Matthews, Reynolds back home for a show

 Gotta love those high school reunions.

It’s a chance to go back and find out how much older your old friends look. You also may be amused that all those familiar haunts and halls seem to have shrunk.

True, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds did not go to the same high school. It just seems like they earned their musical diplomas in Charlottesville’s music halls.

Saturday, they will be back home for a sold-out acoustic reunion at Charlottesville’s nTelos Wireless Pavilion.

Over the years they have performed around the globe — together and apart — on stages both intimate and uber-large. Both have received accolades and honors.

But back in the day, Reynolds and Matthews were just two guys hanging out on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall.

Reynolds already was testing his songs on stage when he met a young bartender at Miller’s.

“I played every Monday night at Miller’s,” Reynolds said. “I was learning to play a couple of instruments there on the stage.

“I met Dave because he was a bartender there.”

The two became friends and learned they had some common and not-so-common interests.

“Dave was really into the theater back then,” Reynolds said. “I didn’t know any theater people in town. But he was a local actor, and he was really brilliant at it.”

They both were pretty brilliant in the musical field.

“We used to hang out a lot and just play,” he said. “We’d go to the basement and play, and we made our first recording. It was just fun stuff.

“You would never ever know that there was a 10-year age difference. It was kind of like we were in high school.”

The boys graduated to great success.

Reynolds left Charlottesville to pursue a solo career in New Mexico. Now he is back on the East Coast and revived his band, TR3, which played in town just a few days ago.

Matthews, of course, joined forces with four other Charlottesville musicians and became one of the top bands in the country. Reynolds often joins the Dave Matthew Band on stage, and his guitar can be heard on most of DMB’s albums.

When Matthews isn’t touring with the band, he frequently performs as one-half of the Dave Matthews-Tim Reynolds acoustic duo.

That’s who will be at the Pavilion on Saturday.

Immediately following their concert, another old friend of Dave and Tim’s will take the stage at the Jefferson Theater for an after-concert concert. The Warren Haynes Band will perform as soon as Dave and Tim take their final bows.

Haynes, as many old-timers can tell you, frequented Charlottesville’s haunts back in the early days of the DMB’s rise to fame. Haynes — who is a member of the Dead, the Allman Brothers and Gov’t Mule — is listed in Rolling Stone’s “Best Guitarists of All Time.”

He also has joined DMB on stage on more than 40 occasions. While he is coming back to town in support of his band’s latest album, “Man in Motion,” Haynes is joining Reynolds and Matthews in their charitable giving back to Charlottesville.

You see, what is extra special about this homecoming is that Reynolds and Matthews are donating all the proceeds from their acoustic concert to local charities. And all of those who were lucky enough to snag tickets to the sold-out show will determine where the money is spent.

“We tried this in Seattle, and it went really well,” Reynolds said.

Haynes also has agreed to donate the full ticket price of his band’s show at the Jefferson as well.

Each ticket sold has a unique code. Just go online to www.justgive.org/Charlottesville and choose a favorite local charity, be it Boys and Girls Clubs, Building Goodness Foundation, A Fertile Foundation, Shelter for Help in Emergency or any one of 100-plus organizations listed in town.

You have until Sept. 30 to have your voice heard along with Tim’s, Dave’s and Warren’s.

What a nice welcome home.