Review: Warren Haynes at the Lexington Opera House

Warren Haynes at the Opera House: Prior to the last number in this stylistically restless two-and-a-half hour performance, Warren Haynes told a story about his one and only experience playing the Grand Ole Opry. The recollection tied into a finale version of Two of a Kind (Working on a Full House), a 1991 chart-topping hit for Garth Brooks. Haynes explained how a befuddled Nashville fan asked him why he was playing “a Garth song.” The guitarist’s reply was succinct: “Because I wrote it.”

With that, what was once a dose of pop-savvy honky tonk morphed into a blues romp with Haynes’ sweaty guitar lines leading a loose, rootsy charge. That was essentially the game plan for the entire evening. Haynes utilized a progressive Nashville string troupe called ChessBoxer for a largely acoustic Americana backdrop. To that he added drummer Jeff Sipe, a wildly resourceful veteran of numerous jam bands (including the Aquarium Rescue Unit) who provided a flexible and often jazz-like sensibility to the music. Then there was Haynes himself, a solidly electric player who shifted gears regularly according the emotive and stylistic whims of the material.

That proved to be an unending task. While Haynes is still touring in support of his fine 2015 solo album, Ashes & Dust, the concert was essentially a career retrospective covering favorites and obscurities from his lengthy tenures in the Allman Brothers Band (Blue Sky, a revamped Jessica and a wonderful, swing-savvy Instrumental Illness that revolved as much around Royal Massat’s rolling bass lines as Haynes’ leads), his own guitar rich Gov’t Mule band (the mournful odes Banks of the Deep End and No Consolation), the Grateful Dead spinoff unit Phil Lesh and Friends (the Jerry Garcia remembrance Patchwork Quilt) and a few choice covers (a riotous groove-savvy take on Little Feat’s Skin it Back and a suitably cryptic view of Radiohead’s Karma Police).

The Ashes & Dust material, however, set the stage for such time tripping, from Sipe’s jazzy underpinning and Haynes’ hearty slide guitar colors during the show opening Is It Me or You to the coal mining requiem Coal Tattoo that hammered down the often spacious fusion runs by the full company into sheets of sobering, earthy cool.

This story was originally published February 29, 2016 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Review: Warren Haynes at the Lexington Opera House."