As far the Mule Year’s Eve run went, this opening night was the meat-and-potatoes end of it: unglamorous and not entirely surprising in setlist, guest list and general delivery. Does that mean it was any less the spectacle and standard to which Mule and its fans have held, and should hold the band to after a year like 2005? Of course not. It was another volcanic Mule evening in this gilded old music palace, with ample moments of "Yes, I believe."
In 2004, Gov’t Mule became a band again after more than three years spent as a collective. Allen Woody is gone, but the spirit remains, as it goes, and things cohered just as Warren Haynes and Matt Abts promised they would (and knew they would, long before we were sure). Keyboardist Danny Louis and bassist Andy Hess became full-fleged Mule men and are as vital to the future of the band and as integral to its new era as anything else. The page was turned on years of guest collaborators and the rotating bass chair, exciting as those things were.
In 2005, the Mule’s cohesion bore real, tangible fruit: show after show of brilliant segues, galvanizing deliveries and cobweb clearing jams that breathed new life into old songs and made go-to chestnuts and showstoppers out of most cuts from Deja Voodoo (2004), the four-man Mule’s thus-far studio standard-bearer. Listening to recordings from the past year leaves no doubt that the band’s live show batting average hit its all time highest, and above all, it’s a confidence factor: confidence in the lineup, confidence in the new material, confidence in busting out, confidence in holding back, confidence in its ability to retain many of the hallmarks of the original Mule trio but operate as an entirely evolved entity. It’s been a thing to see, and especially to hear, for us long time Mule-ers.
Kicking off the run to the typically packed house, Mule chose interesting groupings of tunes. The Voodoo songs have seen a year’s development and the band is more cognizant of where in a given set they’ll deliver best–the smacking "Mr. Man" as an opener, for one, certainly leaves no settled dust.
The same goes for cover material–long one of rock’s most eclectic cover bands, Mule can tackle just about anything, but it’s gotten even better at drawing out absolutely suiting covers and developing them as real repertoire instead of "mere" fun breakouts. "Lola Leave Your Light On"–Zeppelinesque by nature of its throttling beats, scorching guitar and cockeyed mojo–dropped off at its end and the band channeled that tension free fall straight into Zep’s own "Livin’ Lovin’ Maid," as exciting a non-Zeppelin version of the song that’s ever been tackled.
The band chose its lumbering version of the Beatles’ "She Said She Said" and its now standard follow-up "Tomorrow Never Knows" freakout as a set centerpiece, and then for the next grouping, three tunes that built in cathartic poignancy: the dire "Tastes Like Wine," the elegiac "Banks of the Deep End," and then the terrifying "No Need to Suffer."
The latter is especially heavy, and one that many longtime Mule fans, given the song’s association with the Woody era, unfairly believed might not get a second life. Andy Hess isn’t Allen Woody heavy, he’s Andy Hess heavy, and now that he’s had nearly two years to feel out all the material–learning hundreds of songs as the new guy, you’re never going to get all the nuances all at once–he’s able to fit himself without pushing or without losing any of the jazzy cadences that define his style.
The leonine, ever-more-masterful Haynes steered the group into trickier territory for set two, building complex jams into Mule chesnut "Game Face," which brought the crowd to a deafening roar when it became "Mountain Jam" midway through, and then the so-perfect-for-Haynes’-voice-it’s-criminal take on Temple of the Dog’s "Hunger Strike," which dipped into "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and then eased back.
Between and after those came spacier oddities: a jam built around "Johnny Bratton," an obscure track from Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson sessions, and later the band’s well-wrought, acid-jazzy jam on Bob Marley’s "Lively Up Yourself." The ecleticism of the Mule machine speaks for itself; the deft delivery and command of all those conquered styles–Haynes and Louis going at it in an arena of controlled chaos as these songs unfold–is what you’re paying for.
Prefacing the James Brown-style soul revue that would take hold two nights later, saxophonist and former Dizzy Gillespie sideman Ron Holloway emerged twice in the evening, at the end of the first set for the band’s funk-blues take on Robert Johnson’s "32/20 Blues" and deep into the second for an epic "Devil Likes It Slow."
Since he first appeared onstage with the Mule in the fall of 2004, Holloway has become the band’s most frequent and frequently exciting guest, with the lone frustration being that there’s only a handful of tunes in the Mule repertoire on which the band chooses to accomodate him.
That’s no dig, of course; hearing Holloway’s skronky madness on a "Sco Mule," a "Blind Man in the Dark," a "Soulshine" or any other is always a treat and always different. But with the man as skilled a horn sorcerer as he is, and also putting in enough appearances to qualify as a part-time band member, here’s hoping he gets to branch out a little. Witness his arrangement manipulation on the "Devil Likes It Slow" hook, or this night’s cacophonous, mind-blowing solo breakdown in "32/20," and you wonder what he’d do–what he’d mess with, what he’d twist–if contorted into other corners of the Mule catalog.
And speaking of messes and twists, howza bout Danny Louis on the trumpet? The keyboardist is quite a brass player but because of a Bell’s palsy must limit himself to snatches of it at a time–a Mule element of infrequent lagniappe.
Louis’ trumpet was a focus as the band got low and went primal for its encore, a lone "John the Revelator." Haynes spurred some crowd call-and-response (a technique the Mule’s been using more and more, usually to great effect and surprisingly without gimmick), and later, stopped playing his guitar as Hess and Abts brought the rhythm to a near-silent crawl and Louis emerged from keyboard island to blat a bit more trumpet and then take a lap around the stage, insouciantly smacking one of Abts’ cymbals on his way back. It wasn’t quite Mule’s traditionally electrifying closer, but it was the feeling of looking around afterward and seeing everyone leave the show with a grin, a sweat-soaked brow, and a sense of quiet satisfaction. The Mule grows ever-richer–both ever-more-audacious and ever-more-nuanced–and we’re the better for it.
Photos by Robert Massie
