Warren Haynes' Govt Mule Angel Orensanz Center, NYC 12/27/08

Warren Haynes brought his Govt Mule to the Angel Orensanz Center in New York's Greenwich Village, a beautifully ornate venue in a converted Temple dating back to the 1800's. This description of the center was taken from it's website www.orensanz.org:

The Center itself is a neo-gothic building which was designed as a synagogue in 1849 by Berlin architect Alexander Seltzer. He drew inspiration for his design from the cathedral of Cologne and the German romantic movement of Heinrich Heine and Beethoven.

This structure witnessed the birth of the Jewish reform movement in America, but the after the decay of the Yiddish Lower East Side after World War II, dozens of synagogues and other significant structures disappeared.

Angel Orensanz bought this venerable structure in 1986, first for his own studio, and then to make it again a beacon of education and culture in the city of New York. The Foundation produces every year several cultural events such the Heinrich Heine Festival, the West Belfast-New York City Festival, Berlin Transfer (a symposium of philosophers and scientists with the Senate of Berlin), the Installation Art Award and publishes Artscape, a quarterly of the arts.

I got a sense of the history of this building while standing accross the street before the show and gazing at the structure, which seems somewhat out of place in the Village.

This set the scene for a beautiful intimate appearance by a band that usually plays at venues seating ten times this place. Only 300 people were at each of these two shows (they also played 12/28/08). The only way you could aquire tickets to these shows was if you were a ticket holder for the Govt Mule New Year's Eve Hammerstein Ballroom shows. I was lucky enough, once again, to have great friends who were able to provide me with a ticket to this amazing show. Warren started out on sweet solo acoustic on Glory Road and Affair On 8th Avenue before he was joined by Drummer Matt Abts, new bassist Jorgen Carlsson, and Keyboardist Danny Louis in the middle of Broken Promised Land. The rest of the set was electric rockin' Govt Mule. The second set had a similar start with Haynes playing solo acoustic on Hallelujah. The band joined him for the remainder. Here's the complete setlist:

SET 1
Glory Road, Affair On 8th Avenue, Broken Promised Land, Get Behind The Mule, I'll Be The One w/ Blue Sky Jam, Afro Blue, Bus Stop, About A Girl

SET 2
Hallelujah, The Shape Im In, I Believe To My Soul, Don't Let It Bring You Down, It Hurts Me Too, Drums, Child Of The Earth, Sugaree, Thorazine Shuffle
ENCORE:
Forevermore, Where Did You Sleep Last Night

High points for me (no pun intended) were I'll Be The One with a really sweet Blue Sky Jam which hopefully is a sign of things to come with the Allman Brothers Band poised to take the Beacon Theatre over for at least ten nights (on sale already), and promising to have more "special guests" than ever before in celebration of their 40th Anniversary; to some this is code for Dickey Betts - who knows...maybe. Coltrane's Jazz standard Afro Blue was hot. The Hollies Bus Stop was a nice surprise and well done. The second set was great with standouts of Neil Young's Don't Let It Bring You Down suiting Warren just fine, Ellmore James' Blues Classic It Hurts Me Too, an awesome Drum solo by Matt Abts, who's an animal, and a sweet Sugaree, also foreshadowing the upcoming Dead Spring Tour in which Haynes will be on board of course.


All this on top of the venue being one of the most beautiful places, architecturally, that I've ever seen. This was truly a wonderful show in a really incredible setting. Prime Govt Mule.

Download the show from bt.etree.org here.

Note: Photos were taken by me and you can view more pictures at my new Flickr Account Here. Please if you like them let me know.