This is going to be a long one. If you’re only into the MP3s and/or setlist scans, pictures etc - just scroll through the text. To call this a “review” is a disservice to professional writers everywhere. When it comes to Gov’t Mule I’m a fan first. Keep that in mind while reading this drivel.

It had been over a year since I’d seen Gov’t Mule live. The move from the east coast to the west coast is entirely to blame. Well that and a change in income. So to say I was looking forward to this show is putting it very mildly. I’m only somewhat embarrassed to admit that I was in “line” for this one at 3:00PM. Alright it was 2:50. The next person to join me in ‘line’ wasn’t there until 5:30, and they didn’t even stay. The doors opened at 7. It appears the longer I go w/o seeing the band, the earlier I’ll arrive for the next show. If you’re starting to think to yourself ‘this guy puts the fan in fanatic’ - it’s really just Gov’t Mule that I get this obsessive-compulsive over.

Being first in line did allow me the privilege to pick whatever spot I wanted, and I wanted to be front and center. Which is where I ended out.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals were the opening act, and they came on stage around 8. It had been well over a year since I’d last seen GP&TN, and was very damn psyched that they were the openers. The new arrangements (and I’m not even sure how new they are) to their older songs are great. Great. The song If I Was From Paris is brilliant, where the hell did it come from? See the post Smashing a perfectly good guitar for my retarded little story on Scott smashing his guitar. To Grace and the band: those two or three folks that kept shouting out crap - on behalf of Vancouver, I’m sorry. Please don’t let it (or the border crossing hassles) deter you from coming back to British Columbia.

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals - The Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC - 11/15/07

Mastermind
Treat Me Right >
Stop The Bus
Here’s To The Meantime
Big White Gate
“Grace telling a story about the border crossing”
If I Was From Paris
Watching You >
Nothing But The Water (Part I) >
Nothing But The Water (Part II) >
Group Drums > Band Intros >
Nothing But The Water (Part II) >
Nothing But The Water (Part I)

More on Grace later (like, another post) cause the 2nd night (Seattle) was every bit as good, if not better, than the first.

So. Gov’t Mule, set one. Mr. High & Mighty was a great start - it’s one of my favorite tracks from that album. Pygmy Twylyte was a complete surprise, and the first time I’d heard it live in person. But to continue with Have Mercy On The Criminal, I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes and then Honky Tonk Woman - with Grace, was over the top amazing.

Set two - well just look for yourself. That’s What Love Will Make You Do with Scott Tounet (Nocturnals guitarist) was fun, though in my irrelevant opinion 32/20 Blues the next night in Seattle was the real GM w/ Scott highlight.

Regardless, it was the last song of the night that really blew me away. Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man was such a perfect encore that I’ve been refreshing MuleTracks almost every hour today just to see if by chance that the Vancouver show is already up for sale. Don’t get me wrong - the recording by Dennis (thanks Dennis!!) (download the show in lossless format here) is very solid (for a stealth), but I’m just itching to listen to the sound board.

Now, this could all be in my imagination. But… during the encore, I was one of the people singing the part of the chorus, and I caught Brian Farmer doing the same from the side of the stage. As soon as the show ended, Brian came out, moved some crap around, grabbed one of Warrens pics and handed it directly to me. I thought that was very cool, but I acknowledge that my definition of cool might differ from most. I don’t care.

Somehow I ended out with part of Matts drum kit. It was just handed to me (again, thank you Mule road-crew you guys are great). I was going to give it to my buddy Andrew but I figured it would be something my younger brother might like. He started out as a drummer, I know he thinks Mat Abts is amazing, and he’s been to more Mule shows (and has been a fan for way longer) than I. Hopefully he won’t read this and will be surprised at Christmas, but if he does, don’t worry this isn’t the only thing I’m getting you. Chances are slim he’ll read this, I’m pretty sure that the 4 people who do (one of whom is my mother) won’t include him.

Alright I’m running out of steam. The rest is in lazy bullet point format.

I might find time later tonight to do a proper post, with some MP3s and stuff, but I’m actually really busy for a change. So in the meantime, watch this amazingly cool video. It’s a medley of stuff from Grace Potter & The Nocturnals current tour (Rochester, NY, Binghamton, NY, Washington, DC, Richmond, VA) with Gov’t Mule. And speaking of Gov’t Mule, Grace joins Warren (or vice versa I’m in a hurry and a bit too lazy to look it up right now) in the video below. So clickit.

