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Saw The Dixie Dregs Last Night


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The trip to Center Stage in downtown Atlanta was smooth.  Traffic slowed down to 10 miles per hour on Interstate 85, but never came to a complete stop.  The plan was to arrive early, park, and find food.  There was a fairly long line at 5:30 for the 8:00 PM show which turned out to be the line for the meet and greet.  When asking about restaurants in the area people kept talking about a high priced Thai restaurant nearby.  Hoping to avoid the high price I found a pizza place that cost over $20 with the tip. 

Before the show a guy sat in front of me that several people seemed to know.  It turns out he is the stage manager for Mother's Finest.  Mother's Finest played a German festival with Deep Purple in the past several months, so he wanted to see more of what Steve Morse could do.  There was also a tall skinny guy with rock and roll hair.  He looked sort of familiar as he walked around talking to a lot of people.  He waived to the Mother's Finest guy who in turn told me who the tall blonde guy was Sheryl Crowe's guitar player.  I said, "Peter Stroud!"  Yep.  I knew I had seen that guy somewhere. 

The original lineup of The Dixie Dregs played Augusta, GA the night before.  That was where Steve Morse and Andy West began their musical adventures in a group called The Dixie Grits.  A friend was there on front row, and he told me that two members of The Dixie Grits joined the Dregs on one song.  There were no such surprises in Atlanta.  At 8:13 they hit the stage for the sold out show at Center Stage.  I was thrilled to be there, and thrilled by what I experienced. 

Steve Morse and Rod Morgenstein are always playing professionally.  Before the show someone who knew Rod's drum tech talked with a member of the crew who said Steve, Rod, and Andy were playing absolutely perfect.  I thought Allen Sloan and Steve Davidowski were on top of things, too, even though they have not been on the road for years. 

Every time Steve Morse came through my area years ago he left everyone amazed.  Sometimes he would show up and do a solo gig.  Sometimes it was the Steve Morse Band.  A reformed Dixie Dregs had a tour date nearby, but I would have travelled to see them anyway.  We got a lot of Steve Morse shows before he joined Deep Purple.  Now his shows are far between.  The last time The Steve Morse Band put out a new album and did a tour was 2009 which is too long ago. 

Steve used his signature Music Man two of his signature Engl amps.  He also used his Buscarino nylon string acoustic/electric.  I was too far away from the stage to see everything, but it looked like Andy West used what I think is the Geoff Gould 5 string shown on his web site.  There was an Alembic on a stand that was never used. 

I was starved for a Morse/Dregs show and got exactly what I wanted to see last night.  The tour continues through April.  I did not bother to write down the setlist, but it seemed consistent with what I had seen online with possibly a couple of variances. 

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I was really excited to hear they would be playing.  Long ago on a trip to Paris, I bought about 20-25 CD's that you couldn't get in the US at the Virgin MegaStore.  It was a lot of Gary Moore and Saxon, and the entire Dixie Dregs catalog. Unfortunately they did not come anywhere close for me to see them.

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                                    I saw the original lineup Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day..................amazing then and they STILL are! I have the original LP "The  Great Spectacular" also the rare CD version signed by all the original band members. Lucky you got to see them !.:)

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Saw them at the Great Southern Music Hall in Orlando three different times.  Won't see this tour.  Couldn't make Ponte Vedra Beach show.  Was happy to see Eric Johnson last Friday.  "Distant Star" is one of my favorite collaborations every.  Steve and Eric.... 

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  • 1 month later...

Last night I went to Atlanta again to see the final show of the Dixie Dregs reunion tour.  It was another sold out show.  The set list only changed slightly, but this time there was a special guest.  Jimmy Herring joined the band for two songs, one of which is a Dregs song that Herring doubled Steve Morse's guitar parts.  When Herring got to solo he was in Steve Morse's league.  His guitar was a PRS that looked sort of like a Strat with two full size humbuckers and a smaller humbucker in the middle.  Someone got a little bit of it on video. 

And here is the setlist.

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On 3/4/2018 at 12:15 PM, Steve Haynie said:

Every time Steve Morse came through my area years ago he left everyone amazed.  Sometimes he would show up and do a solo gig.  Sometimes it was the Steve Morse Band. 

I saw Steve at a comedy club here in Greenville back in the early 90's. It was a solo show, and he totally blew me away. And when I told him so, he simply said "thanks man!". Humble dude and a monster player! Great sense of humor too... At the start of the gig he announced that due to the Milli Vanilli lip sync fiasco, that federal law mandated he inform us that he wasn't actually performing all the instruments being heard, simultaneously. 😂

He had recently released his 'Southern Steel' album when I saw him... 91, or  92?

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I have been a huge Steve/Dregs fan for a long while. I was fortunate enough to see the SMB in quite a few smaller venues along the way. Went to the Dregs Show in Durham, NC last month as well.

This has been my main guitar for travel gigs since I got it. It's a 2005 limited edition in Buttercream. They only made two Morses in this finish that year. The blueburst was not for me-I waited a long time to buy a Morse in a finish that I liked.

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