Peace on Earth”—an unreleased song he debuted in May 2025—and then granted the audience’s request for “one more song” with another unreleased number, “Making It Great”, which he debuted in Mexico earlier this year during his annual destination festival with guitarist Tim Reynolds.

Watch Dave Matthews appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert below.

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