EVENT PREVIEW
SweetWater 420 Festival
Who: Snoop Dogg, 311, the Wailers, Primus, Thievery Corporation, Cage the Elephant, Slightly Stoopid, Moe., Gov't Mule, Beats Antique, Cold War Kids, Aer, Big Data, the Floozies, Anders Osborne, the Revivalists, Delta Rae, Wood Brothers, Kyle Hollingsworth Band, Marc Broussard, the London Souls, Red Wanting Blue, March Fourth Marching Band, Stokeswood.
Gov't Mule will take the main stage at 6:05 p.m. April 18. Visit www.sweetwater420fest.com for other bands' set times as well as lineups for the Not-So-Silent Disco and the Relapse 420 Comedy Tent.
When: 3-11 p.m. April 17; 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. April 18; 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. April 19.
Where: Centennial Olympic Park, 265 Park Ave. W. N.W., Atlanta. www.sweetwater420fest.com.
Cost: General admission wristbands are $42 per day; a three-day general admission wristband is $75; VIP "Big Fish" wristbands are $115 per day; a three-day VIP "Big Fish" wristband is $265. Children under 10 are free with a wristbanded adult. Anyone 10 and older requires a wristband. All patrons under 17 must be accompanied by an adult 25 or older.
Warren Haynes has been playing guitar in the Allman Brothers Band for 25 years and has led Gov’t Mule for two decades.
He’s also played with the Dead, his own the Warren Haynes Band and, of late, been a performer in the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration.
That almost certainly makes him the hardest-working guitarist in show business. But it also fulfills him musically.
“I think each project I’m involved with allows me to express myself a little differently and expose different parts of my musical personality, which I really enjoy,” Haynes said in a recent phone interview. “I think most musicians, if they had a complaint it would be that they don’t have a way to express the different parts of themselves. I don’t have that complaint.”
Having played with the Garcia Celebration last August and the half-dozen Allman Brothers farewell shows at New York's Beacon Theater in late October, Haynes now has Gov't Mule back on the road. The band will take the main stage at the SweetWater 420 Fest at 6:05 p.m. April 18.
The band’s current “20 Years Strong” tour is in support of “Shout!,” Gov’t Mule’s new critically acclaimed two-CD release. The first disc is made up of some of the band’s best Southern jam rock tracks yet. The second is comprised of the same songs featuring a lineup of guest vocalists that includes Elvis Costello, Dr. John, Grace Potter and Steve Winwood.
The singers recorded their takes on the songs with Gov’t Mule playing behind them. So did those versions change the way Haynes, who sings the Gov’t Mule versions, looks at the songs?
“It changed the way I look back at the songs for the future,” he said. “I’d already recorded my versions before any of them came in. Hearing what they did influenced the songs, the way we do them live — in each case.”
Haynes, who’s known as a guitarist, has, over the years, become a very effective singer, delivering gruff, expressive vocals that perfectly fit the Mule’s music.
“I started singing before I started playing guitar, at a very early age, 7 or 8,” he said. “My voice, I think, has gotten better over the years, and it’s the best it’s ever been now. It’s like any muscle, the more you use it, the better it gets and the stronger it gets. The best thing for me is to sing as much as possible.”
That do-it-as-much-as-possible approach also applies to guitar, said Haynes, whom Rolling Stone magazine ranked at No. 23 on its list of the 100 best guitarists of all time.
“You play much better as a guitar player when you’ve been on the road for months and are playing night after night,” he said. “If you take time away, your calluses shrink and you have to build them back up, which is not an easy process.”
The odds are good that a song or two from “Shout!” will be on the Mule’s set list each night. But Haynes said there’s always the chance that none will get included as the band, which also includes drummer Matt Abts, keyboardist Danny Louis and bassist Andy Hess, tries to never play the same set twice.
“One of the reasons we do a different set list every night is to try to stay inspired,” he said. “Part of the whole concept of changing the set is to keep that inspiration going by playing songs you haven’t played in a while. That freshness helps you forget what you may have played before and play a new part.”
Two decades into his run with Gov’t Mule, Haynes said he’d like to see his band last as long as the Allman Brothers, which marked 45 years before calling it a day in October.
“I sure hope so,” he said. “There’s no way of predicting, but I know the 20 years we’ve done have been wonderful. We always enjoy playing together musically and personally. We’re really happy to be going back out and playing. We really are.”
