On Friday night, Gov’t Mule continued their ongoing tour, heading down to New Orleans for a performance at Saenger Theatre, which coincides with the tail end of the Crescent City’s annual musical extravaganza, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. During the group’s two-set show, Gov’t Mule welcomed a number of guests to the stage to join them, as is the Jazz Fest way, including Smokey Greenwell, Marcus King, and Don Was.

The group’s fiery and tease-heavy first set saw the band offer up a healthy mix of selections from their long-spanning catalog, including numbers off Gov’t Mule’s most recent album, Revolution Come…Revolution Go. The band led by Warren Haynes also pulled from the Allman Brothers Band catalog, given that Haynes was formerly a guitarist for the southern rock icons, including a take on “King Of Bird” halfway through the set.

However, Gov’t Mule truly shined during the show’s second set, with the band paying tribute to musicians who passed away in 2017 as well as inviting all three of their guests out. The band opened with Soundgarden’s “Feel On Black Days”, as a means to honor the icon rock act’s frontman Chris Cornell, and followed it up with Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, a song by another hugely influential artist who passed aways last year.

During “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, New Orleans-based harmonica player, Smokey Greenwell joined Gov’t Mule, hinting at the string of sit-ins that were yet to come in the night. With Greenwell still on stage, the quickly rising young guitarist and vocalist, Marcus King, came out to join Gov’t Mule and Greenwell for a take on Albert King’s “Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home”. The special guests then departed from the stage, leaving Gov’t Mule to lay out renditions of “Millions Miles From Yesterday” and “Traveling Tune”, ahead of their next guest, Don Was, the well-known record producer, who replaced Jorgen Carlsson on bass for renditions of Van Morrison’s “He Ain’t Give You None” and the Grateful Dead’s “Bertha”.

With Marcus King as an extended member of the Allman Brothers Band family along with Warren Haynes, after Gov’t Mule’s solo rendition of “Brighter Days”, King reemerged to help the band close the second set out with a take on the beloved classic “Whipping Post”. From there, the band, sans King, ended their night in full with an encore of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground”.

“Whipping Post” with Marcus King

[Video: Brooke Nilson]

Setlist: Gov’t Mule | Saenger Theatre | New Orleans, LA | 5/4/2018

Set I: World Boss > Mr. High & Mighty, Lay Your Burden Down, Unring The Bell*, Kind Of Bird**, Thorns Of Life, Pressure Under Fire, Time To Confess

Set II: Fell On Black Days, You Don’t Know How It Feels+, Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home+&, Million Miles From Yesterday, Traveling Tune, He Ain’t Give You None^ > Bertha^, Brighter Days > Whipping Post&

Encore: Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground

* with Get Up, Stand Up tease | ** with Happy Together tease | + with Smokey Greenwell | & with  Marcus King | ^ Don Was replacing Jorgen Carlsson on bass