Two doses of late-night fun

Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2007 9:55 PM by John Roderick

Gov’t Mule
Walking backstage at a Gov’t Mule concert is like sneaking into the toughest biker bar in Alabama. I haven’t seen that many rough- looking, three hundred pound guys with ponytails since I left Alaska. The road crew, the band and the fans all seemed cut from the same cloth: a bunch of tough mofos with Camaros in their front yards, and the music was exactly the kind of gnarly roadhouse chicken- fried rock that makes you want to bust a Bud longneck on the bar and take on a guy wielding a pool cue. Thank heaven.

Gov’t Mule is the real deal, (singer/guitarist Warren Haynes was in the Allman Brothers), but this was no revival act. Now that ZZ Top is a cartoon, playing county fairs and wagging their beards, and Lynyrd Skynyrd is close to doing the same thing, it’s nice to hear some boys play Southern rock like it stands for something. You could almost taste the frog legs.

Galactic
This was a late-night surprise. A bunch of white kids from Louisiana playing hip-hop on real instruments, while the king’s court of progressive MC’s guested, like Lyrics Born and one of the dudes from Jurassic 5. It was another ray of hope for hip-hop in my opinion.

I can’t stress how much better live music is when it’s live musicians laying down the groove, rather than watching a guy in a track suit marching up and down the stage in front of an iPod. I flopped around enjoying their take on it, soaking up the after-party vibe, and then finally hit the wall.