OK when it’s done playing, watch Part I.

These videos are making me even more excited (and I have to tell you, with just about 24 hours to go, I’m already pretty antsy) to see GP&TN open for the Mule on back to back nights. With any luck this series will continue to the west coast part of the tour so I have a cool memento.

St. Paul, MN is one lucky city. As many of you know, this year Gov’t Mule decided to put on a very special Halloween show - they performed Houses of the Holy from start to finish as their second set. And Mr. Audley Freed joined them on guitar for the entire thing. There are a couple of sources up on etree now - one and two. The following MP3s were sourced from this one. This is an absolute must MuleTracks purchase, and I can’t wait.

Set II

The Song Remains The Same
The Rain Song
Over The Hills and Far Away
The Crunge
Dancing Days >
Drums
D’Yer Mak’er
No Quarter
The Ocean

Update: The show is already available on MuleTracks! (and I’ve already purchased it, and I’m listening now, and it’s a-w-e-s-o-m-e).

I just feel like posting some music. So. I’m going to the Vancouver and Portland Gov’t Mule shows for sure, and maybe just maybe Seattle. In keeping with the ‘what the hell’ format of this post, here are some songs that I’d love to hear at one of those shows:

Gov’t Mule - Worried Down With The Blues (10/21/01)
Gov’t Mule - Indifference (10/21/01)
Gov’t Mule - Ohio (w/ Marc Ford)

Though it’s certainly worth noting - I really don’t care what they play. I don’t get my hopes up for this song or that one, and I always have a great time. I’ve said it a million times before and I’ll say it a million more, Gov’t Mule is the best band playing live now.

A song that up until recently I had only heard live versions of. Well it turns out that Gov’t Mule did in fact record this song in the studio. The only info I have on it is “Bootleg, + quality, outtakes from the debut release, recorded at the TeleStar Studios”.

Gov’t Mule - Just Got Paid

OK first up - right now as I type this up, I’m rocking out to a great DVD posted on The Traders Den - Gov’t Mule 2007-06-10 Cologne, Germany (DVD9) (PAL). DVD9 means that you’ll need a DVD burner that supports dual-layer, and a dual-layer disc to burn it on. The download is a whopping 6.57 GB, and worth every byte of it. There are still lots of seeders, myself included, so it’s not too late to grab it for yourself.

Next. The Gov’t Mule Bonnaroo 2007 performance that was pulled from MuleTracks, has been added again. After the second night of Mountain Jam I was absolutely certain it would be the one ‘absolute must’ MuleTracks purchase of 2007. I was wrong, Bonnaroo is.

And speaking of MuleTracks - if anyone reading this happens to have any pull with the folks over there, could you ask them to work on fixing the Seattle, WA (10/20/06) show? It was up for a day or two, and before I got the chance to buy it, it was taken down. It hasn’t been back up since. Fortunately I’ve had a great audience source to tide me over.

Gov’t Mule - Moore Theatre, Seattle, WA - 10/20/06

Gov’t Mule - How Many More Years
Gov’t Mule - Brighter Days
Gov’t Mule - Like Flies

Was there really any question that Bonnaroo would be the topic for this weeks Mule Monday? The only difficult part of this post was picking the songs to include. The guests were great (and plentiful), the setlist was sick, and there are a couple of recordings to choose from (see my very frequently updated list of Bonnaroo lossless-only downloads). Since I only have a few more min to get this up on Monday (hey it’s still Monday here on the west coast) - here goes -

Gov’t Mule w/ John Paul Jones - Livin’ Lovin’ Maid
Gov’t Mule - Brand New Angel
Gov’t Mule w/ Luther Dickinson - That’s What Love Will Make You Do
Gov’t Mule - Sweet Leaf > War Pigs

MP3 source info here

And what the heck, some video clips too -

Thanks to BluesOxator (for seeding), The German Mule-Junkies: RoryGallagher (a.k.a. Axel) and Raimax (a.k.a. Rainer) and BluesOxator (a.k.a. Christian) (for being Mule Junkies), and Mark Kushaki (for putting this collection together). So what’s the collection? All available occasions when Marc Ford has sat in with Gov’t Mule.

Below you’ll find a few samples from the SIX CD compilation. If you like what you hear, as always, I’d suggest grabbing it from etree (see previous ‘all available occasions’ link). I’ll be seeding it for the next week’ish, I’m sure a few others will be too.

