Live Oak, FL’s Hulaween music festival came to a close last night, with current New York buzz band Geese headlining the day’s festivities. As is tradition, event co-founders The String Cheese Incident served as the weekend’s host band, turning in three full, career-spanning shows on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The band’s Saturday Hulaween engagement has grown into a collaborative moment, where they partner with another notable act for a special “incident,” and this time the Colorado-bred group shared the stage with guitarist Warren Haynes. The two acts have a long history dating back to the 1999 Summer Session tour, where String Cheese and Haynes’ Gov’t Mule were both part of a traveling festival comprised of then new and emerging jam and roots acts.
Billed as The Warren Haynes Incident, Saturday’s collaborative set focused mostly on the guitarist’s long tenure with The Allman Brothers Band but also nodded to his myriad other projects. The segment kicked off with the ABB staple “Whipping Post” and then moved into the Allman’s biggest hit “Ramblin’ Man,” which the Brothers stopped playing live after Dickey Betts left in 2000. On Saturday, SCI bassist Keith Moseley handled lead vocals on the tune, which Haynes has only performed in concert on select occasions during the past 26 years, like a February 25, 2025, Betts tribute show in Macon, GA. From there, Haynes helped lead String Cheese through Allman staples “Melissa,” “Statesboro Blues” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” the latter of which segued into the Santana-adopted Fleetwood Mac classic “Black Magic Woman.” String Cheese Incident had only played the number one other time, at the same festival in 2013, though Haynes has performed it with Gov’t Mule as recently as December 31, 2023.
From there, they moved into the SCI repertoire for the String Cheese version of Talking Heads’ “Swamp,” with keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth on vocals, and then offered an unexpected segue from the Grateful Dead’s “Eyes of The World,” a nod to Haynes’ years trafficking in that world, into his signature original “Soulshine,” which he’s long since worked into most of his regular acts’ setlists. “Southbound,” with Haynes and SCI guitarist Bill Nershi sharing vocals, brought the segment to a close. Leaning into the weekend’s Halloween theme, costume-clad dancers also joined them during the Talking Heads cover and the members of SCI dressed as zombies throughout the night. Also of note, SCI drummer Michael Travis focused on percussion for the set while SCI percussionist Jason Hann sat behind the kit.
The collaborations continued the following day during String Cheese’s final Hulaween show. After opening the day’s mainstage festivities with his jamband Taper’s Choice, Vampire Weekend drummer Chris Tomson joined String Cheese Incident for the segue between Talking Heads’ “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” into the String Cheese original “Just One Story.”
Tomson, who grew up on String Cheese Incident’s music, has sported their t-shirt on stage and Hollingsworth joined Taper’s Choice at Boulder, CO’s Fox Theatre for “Darkness on the Edge of Midtown,” a bust out of String Cheese’s “Elijah” and Traffic’s “Empty Pages” last year. Sunday headliner Geese also opened for Vampire Weekend on the road before they grew into big-stage headliners themselves.
String Cheese Incident’s Just Keep Spinning tour continues at Red Bank, NJ’s Count Basie Center for the Arts tomorrow while Haynes will host his Christmas Jam in Asheville, NC on December 13. Taper’s Choice will perform at Atlanta’s The Earl tomorrow.
