Review: Wednesday in the Park w/ Mule

Four general observations from a beautifully hot night in the Park:

1. Band member that’s grown the most in the last two years? Well, Jorgen, obviously: dude had a steep learning curve and the most to lose with the Mule faithful if he couldn’t get it right. But listen to tapes of Jorgen’s playing even a year ago versus now, and you feel his confidence as much as hear it. He doesn’t merely find pockets with Matt Abts or underpin songs, he courses through them, and makes the Mule sound even heavier than before, without sounding any more labored. That rippling bass line you hear at the beginning of Mule before Warren plays a note? That rumbling intro to Broke Down On the Brazos? That punctuation in some of the twistier moments in Blind Man in the Dark? That’s Jorgen saying, “I’m here.”

2. Cover songs are a fact of life in the Mule-iverse, and in any band featuring Warren Haynes. The man loves a good song, loves the look of that song through a Mule prism, and loves the feel of that song under his nasty – sicker than ever, really – guitar chops.

It can be a bit much, at times, though, so, happily, what we’ve seen recently from Mule is a return to choosing covers with greater care: less for the fun value, more for their possibilities when applied an ample coat of the Mule’s blues-strained gravitas. Sir Elton’s Madman Across the Water, a longtime Haynes favorite played by Mule for only the second time in 2010 and only the third since 2002, has this quality, as does the recently debuted version of Lennon’s Working Class Hero. Played, fittingly, in Central Park, Hero was spellbinding, elevated by Warren’s haunted delivery and with a jagged, frosty solo from Jimmy Vivino.

On the flipside, I can do entirely without Mule’s version of The Shape I’m In: oddly-paced, knotted and strangely trudging. The band puts a psychedelic sheen on it (and, with Danny Louis’ trumpet, a Dixieland one, too), but it still sounds like a failed experiment, not at all convincing that we needed another version of this oft-covered song.

3. By A Thread is Mule’s strongest collection of original material in a while, which makes it all the more surprising how little the band actually messes with it. Granted, as a band, you crave audience familiarity with the new stuff. But BAT’s most frequently played songs – Any Open Window, Steppin’ Lightly, and especially Brazos and Railroad Boy, played at every show – are coming dangerously close to overexposure, with little variation in how they’re explored. With the exception of Inside Outside Woman Blues – toyed with by Warren using some of the most unhurried, sinewy progressions I’ve heard from him in a while — none of the BAT songs revealed any different shades in Central Park.

We dig the songs, guys; throw us the types of Mulean curveballs you’ve conditioned us to expect. Play those songs like you played Temporary Saint and Larger Than Life at this show: well-worn Mule staples served up in their familiar arrangements, yes, but played with a balance of terror and resignation and dynamics that emphasized every bit of portent. For the BAT stuff, I want to hear more “in” these songs, not more “of” them.

4. As a lover of meaningful sit-ins, the argument that Mule brings in too many guests is something I don’t quite agree with, but do understand. The right guests – and Mule can pick ‘em – push the band harder; for the most part, they don’t take over the conversation but they’re not garnish, either, and they’re collaborators instead of extra, wedged-in solos.

That’s a skill, meaningful sit-ins, and Mule displayed it five times in the course of a two and a half hour show: the protean Bill Evans emerging, unannounced, for a moody solo at the end of Madman; Evans and guitarist Oz Noy laying waste to Sco-Mule and gamely joining Warren and Danny for a little pass-the-baton; the always-welcome Vivino injecting himself in subtly brilliant ways in Working Class Hero; Evans, again, turning what’s usually a formality – the end of Mule – into an acid-jazz eruption; and finally, with Vivino and Jackie Greene, a stunning Morning Dew finale, quaking with drama. The one that didn’t do it for me was J.T. Thomas’ flavorful, but grafted-on solo during Lively Up Yourself, which just went on too long. But to juggle that many guests without a loss of pace in such a short amount of time? Spot-on.

If there’s perhaps a single takeaway, it’s this: the Mule’s firing on all cylinders right now, musically and professionally, so don’t sleep on them. Especially since they recently announced that 2011 will be a light year of touring for the band. But given the high bar they’re setting, asking for even more doesn’t seem unreasonable. This version of Mule isn’t even close to hitting its full potential, and that’s a compliment.

SET: Blind Man in the Dark, Steppin’ Lightly, Broke Down On the Brazos, The Shape I’m In, Temporary Saint, Madman Across the Water*, Patchwork Quilt, Larger Than Life, Sco-Mule**, No Need to Suffer, Working Class Hero^, Inside Outside Woman Blues, Any Open Window > drums, Railroad Boy

E: Lively Up Yourself^^, Mule > Whole Lotta Love > Mule*

E2: Morning Dew^#

* with Bill Evans (tenor sax)

** with Bill Evans (tenor sax), Oz Noy (guitar); “Oye Como Va” tease

^ with Jimmy Vivino (guitar, harmony vocals)

^^ with JT Thomas (organ)

# with Jackie Greene (keys/vocals)