You wouldn’t think it would be difficult for a musician with her own major label album to find a seat at a Dave Matthews Band concert. Luckily for singer-songwriter Tristan Prettyman, a faithful fan with an extra seat had her back.

“This girl recognized me and was like, ‘Oh my God, I have an extra seat. We’re in the seventh row,'” Prettyman says. “I ended up having a seat, because unless you have passes for backstage, you don’t really get an assigned seat. She let me come sit with her and her friends.”

It must have been a definite perk for the fan, but probably an even bigger one for Prettyman, who says she enjoys frequently going to see other live acts.

In the past week, Prettyman has caught shows from Missy Higgins and Ray LaMontagne and the John Mayer Trio.

Prettyman, who in August released her acoustic debut, “Twentythree,” is currently on tour with the John Butler Trio. Her stop in Ames, however, will be a solo show.

“My shows are really mellow and are kind of just a place to relax and listen,” she says. “I tend to play a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t normally play if I was opening.”

At the end of September, she will perform at a festival that reads like the who’s who of the music industry – Austin City Limits.

The 23-year-old Prettyman, who is a huge fan of a particular band scheduled to perform said she tries to keep her cool.

“I keep getting invited to these things that I don’t really know much about, but I know they’re apparently a good thing to be a part of,” she says. “I kind of remove myself from the excitement until I get there, because I don’t want to, like, build it up and be expecting this grand thing.”

Prettyman, however, says she’s eager to get to this festival.

“The lineup is so exciting,” she says. “Actually, for festivals I get more excited just because of all the bands that are going to be there that you get to see play, rather than even playing.”

The band she’s hoping to meet?

“I would love to meet Coldplay, but I doubt that’s going to happen,” she says. “I actually saw them at the Gorge about two years ago and that was pretty crazy. I saw them on my birthday actually.”

Prettyman says she enjoys meeting and chatting with her own fans as much as she enjoys shooting the breeze with her favorite musicians. In fact, the avid writer keeps an online journal and updates it quite frequently. From writing about her surfing excursions with boyfriend Jason Mraz, to venting about an impersonator she’s had to deal with and commenting about her desire to own a cat, Prettyman invites her fans into her life.

“It’s kind of a way for my fans to grow with me,” she says.

“The whole growing process with my fans and the journal entries – they’re kind of like a book and so if someone were to go in and read one of them and not have read the previous ones or will never go back and read another one, they kind of miss out on the whole story of the journey.”

Who: Tristan Prettyman

Where: M-Shop

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Cost: $8 students, $10 public