On New Year’s Eve, Gov’t Mule will celebrate the year 1971, “When Music Changed the World.” And what better way to celebrate the ’70s than with one of the instruments that helped fuel the decade? For the show on December 31st at New York’s Beacon Theatre, guitarist Warren Haynes will play the Travis Bean TB500 #11 guitar, played by Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1976 and 1977 [get tickets].
While Garcia did not use his Travis Bean while recording the Dead’s self-titled 1971 live album (a.k.a. Skull & Roses), Jerry used the instrument on many of the same songs, including setlist staples “Bertha”, “Playing in the Band”, “The Other One”, and “Wharf Rat”, in later years. Jerry played the Travis Bean at over 90 Dead shows and on the recording of 1977’s Terrapin Station, before it was shelved in favor of a modified Wolf in September 1977.
Related: A Brief History Of Jerry Garcia’s Most Well-Known Guitars
“To honor one of the most seismic eras in music history,” Mule wrote on social media, “we will be playing these songs as they were intended— on the guitars they were originally played on, thanks to our friends @family_guitars.”
Haynes, of course, is no stranger to playing Jerry’s guitars. Back in May, he played Garcia’s “Alligator” Fender Stratocaster at a Warren Haynes Band gig at The Fillmore in San Francisco. Haynes, who stepped into Garcia’s shadow while playing with surviving Grateful Dead members in The Dead and collaborated extensively with late bassist Phil Lesh, used ‘Gator for a cover of “Black Peter” as well as Steely Dan‘s “Pretzel Logic”.
See Warren Haynes play the Jerry Garcia Travis Bean TB500 #11 guitar on Wednesday, December 31st at the Beacon Theatre in New York. The concert will cap off a three-show, two-city New Year’s run beginning on Sunday, December 28th, at Proctors in Schenectady, NY, before coming to the Beacon on the 30th and 31st. Find tickets here.
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Grateful Dead — Capitol Theater — Passaic, NJ — 4/27/77 — Full Video
[Video: Christopher Hazard]