With the opening notes of ‘John The Revelator,’ Gov’t Mule powered into its three night New Year’s Eve stand at New York’s Beacon Theater. The two sets of music spanned the group’s career, including familiar covers such as ‘Revelator.’ In addition, the group welcomed Sonny Landreth on guitar for ‘Out of the Rain’ and ’32-20 Blues,’ as well as two songs associated with Little Feat, ‘Spanish Moon’ and ‘On Your Way Down’ (Lowell George wrote the former although the latter is a Allen Toussaint composition). Keyboardist Brian Mitchell also performed on ’32-20 Blues’ while Deep Banana Blackout’s Bryan Smith and Rob Somerville added horns to ‘Down And Out In New York City’ and the Feat material (DBB’s Cyrus Madden sat in for ‘Spanish Moon’ as well).

The band will return to the Beacon tonight and tomorrow with the Wednesday performance vested with a bit of classic Wetlands feel as the Spin Doctors will open the show and a ‘mystery guest’- an additional significant figure from the club’s initial era and a friend of both bands- is slated to appear and perform.