THE MASQUERADE • ATLANTA, GA
October 15, 1998
Reviewed and contributed by Carl Schulze
Checked email before I left for the 8 hour drive to Atlanta to find out the show had been moved from the Tabernacle to the smaller Masquerade (with the wooden trampoline second floor ;). After arrivin' and checkin' into the hotel I drove around *tryin* to follow some directions only to find out I had been looking for the wrong "North Ave." Called the Masquerade and finding out where it's at, went back to the hotel to kick back for a while. Got to the venue a lil after 7 to find out the doors hadn't opened yet so I hung around, and bs'ed with some other Gov't Mule fans. The doors finally opened at around 8:15 and Flight 16 came on a lil after that. Was really impressed with the kickass groove they had goin' throughout their half hour or so set. Then they left the stage to make way for the Mule. This bein' Atlanta, plenty of GM fans were in attendance. Warren, Woody, & Matt came out and proceeded to blow us all away (nothing new there). Got Woody's setlist at the end: Blind Man In The Dark, Larger Than Life, Temporary Saint, Thorazine Shuffle, Life Before Insanity (where Allen brought out the double-neck bass/mandolin), Painted Silver Light, and Wandering Child. Life and Wandering sound even better the 2nd time. Finally the Mule bid farewell and the stage got setup for JC and Co.
By this time it was starting to get warm in there as everyone started packin' in towards the stage. Eventually the lights went down and the band emerged from both sides of the stage to plenty of cheers. Not much of a difference in the setlist from the previous shows. For bein' a Jerry Cantrell show, I tended to get the feeling a majority of the crowd was there to hear AIC songs rather than Boggy Depot. Later on in their set an older lady, in her 40's or maybe even 50's, got lifted up above the crowd a yard or so in front of him, wavin' to him with a huge smile on her face, put a lil grin on his face. Before the rest of the band came out for the encore, Jerry comes nonchalantly walking out smoking a cigarette and says "What the hell's goin' on out here?!", curious as to what all the noise was about ;) After seemingly beating the living hell out his set during Brain Damage/Eclipse, as the others were leaving the stage, Sean went up to Jerry's mike and started stomping on some of his effects (makin' some rockin sounds), announced that that was his guitar solo, and then that was it for them for the night. Seemed Nick was a lil more active last nite than he was during the gig with Metallica in West Palm Beach. Also Sean always gets shoved to the back of the stage, but at least he got well lit up. All in all a pretty rockin' show.
