The city of Portland welcomed Warren Haynes to the Aladdin Theater‘s stage with a such a cheer that the well traveled guitar player paused from plugging in his axe and look up sheepishly. He smiled for a moment, seeming to let the joyful greeting sink in before finishing his preparations and launching into the first notes of an impressive evening. Haynes is touring in support his newest release, Ashes & Dust, which incorporates the Americana and bluegrass of his youth spent in North Carolina. The album and subsequent tour has not only given his longtime fans a new perspective on his talent; it’s brought fresh faces into the fold eager to check out Haynes’ excursion into this new musical territory.
Check out our chat with Warren Haynes about the Ashes & Dust album HERE
While Haynes brought in his friends from Railroad Earth to act as his backing band for the new album’s recording sessions, he needed to gather together a new band for a national tour. Seeing the value of players who had history with each other, he started with the entire cast of the band ChessBoxer, a solid core of string players who can help him express the sounds that he was searching to share. Haynes also recruited his old friend, the versatile and deadly accurate Jeff Sipe, to keep the beat.
Opening the show with the album’s opening track, “Is It Me Or You,” Haynes and his band established their dynamic quickly and impressively. While this was obviously Warren’s night, the rest of the players weren’t merely window dressing. Everyone was afforded multiple opportunities to shine, and they each made the most of it when their number was called. Matt Menefee showed particular skill in using his sweet fiddle tones to fill in gaps in the sonic landscapes with long drawn out notes that alternately supported and soared. Not one for flash, Menefee wound his playing through the rest for most of the night, giving songs an arching, poignant tone. Sipe showed why he’s been the go to drummer for guitarists like Haynes and Widespread Panic‘s Jimmy Herring for decades, playing with an unconscious precision that allows everyone else on the stage to have the confidence to stretch when needed. With a band that has now been road tested behind him, the man everyone came to see, Warren Haynes, was in perfect position to stretch out his musical legs and take the crowd on a blues influence tour of the music of the mountains.
Over his time in the Allman Brothers, fronting his own band Gov’t Mule and his stint with The Dead, Warren Haynes has established himself as one of the greatest slide blues players of any generation. His years playing the music of Duane Allman has highlighted the similarities in these two legends’ styles, but Haynes has had more time to explore and expand his musical horizons. As he mixed in tracks from his newest album like the exceptional “Blue Maiden’s Tale” and the lovelorn “Coal Tattoo,” the audience saw what amounted to a musical cross-section of roots music.
Haynes also possesses a voice that so perfectly blends with his playing, it sometimes gets overlooked in the light of his stunning fret board mastery. Anything sang in his husky, emotional delivery instantly gains a gravity that can’t be ignored by listeners, and he uses that power to spectacular effect. Wielding both his weapons with equal ease, Haynes had the crowd in the palm of his hand from the very beginning, and he never let go.
The room was primed and ready for a big number shortly into the show, and Haynes delivered by launching into the instantly recognizable intro to the Allman Brothers classic “Blue Sky.” Haynes was probably more expecting the crowd’s reaction for this beloved tune than he was for his arrival onstage, so he kept his focus on the task at hand with the practiced skill and obvious love for the song.
The show wound up featuring a vast number of covers, including Bob Dylan’s “Tough Mama,” Little Feat’s “Skin It Back,” Elton John’s “Madman Across The Water,” Grateful Dead’s “Loser,” and the grand finale, a performance of Allman Brothers’ masterpiece, the instrumental “Jessica.” The exchanges between band members were something to behold, as Haynes and co worked through these classics and the Ashes & Dust originals in style.
 
Texas based blues rocker Jonathan Tyler and his band opened the show with a solid 45 minute blast of old school blues rock in the finest road house tradition. Choosing such a raucous opening act worked to plan, giving the fans of the headliners more rocky based work was in the vein of much of the music they loved. Showing a fire and grit that made them seem a more than a little dangerous, the quartet seemed intent on making the most of their opening slot. Between crashing cymbals and thick, bluesy, reverb drenched chords the early arriving crowd was very receptive to the dirty, rocking grooves they were laying down. Judging by the line that quickly formed at the merchandise table after their set ended, odds are that we’ll be hearing lots more from him in the years to come.
Check out the show’s setlist below, courtesy of setlist.fm, as well as a full gallery of images by Rex Thomson:
