Today we look back to January 18, 2006…

Grace Potter, Ron Holloway Run with Derek Trucks

The Derek Trucks Bands winter outing is in full swing and with a new batch of dates comes a new batch of special guests. On most nights since hitting the road earlier this month, Trucks has invited out a surprise friend, including Sundays performance in Morgantown, WV. While recording an appearance on the Mountain Stage Radio Show, Trucks invited the Mountain Stage House Band out for an encore of Honey What’s Wrong with You. A night earlier, in North Bethesda, MD, frequent Allman Brothers Band collaborator Ron Holloway augmented the Derek Trucks Band on saxophone for a number of compositions including To Know You Is To Love You, Everything Is Everything, Spirit In The Dark and the encore of Hook & Sling. Finally, Friday night at Connecticuts Ridgefield Playhouse Grace Potter added vocals to a rousing version of Spirit In The Dark. Throughout the entire weekend, Count M’butu also played percussion with the Derek Trucks Band, as he has quite regularly in the past few months. The Derek Trucks Band plays next on January 19 at Cleveland, OH s Odeon Concert Club.

RAQ Readies for the Road

After spending some time working on its next studio release, RAQ will return to the road for a handful of club dates later this month. Beginning Friday with a two-night stand at Portland, MEs The Big Easy, RAQ will breeze through the northeast, before dipping down to Florida for a February 25 appearance at the Culture Room. While the quartet promises additional dates in the coming weeks, it has confirmed that its tour will conclude with a crusher evening with appearance at South Burlington, VTs Higher Ground on March 11. Also, on Friday, be sure to checkout keyboardist Todd Stoops reflections in the next edition of our 2005 Year End Retrospective.

Steel Train Bay State Bookends

Upcoming Jambands.com New Groove of the Month, Steel Train, has confirmed a series of shows that will begin and end in the state of Massachusetts. The first gig will take place next Wednesday January 25 at TT The Bear’s Place in Cambridge and route through the northeast before concluding on February 11 back in Mass. at Bostons Paradise. A few weeks later the group will perform three shows in the Midwest for the North Mississippi Allstars, and beyond that will appear at the Langerado Music Festival in March.

Soulive, AOD and TLG Down with Snoe.

As we’ve previously reported, moe. will host Snoe.down on March 17-19 in Lake Placid, NY. One new wrinkle is that the group will perform an outdoor set on the afternoon of March 18. In addition, moe. has announced some of the other artists who will participate in the festival, including: Soulive, Assembly of Dust, Tea Leaf Green, Gordon Stone, Dread Clampitt and Ryan Montbleau. Additional details are now available at the official Snoe.down site, while moe. opens its winter tour tomorrow night at the Orpheum in Boston.

U-Melt 300

Starting later this month, U-Melt will trek up and down the east coast. U-Melt will begin its winter tour on January 28 in Boston at the Paradise, opening for Strangefolk. From here the band will perform two more northeast dates before traveling south for shows that will extend through February. The third night of the tour at La Cocina in Pittsfield, Massachusetts will mark U-Melts 300th performance (and it is quite possible that the group will mark the occasion in a celebratory manner).