As always, Brock hit the nail squarely on the head with his brief review of the show last night. It was an incredibly entertaining evening and just confirmed how incredibly talented Warren Haynes is as an artist. How many musicians veer from their tried and true formula for success and do so at such a high level? He is an amazing musician and I feel blessed to say that I was able to personally enjoy parts of his musical journey. Whats next for Warren; country music :). If the chance permits, go see this band!

How was the "One More Cup of Coffee for the Road"? I sure wanted to hear that in DC.

Is there a review by Brock that I'm missing?

How was the "One More Cup of Coffee for the Road"? I sure wanted to hear that in DC.

Is there a review by Brock that I'm missing?

Yeah there was. I see Brock edited and it must have wiped out his review somehow. Good to see in his original review he mentioned a good crowd.

Instrumental Illness was great in Chattanooga on Friday as well. They pretty much just went down the line on stage with solos for a couple of runs through the line.

No, there was never more than my original two-sentence review above. I was a little shell-shocked today.

Chessboxer opened right at start time, actually a couple min early, and played for about 1/2 hr. Pretty decent. Then JT Earle for about 45 min. I liked him, his voice is strong and clear and he's a good picker. I was annoyed that the crowd din washed out much of his performance. Definitely would like to see him again w/ a more respectful audience.

Warren grabbed the crowd by the nape of the neck right out of the gate w/ Jessica. I've seen dozens of Jessicas, but have enjoyed none more than this one. Crowd noise would not be a factor during the rest of the night, except in a good way. As raucous a Tabernacle crowd as I've ever seen, more so than the last WHB and Mule shows I saw there.

Coffee was good, and I was really excited to hear it, but it unfortunately was nothing special. Mostly because it was almost a solo performance w/ the rest of the band treading lightly here. The standouts to me were the songs that the whole band contributed to, like Illness, Blue Sky, Jessica and Coal Tattoo. I missed nearly all of Willin' unfortunately.

Can't say enough good things about the bass player, shockingly good. We all know how good Sipe is (loved his drum solo), and when Warren is paired w/ good bass and drums, you're going to get a good show. Liked the acoustic solo on Blue Sky and wish we could have heard more from that guy, or even Warren on acoustic.

Wish we'd gotten the full Angel Band, as that Stanley Bros tune has real meaning to me. Oh well, the show ended at 1230 after starting at 730, so well over 4 hrs of music w/ the two breaks.

Coal Tattoo:

I agree that the bass player from Chessboxer is top notch! I also enjoyed their opening set. I'd call it "Baroque Appalachia Music". I saw Chick Corea and Bela Fleck last week and am glad to have their show as a comparison point.

Jessica got the DC crowd up and rolling as well. Blue Sky and Watchtower were also crowd pleasers. I really liked the Instrumental Illness > Machine Gun > Instrumental Illness.

There is no doubt that Warren was having fun. I'm pretty sure he wasn't concerned that the show was not sold out.

I really miss shows in the Tabernacle. Especially Mule shows at the Tabernacle. They always seemed to make the wood in that old church groan and expand.

I thought that Chessboxer was good in Chattanooga with their opening set. I enjoyed it, but it's not my style of music so that concerned me a little heading into Warren's set. However I came away really impressed with them and how they mixed in Warren's band and with his music. I greatly enjoyed their playing in his band. They were a great selection for this band and tour for Warren.

Justin Townes Earle was great as well. It was the same in Chattanooga where the crowd tried talking over his performance and were up and down while he was playing. It's a shame for those people because they missed a fun set.

I agree that the bass player from Chessboxer is top notch! I also enjoyed their opening set. I'd call it "Baroque Appalachia Music". I saw Chick Corea and Bela Fleck last week and am glad to have their show as a comparison point.

Jessica got the DC crowd up and rolling as well. Blue Sky and Watchtower were also crowd pleasers. I really liked the Instrumental Illness > Machine Gun > Instrumental Illness.

There is no doubt that Warren was having fun. I'm pretty sure he wasn't concerned that the show was not sold out.

I really miss shows in the Tabernacle. Especially Mule shows at the Tabernacle. They always seemed to make the wood in that old church groan and expand.

I went to Chick/Bela too a week ago Sat. It was cool as Bela is my favorite individual musician, but I enjoyed Warren much more.

had to comment since that's me with the setlist in one hand and one of warren's guitar picks in the other. in addition to the great show, it was fun to watch warren's guitar tech at work, you can see his curtained-off area right past the banjo player in the picture. after the show he passed out copies of the setlist to anybody who stuck around and got left over guitar picks to pass out too, then he was talking to anybody who had questions, too bad we didn't stick around a while. general admission crowd on the floor was generally berserk all night in a good way, too bad brock didn't get a shot of them. good to run into buzzy after the show & I totally agree with his report, I have seen some gov't mule shows I liked more than others but this was just a great night all around.... except I missed the atlanta streetcar from where I parked by the king center & wound up walking all the way down Auburn Ave to centennial park, which I had not planned on doing--first time for that! thx to brock for the ride back to my car.

...Can't say enough good things about the bass player, shockingly good. We all know how good Sipe is (loved his drum solo), and when Warren is paired w/ good bass and drums, you're going to get a good show. Liked the acoustic solo on Blue Sky and wish we could have heard more from that guy, or even Warren on acoustic.

I also caught this band at the DC show, after having seen the CD release show in NYC with RRE. I felt the RRE drummer was the weakest player of the bunch. Jeff Sipe is a quiet, smiling monster. I have seen him with ARU, Jeff Coffin, Jimmy Herring, with Warren's Jerry Garcia symphonic show and now this. He is as versatile as Warren, and is just plain amazing.

We got the added benefit of a Ron Holloway sit in on Skin It Back. If you are familiar with Little Feat, you have undoubtedly heard Ron sitting in, so he brought some of the Little Feat spirit to the tune.

Listening to the recordings, I felt the loss of a keyboard player on Jessica, but live it was better.

Instrumental Illness was still a highlight for me, and one song where the bass player was essential.