When it comes to hitting a specific audience, Dave Matthews Band has been right on target.

With a unique blend of jazz and rock combined with an ability to make music come alive on stage, the Charlottesville, Virginia-based band has become a favorite among college students across the country.

Playing live is what gives Matthews the biggest thrill in his profession of choice, and that’s what he will be doing Dec. 17 with his band at Hilton Coliseum.

“I want people to leave psyched and thinking either, ‘What a nice guy!’ or ‘What a nice band!'” the 31-year-old Matthews said in an interview with Spin magazine.

The group consists of Matthews, Boyd Tinsley on violin, Carter Beauford on percussion, LeRoy Moore on flute and saxophone and Stefan Lessard on bass.

Also joining the band on this tour is guitarist Tim Reynolds, who has played on each of the band’s studio albums.

Tinsley has long been a fan favorite, and after an intense solo, complete with his dreadlocks flying all over, it’s not hard to imagine why.

Beauford was recently nominated in the category of Best Rock Drummer by Spin, and Moore is also an accomplished player.

“Playing live is our whole source of inspiration” Matthews said. “I can’t imagine if I were playing with anyone else that I would want to play as much live as I do with this band. I don’t know if I would ever find a situation like this ever again.”

Matthews also doesn’t hesitate to recognize the considerable talent assembled around him.

“It’s intimidating being around all these great jazz performers,” Matthews said. “I’ll be working on something for like an hour, and LeRoy will come over, and he’ll figure it out in a minute.”

Although Dave Matthews Band has been playing together since 1992, it first gained success on the charts with the release of “Under the Table and Dreaming” in 1995.

The album quickly won critics over and included the hit singles “What Would You Say,” “Satellite” and the live favorite, “Ants Marching.”

It was on the tour following the release of “Under the Table and Dreaming” that the band really took off.

Before that, the Dave Matthews Band had been playing smaller venues all along the east coast.

Although there was concern that the energy and intimacy with the crowd would be lost once the band began playing bigger venues, Matthews doesn’t believe that has happened.

“We’ve made a conscious effort to try to keep that connection because that’s what really got us started,” Matthews explained.

“We didn’t really send out a lot of tapes or anything, we just had people come to our shows, and the record people took note of that,” he said.

The band played the H.O.R.D.E. tour in the summer of ’95, and by the summer of ’96, the group was selling out large venues by itself.

“Crash,” the band’s follow-up CD, was released in April of ’96, taking radio by storm and immediately heading to the top of the charts.

“We as a band like this album a lot more in terms of how we recorded it. For the last one, it was like real sterile, we did it all by the book. This time, we went in and messed things up, and we liked it much better,” Matthews said.

Songs the band had been playing since its inception, like “Lie in Our Graves,” “Tripping Billies” and “So Much To Say,” made the album, along with singles “Too Much” and “Crash Into Me.”

After another year of exhaustive touring in the United States and Europe, and the release of a live double album, Dave Matthews Band returned to the studio to record “Before These Crowded Streets,” the band’s third studio release.

This album featured a new, darker feel to the music, with a couple of notable exceptions.

The set lists from recent concerts have featured many songs, such as “I’ll Back You Up” and “Help Myself,” that the band has not played since its club days.

The energy Dave Matthews Band produces on stage is virtually unparalleled throughout the industry.

It is this quality that combines with the unique sound to make Dave Matthews Band such an incredible concert act.

A sold-out Hilton Coliseum will be treated to a performance by Dave Matthews Band Dec. 17 at 7 p.m.