11/19/2006
House of Blues
Cleveland, OH
Gov’t Mule
I’ve been waiting for this night since Wakarusa.
count me in
I’m going to be at Primus that night! Front row!
Primus sucks!
;D
Well, I think it is quite obvious by now that no one cares for Gov’t Mule on this board… But I don’t care.
A Frank Zappa segue!!! Pygmy Twylight (intro)->Trouble Every Day (with lyrics!!!)
Tons of Beatles… Love Me Do… She Said… Tomorrow Never Knowss…
Reggae Soulshine…
I don’t even know… Mule, of course.
i like Gov’t Mule
i just don’t live in Cleveland
I love me some Mule. I’ve seen 'em soooo many times though. And as well as JB, I don’t live in Cleveland either…
On that note, I remember we used to play Cleveland Rocks (drew carey) in my high school jazz band. I always loved playing it. It was fun.
It has been quite a while since I last saw Mule. I may have to go to Xmas Jam. If it is half as good as last year’s, I’ll be there.
OK, here is my sober, look back on last night review.
Great show, unbelievable show. I would say it picked up right where the Wakarusa show left off, Mule must have been pretty steady all year.
Spent the first half of the day happy the Browns were winning, until that last 30 seconds… Fuckin’ Pittsburgh… Well, I got fairly tipsyfuddled during that, so I knew I was gonna have a great time at night.
Got the House of Blues about the time Donovan Frankenreiter probably took the stage, but I decided against going in for that. Hung out in the garage across the street for a little while, met up with some keds. Brew and roastin’ was going around. Now my head was definitely in the right shape for some Gov’t Mule.
Mr. Man opener got the place rockin’ right, and very quickly this turned into Brand New Angel. And this song TORE IT UP! Right away Warren put on the machine gun shred style ripping that I have come to love, and it was fantastic.
I guess I should say that the House of Blues was PACKED… Way more than I thought it was going to be. I found a spot kind of close to the front, and was happy there were not a lot of assholes in the crowd at all. Much different than the Rhythm Devils show I saw there one month prior. Also, they had the “DOSE” backdrop, so that was fun to look at all night.
The typical She Said She Said -> Tomorrow Never Knows jam followed, and it was great as usual.
Then the madness began. I Think I Know What you Mean->When the Levee Breaks->ITIKWYM. KILLER segue. I found Levee breaks to be an interesting tune, and the first time I ever heard them play that one.
This was followed by a tune I didn’t recognize, and then more cover madness. Take Me To The River. The place was floating once Warren started singing this one. The set ended with a rawkin’ Thorazine Shuffle… And a lot of people with confused looks once they see people doin’ the shuffle. A great tune as usual. Their new bass player is really coming into his own, and I don’t want to say he has completely replaced Allen Woody, because you just can’t do that. But the Mule definitly has a different sound now than when I first started seeing them. The keys player adds a nice dimension to the music, but he just doesn’t stand out enough, to me it sounded like he was just filling in along with the bass.
So setbreak comes, and it was a relatively short one. 20 minutes at top. During it I was talking to a few people I just met, and out of nowhere I exclaimed, Bad Little Doggie opener for the second set. I just had that feeling. Also, I mentioned I would love to hear some Zappa, but wasn’t expecting it. Well, I couldn’t ask for more in this set.
Bad Little Doggie opener, the people shot me a quick look like “how the hell did you guess that?” I honestly didn’t know what to say.
Then came the new Mr. High & Mighty which I really like off the new album. Basically this song and Unring My Bell are the only quality tracks I feel, but maybe it will just take more listening.
And now is where I really start to lose it. Pygmy Twylight->Trouble Every Day->Drums->I’m A Ram->Love Me Do->I’m A Ram.
Holy schnike’s! As soon as they started up the intro to Pygmy which is normally the only part they play, I lost it. I was almost positive they were going to take it into Blind Man In the Dark, as it usually does, but NO. More Frank Zappa. And not only another Zappa tune, Warren gave us the lyrics as well! I have never heard them do this, or even knew they ever did it, so to the best of my knowledge, this was the first time played. AMAZING. I couldn’t think of a better one->two Zappa segue if I wanted to.
Matt Abts on drums, amazing as ALWAYS. Poor Matt Abts, always going to be in Warrens shadow for people who don’t know Gov’t Mule. But this guy is just as amazing behind his kit. When he starts pounding on the drums with his bare hands, I swear he must have callouses all over, otherwise those drums would be bloody!
Drums kicked right into I’m A Ram, and I knew there were more Beatles on the way. I’m very selective with my Beatles liking, and the Mule seems to know which songs to rock out. Love Me Do is a great song for Warren, that beat is just killer. If they would have played She’s So Heavy like they did about one year ago in Cincinnati, it would have been perfect.
Mule finished off the set, and I was surprised there was no Mule sandwich… It just sounded kind of empty with an I’ve Been Workin’ thrown in the middle, but I take what I can get obviously.
Show ended with a reggae version of Soulshine, which put a perfect spin on this song I have heard 1000X too many. This was show 12+ (lost track), and I am willing to bet Soulshine was played at everyone except maybe one or two of the earlier shows.
Well, the reggae flavor was perfect. Instead of those long wailing notes, they were short and choppy, and worked incredibly well.
Seeing how they twisted around this song I thought I was sick of, it makes me want to drive to NY for Dub Side of the Mule on NYE. It will be a treat for sure.
So in a final rating, this show gets 5 used needles out of 5.
It seems you have some very good luck with calling openers, and other things. Nice review! Sounds like a great night.