I wandered in to the Royal Oak Music Theater with a little bit of time to spare before opening act Jackie Greene took the stage. Already I could tell it would be quite the sausage fest as the male to female ratio was easily pushing 5 to 1. As I made my way through the ROMT lobby I was assaulted by queasy odors that could only have had ass as their origin. Dudes, seriously - just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Shooting the first few songs of San Francisco wunderkind Jackie Greene, who had also opened for Gov't Mule in their previous stop at the ROMT last October, I marveled at his talent. Having played lead guitar and taken vocal duties in Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh's band, Greene played several strong originals and a couple of Dead covers including New Speedway Boogie and Mama Tried. Greene's powerful vocals and wide range were matched by his casual charisma and dexterous electric guitar playing. Following the one hour opening set and a brief break, Gov't Mule took the stage for two sets of rockin regulars and bust outs. (continued below photos)
Gov't Mule
Jackie Greene
Gov't Mule lead guitarist and singer Warren Haynes (whose touring wardrobe consists primarily of identical short-sleeved navy button-up shirts), drummer Matt Abts, bassist Jorgen Carlsson, and keyboard player and multi-instrumentalist Danny Louis rocked the ROMT, opening with Blind Man in the Dark. Inside Outside Woman Blues and Need Your Love So Bad had the audience moving as the occasional smell of farts and weed drifted among the crowd. The set closer of Thorazine Shuffle had the four musicians passing the solo around as Abts beat the hell out of his cowbell while Haynes and Carlsson both adopted tortured 'guitar face' in the intensity of the jam.
Opening their second set with one of my all-time favorite songs - Pink Floyd's 'One of These Days' off of their album Meddle just rocked the shit out of the ROMT and that was a great sign of things to come in the second set. The band transitioned Days into Since I've Been Loving You which morphed into No Quarter before transitioning yet again into Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick with powerful drumming that kept powering through until everyone else broke away leaving the stage for Abts to just go nuts for a while until they regrouped and jammed back into Moby Dick. This was followed by another sandwich of About to Rage > Electric Funeral Jam > About to Rage that had huge swaths of the audience, including me, dancing up a storm. The set closer of Mr. High and Mighty brought the house down. Even though the ROMT was far from sold out for the show, the series of bust outs and covers was a treat for all the die hards in the crowd and a great initiation for the Mule neophytes. The two-song encore of Long as I Can See the Light and After Midnight with Jackie Greene sitting in were just great icing on the cake - particularly when Haynes and Greene took turns on vocals and lead guitar duties. Overall, a night of great musicianship, hot music, and a little bit of (unwelcome) hot air.