WERS 88.9 fm Event Wrap-Up: The Allman Brothers

September 1^st, 2009

Following a solid two hour performance by Widespread Panic, The Allman Brothers took the stage at Mansfield Mass' Comcast Center to give their audience a raw exhibit of guitar-based rock and blues that featured five-star guitar interplay between the Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, the Allman Brothers tag-team duo, and Jimmy Herring, the ace up Panic's sleeve. Both Herring and Haynes have shredded with the Allman Brothers, and played guitar with the surviving members of The Grateful Dead, while  Trucks, the Youngest of the three, has been on the road since he was a child, first sitting in with uncle Butch Trucks in the Allman Brothers, and aside from fronting The Derek Trucks Band, has toured as Eric Clapton's sideman . Haynes' time with the band goes back to the days when former Allmans guitarist Dickey Betts was still with the group, and Trucks came into the picture after Betts' was fired following  very public falling-out. But in 2009, the Haynes/Trucks guitar duo has been touring as the six-string component of the Allman Brothers for almost a decade, and having a player like Jimmy Herring introduced into their environment effectively summoned the inner-rock god of everyone on stage, demonstrating one more time why the Allman's are considered to be one of the finest guitar-based act on the road today.

 They opened with "Don't Want You No More," and soon segued into the fan favorite, "Midnight Rider," but it wasn't until the Allman's welcomed Panic bassist Dave Schools to the stage during, "Dreams," that the groups improvisational tendencies really took flight.

Both Haynes and Trucks are considered to be a players player, a  guy who can sit in with any act and hold their own accordingly. Having spent the summer playing lead guitar for The Dead, Warren Haynes is a guy whose comfortable filling the shoes of both Duane Allman and Jerry Garcia. As for Trucks, his time on the road with Eric Clapton must have helped him hone his craft, but he didn't need to. Aside from obvious influences like Duana Allman, Trucks is known for playing with his fingers, with an arm curled around the front of his guitar, while his head hang in a Zen-like state, creating a hybrid sound of the Southern slide and the Indian sitar.

As Schools left the stage, he was replaced by Panic front man/vocalist John Bell, who took the spotlight during a cover of Blind Faith's, "Can't Find My Way Home." The tune was a solid fit seeing as Bell performs the song on the reg with Panic, and the Allman Brothers have been known to play a variety of Eric Clapton songs due to the close relationship  Clapton had with the late Duane Allman. Duane Allman worked with Clapton on Derek & The Domino's classic album, Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs, even performing the slide guitar solo on "Layla," so following their romp through "Statesboro Blues," The Allman Brothers drove the Clapton connection home with a cover of Derek & The Dominos', "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?"

As the set moved forward, the Allman's inaugurated the night's "Mountain Jam," eventually giving way to a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused" which came to a close with a bass duel between the Allmans' Oteil Burbridge and Dave Schools. After the bass-off came to a climax, the group brought "Mountain Jam" to a close, following up with an encore of "Whipping Post," a tune that more than any other has come to be known as their signature jam.

Over the past few years, rumors have circulated that due to Greg Allman's health, The Allman Brother's would cease touring, and with time and age pressing forward, this couldn't be that far from possible. But if one was to judge the validity of these rumors solely based on the group's performance in Mansfield, the only logical conclusion to reach was that this band still has a full tank of gas, and a trick or two up its sleeve.

-Words and photos by Andrew Bruss