Warren and Marc have some kind of guitar-genius telepathy, which is particularly evident during the Can’t You See > Hey Jude > Can’t You See track below. It’s just over-the-top ridiculous. If long, smoking hot, retardedly-good guitar solos aren’t your thing, skip it. Otherwise crank it way, way up.

Gov’t Mule w/ Marc Ford - Can’t You See > Hey Jude > Can’t You See 4/28/99
Gov’t Mule w/ Marc Ford - 30 Days In The Hole 12/31/98
Gov’t Mule w/ Marc Ford - Sometimes Salvation 4/1/00

One single screenshot/image can sum up how I spent the past weekend:

I don’t even want to try and figure out how many hours I spent sitting in front of my laptop, dreaming of being @ Mountain Jam. But I will say this (and repeat it a few times) - the webcast was absolutely genius. More on that later…

Gov’t Mule - Night I

Where to begin. How about with the opener - Radiohead’s “Creep”. What a way to start the show.. Next up was a retardedly good version of 32/20 Blues, and it just kept getting better. I swear the Set I closer, Blind Man In The Dark, was the best version of that song I’ve heard all year. This show is a must-buy MuleTracks purchase.

Gov’t Mule - Creep
Gov’t Mule - Brighter Days
Gov’t Mule - No Quarter

source

Gov’t Mule - Night II

I really didn’t believe that they would be able to top the first night. Boy was I wrong. A couple of folks commented on the lack of sit-ins on the first night. Well Warren and the boys sure made up for that on the second night. Michael Franti joined them for Play With Fire, Jake Cinninger (Umphrey’s McGee) joined them on That’s What Love Will Make You Do, Ulises Bella and Asdru Sierra (Ozomatli) joined them on It’s A Man’s World and finally Josh Clark (Tea Leaf Green) joined them on Rockin’ In The Free World. This show isn’t a must-buy, it’s an absolutely-must-or-you’ll-regret-it-buy (MuleTracks)

Gov’t Mule - Play With Fire (with Michael Franti)
Gov’t Mule - It’s a Mans World (with with Ulises Bella and Asdru Sierra)
Gov’t Mule - Rockin’ In The Free World (with with Josh Clark)

source

New Orleans Social Club

For those not in-the-know, the New Orleans Social Club is a veritable who’s who of old-school New Orleans musicians. This time the lineup included George Porter Jr., Leo Nocentelli, Henry Butler, Ivan Neville and Raymond Weber.

New Orleans Social Club - Everything is Everything (w/ Warren Haynes)
New Orleans Social Club - Fortunate Son (w/ Warren Haynes)

source

Umphrey’s McGee

courtesy of the official Mtn. Jam blog

courtesy of the official Mtn. Jam blog

Final thoughts

All of the MP3s in this post came from flacs converted to mp3, via etree. I would strongly encourage you to download the flac sources so that you’ll have a lossless copy. I’ve been keeping track of the Mountain Jam torrents on this post - so check it out. Also - show your support of a band who I repeatedly refer to as the most fan-friendly group of musicians of our time by purchasing these shows from MuleTracks. AND… the next time you see a Mule-taper, offer to buy them a beer. It’s really the least you can do…

Remote Digital Media was one of the groups involved in bringing this webcast to your computer. They did such a fantastic job that I felt obligated to send them all emails telling them as much. If I was ever put in the position of organizing some kind of live-web-event, Remote Digital Media would be my first phone call.

It wasn’t enough that Gov’t Mule gave us an inside look at creating their latest album, High & Mighty (via the In the Studio blog) - they’ve now taken it to the next level. A frequently updated Mountain Jam blog in addition to a free live webcast of the entire weekend. How many other bands put this kind of effort into their shows? Not very many come to mind. I don’t care how many old ladies I have to rob, how many banks I have to hold up (joke!) - I will be at next years Mountain Jam. See you there!

One of my die-hard Mule-fan friends (hi Leigh!) had been waiting for ages to hear Gov’t Mule cover “Hallelujah”. She even has a few setlists where it was listed as an encore, but never played. Well, she finally got her wish in Denver @ The Fillmore Auditorium on 4/26/07. For those of you who couldn’t attend and share my jealousy, here it is -

Gov’t Mule - Hallelujah (Warren and Danny only) | source