Widespread Panic opened its extended fall tour this weekend with a two-night run at Memphis, TNs FedEx Forum. Friday nights festivities featured an opening set by R & B legend Bobby Blue Bland and saw the return of the Bombs & Butterflies cut Glory, which has been dormant since October 17, 2001. On Saturday Mavis Staples opened for Widespread Panic at the venue and joined the group onstage for two selections at the end of its first set. First Staples sang on the Spooner Oldham/Dan Penn song Dark End of the Street, a number Widespread Panic played twice around Halloween 2005, and then she helped the group close its set with a version of Hope in a Hopeless World, a song by Mavis father Roebuck Pops Staples that the band has been covering since 1996. Widespread Panic will begin a multi-night run at Oakland, CAs Paramount Theatre this Thursday.