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Saved by a fan! Gal gets a stranded Dave Matthews to gig

THAT’S A ROADIE! Concertgoer Emily Kraus beams after saving Dave Matthews, who was stuck with a flat bike tire and no cellphone in Pennsylvania. (Facebook)

As Dave Matthews would say, “Funny the way it is.”

The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter found himself stranded on a central Pennsylvania road — and hitchhiking to his own concert — when he was saved by a couple of devoted fans who just happened to be headed to the same show.

Matthews was relaxing before his Saturday concert at Hersheypark in Hershey, Pa., by riding a bike when “his back tire popped,” said his rescuer, Emily Kraus.

“I did not have a cellphone on the bike,” Matthews said later. “So I thought, ‘S–t.’ ”

Luckily, Kraus and her boyfriend, Joe, were driving to the concert, where they had the experience of a lifetime.

“So, we saw him on the other side of the road and we pulled my car in here,” she told WHP-TV in Harrisburg.

“And he picks up his bike and throws it up here,” she said of the bike rack her parents recently gave her. “He says he’s never seen a bike rack like this before, so Joe walks over and he’s helping him put it on, and I’m standing here and I’m holding his helmet.”

Once Matthews was in their back seat and headed for the concert, Kraus tried to avoid an awkward silence.

“So, we didn’t know how to make conversation with him, in fact, so we were talking about his tour and where he had come from,” she recalled, laughing.

“He had just been in Cincinnati and he said, ‘I’m taking a short break after this one because I have to drop my daughters off at camp,’ ” Kraus added. “And he was just a very humble guy.”

Matthews posed for photos with the couple, then invited them for dinner. “We felt out of place,” Kraus said.

Matthews took them backstage, and gave them front-row tickets, which he autographed.

During the show, he told those in the audience how close they came to being stood up by the star.

“And then a nice lady named Emily rode up in a red car with a bicycle rack on it and gave me a ride on to the gig,” he said.

Kraus said she had the experience of a lifetime. “My cheeks still hurt from smiling, giggling and laughing all night long,” she wrote on the TV station’s Facebook page.

The next day, Kraus said, she had a hard time believing it had really occurred.

“I woke up this morning and I rolled over and I said, ‘OK, yeah, that really happened, ha ha ha.’

“It was surreal. We couldn’t believe it.”

But she knew it was real when she looked at the concert tickets.

“Thanks for the ride,” Matthews wrote, along with his signature.

“All the planets aligned last night,” Kraus said.