Gov’t Mule Welcomes Drive-By Truckers Guitarists For Classic Rock Covers In Jamaica

Gov’t Mule’s Island Exodus 15 performance on Monday at Jewel Paradise Cove Resort in Runaway Bay, Jamaica saw the band welcoming members of Drive-By Truckers, among others. The destination event performers teamed for a pair of classic rock covers from Neil Young and ZZ Top.

Gov’t Mule — guitarist/vocalist Warren Haynes, drummer Matt Abts, multi-instrumentalist Danny Louis and bassist Kevin Scott — launched the concert with “Same As It Ever Was” from their most recent studio album, Peace… Like a River. The band returned to their 2023 LP throughout the show, also performing “Made My Peace,” “Shake Our Way Out” and “The River Only Flows One Way.”

The “river” theme continued to kick off the second set, beginning with Neil Young’s “Down by the River.” The song featured Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley on guitar and vocals. Young’s Everybody Knows This is Nowhere cut is a renowned jam vehicle and the Mule/DbT collab stretched their cover past the 11-minute mark. Cooley and Hood stuck around for the ZZ Top blues classic “Jesus Just Left Chicago.”

The penultimate song of the second set came in the form of John Scofield’s “Hottentot,” which featured Adam November from Karina Rykman‘s band on guitar. Mule went it alone to seal the set with “Mr. Man.”

As was the case on Sunday, Mule also welcomed Big Sugar’s Gordie Johnson. Johnson emerged for the encore on Monday and added steel guitar to “Traveling Tune,” off Gov’t Mule’s 2016 record Revolution Come…Revolution Go.

Gordie then handled lead vocals and guitar for a reggae take on the Otis Redding classic “Hard to Handle,” which also featured The Sugar Cubists backing vocalists. Mule last played “Hard to Handle” on New Year’s Eve 2002 for a massive gap of 1558 shows. “Hard to Handle” was the biggest bust out temporally, in a show that saw several breakouts, and sealed Gov’t Mule’s second Island Exodus 15 performance.

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