Bob Weir & Wolf Bros winded though the Southeast with a dip into the Midwest this past week with stops in Nashville, Columbus, Asheville, Chattanooga, and Durham. Accompanied by a string a brass quintet, the band has expanded its musical scope with hat-tricks of sound that take most for a smooth ride with curves and hills.
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| Bob Weir & Wolf Bros |
In Asheville, on a warm, March 24, evening, the city relented and let kids set up Shakedown for a good few hours before the show. Most made it in for the opener where Bobby performed solo acoustic with Dark Star and Bird Song. The Dark Star opener was a completion of the opener from Columbus a few nights earlier.
Jay Lane, Don Was, Jeff Chimenti, and Barry Sless joined Bob Weir along with quintet members Alex Kelly, Brian Switzer, Adam Theis, Mads Tolling and Sheldon Brown for a El Paso > Mexicali Blues that was snappy as tight mariachi brass band, with a pronounced pedal steel mastery by Barry Sless leaving it not hard to imagine there were swinging saloon doors at the entrance to the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium.
First set continued with Bob Weir original, Black-Throated Wind, with Casey Jones then lifting the show back before set break leaving many with energetic anticipation for what the second set had in store.