As befitting of a sprawling jam band with a lot of friends that likes to hang loose, Gov\u2019t Mule treated fans to a four-hour show on New Year\u2019s Eve 2017 at the Beacon Theatre in New York. Now, nearly three years later, the high-quality soundboard recording of the show has been made available as a download\/streaming-only release.<\/p>\n
The hook of this release, besides the length, is the very long setlist of covers. The band plays seven originals and then launches into 20-some cover songs, many featuring \u201crevolution\u201d or \u201cchange\u201d in the title. The impetus for this, as was not uncommon at the time, was the Trump administration that took office in Jan. 2017 and the state of mind that many artists \u2013 and Americans \u2013 felt at that time. That energy was channeled into 2017\u2019s studio album Revolution Come, Revolution Go, <\/i>four songs from which are sprinkled throughout this set.<\/p>\n
As noted, the first six songs represent a pretty standard Mule set, moving through blues rock jams from the 1995 debut (\u201cPainted Silver Light\u201d), 1998\u2019s Dose <\/i>(\u201cLarger Than Life\u201d), 2000\u2019s Life Before Insanity <\/i>(\u201cLay Your Burden Down\u201d), 2004\u2019s About To Rage <\/i>(\u201cDeja Voodoo\u201d) and then reaching back to the 1991 Allman Brothers album Shades Of Two Worlds <\/i>for the magnificent, fiery 16-minute instrumental \u201cKind Of Bird\u201d (which Warren Haynes co-wrote with Dickey Betts, on what was his second album with the reunited band). \u201cDark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground\u201d is a phenomenal Blind Willie Johnson track, used to close both Revolution Come <\/i>and the first set of this Beacon show. <\/p>\n
The second set features Bay Area freelance blues rock singer-songwriter Jackie Greene and kicks off with a funky take on the obscure Steely Dan track \u201cDaddy Don\u2019t Live In That New York City No More,\u201d followed by Thunderclap Newman\u2019s \u201cSomething In The Air\u201d and Dr. John\u2019s \u201cRevolution,\u201d which\u2026okay. Better is the cover of James Brown\u2019s \u201cFunky President (People It\u2019s Bad),\u201d and it\u2019s here that one realizes just how skilled Gov\u2019t Mule is at sliding from blues to funk to rock to soul without a care in the world.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that the covers are not expertly played, it\u2019s just that there are so many of them. I get that Haynes and co. wanted to recreate the live experience at home, and one show in particular, but when you\u2019re in a live setting it\u2019s easy to get carried on adrenaline and lost in the music. At home, setting aside four hours for a show just seems like a slog, especially when you can hit skip. That said, since this is a digital-only release, there\u2019s no reason to sit through it all in one sitting.<\/p>\n
So, of the rest of the album, there are a few highlights. Race toward the lost T. Rex single \u201cChildren Of The Revolution,\u201d a white-hot burner that is way better than I remembered, and a contender for best song here. The versions of Bob Marley\u2019s \u201cRevolution,\u201d Sam Cooke\u2019s \u201cA Change Is Gonna Come\u201d and Dylan\u2019s \u201cThe Times They Are A-Changin\u2019\u201d are noteworthy for their diversity but not quite as amazing as some of the other cuts. There is of course an electric \u201cAuld Lang Syne\u201d (this being New Year\u2019s Eve, of course), followed by Haynes shouting into a megaphone for several minutes to cover Gil Scott-Heron\u2019s \u201cThe Revolution Will Not Be Televised,\u201d because why not? At this point, we\u2019re halfway through the album.<\/p>\n
Takes on \u201cChanges\u201d and \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d isn\u2019t as inspired as one would hope, but Neil Young\u2019s \u201cRevolution Blues\u201d is better, fitting the tenor of the show and the times as good as any Neil song you care to name. Even better is the Temptations\u2019 \u201cBall Of Confusion,\u201d a song that does not get played enough when thinking of that great Motown band.<\/p>\n
The encore, which is a solid 45 minutes, hits Allman Brothers classics \u201cMelissa\u201d and \u201cMountain Jam,\u201d careens into Young\u2019s \u201cRockin\u2019 In The Free World\u201d (which Pearl Jam has the market cornered on, sorry) and then Hendrix\u2019s \u201cMachine Gun.\u201d At this point, the show has long since felt like overkill, and so this all ends up being more of the same. Expertly played, energetic, probably a life-affirming experience live, but just too much of a good thing.<\/p>\n
But again, it\u2019s a digital-only release, and too much Gov\u2019t Mule and\/or live blues-rock is better than none, so there\u2019s no reason not to check this one out. Start with the highlights and then explore personal favorites at your leisure, preferably with a beer, and ring in 2021 with this soon-to-be-classic Gov\u2019t Mule New Year\u2019s show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":34216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6284],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46049","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-govt-mule","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46049"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}