Widespread Panic Takes The House For Second Straight Night In Las Vegas [Photos/Videos]

Saturday night, antes doubled, and Widespread Panic didn’t flinch. As the road-hardened vets continued the process of recontextualizing their material with Nick Johnson filling in for recuperating guitar wizard Jimmy Herring, Johnson continued to cash in on at the high-stakes table of The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.

Dave Schools eased into an opening “Wondering” before John Bell pulled an early ace from his sleeve: a cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”. Johnson anchored ensuing originals “Little by Little” and “Blue Carousel” with hot-handed solos. JB and keyboardist JoJo Hermann collaborated on a call-and-response section (“Love and joy”) to close the latter tune, which was born from an unfinished Michael Houser melody.

Without coming up for air, the band pushed into the percussive pulse of “Rock”, giving JB his first chance of the night to showcase his slide guitar skills. Schools broke the silence with fIREHOSE’s “Sometimes” (“But now April’s turning to May”) for the first time since last year’s Atlantic City finale. “That was a fIREHOSE tune that we used to listen to in the van,” JB quipped when the tune was finished…

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