The 2006 Tour was highlighted by new unreleased songs, great returns of old songs, reworked song structures, exciting venue runs, and memorable guest performances.
New unreleased songs that the band had been working on in the studio were all brought out early in the tour, some of them featuring Dave on a Veillette soprano 12-string "tiny" guitar.
The Idea of You led the pack as the featured new song with the most performances.
Can't Stop was literally written on the road and grew extensively through constant playing.
Break Free was another feature new song that received steady play and detailed refinement.
Shotgun, while played sparsely at first, received a lot of structural work during soundchecks to make it a steady feature towards the end of the tour.
Kill The King, while featuring intense and refined musical arrangements, was only played 7 times before it was removed from rotation at the quarter mark of the tour. The tour also featured a Dave's new solo number titled
Sister as a frequent first encore slot.
The most noticeable highlight of this tour was the participation of
Rashawn Ross as a full-time performer who together with Roi formed an impressive horn section that added a new life of flavor to a large number of both new and old songs. Many guests on horns got a chance to play with the horn section, including long time band collaborator
John D'Earth and saxophone deity
Jeff Coffin. The band also got a chance to reunite with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones at
Randall's Island. After years of separation, DMB and the Flecktones played their 28 minute epic
#41 (Sojourn of Arjuna) and marveled the audience on other songs as well.
Warren Haynes also guested with the band, shining once again on the classic
Cortez the Killer. Ultimately, it was
Robert Randolph who was the prevailing highlight guest, as he has been on the last two tours DMB has done. His performances with DMB expanded the kindred connection of musical collaboration that has formed between them with new participation on
Two Step,
You Might Die Trying, and an improvised lead-in to
Louisiana Bayou.
The tour also featured many triumphant long-time returns. The long anticipated return of
JTR happened a month before the tour started at the
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival after mysteriously not being played for
nearly five years. Among the other long time returns were
Raven,
Pay for What You Get,
The Dreaming Tree,
The Last Stop,
Proudest Monkey,
Digging a Ditch,
Sleep to Dream Her,
So Right, and
Big Eyed Fish.
Joyride also made a brief but steady return to the delight of fans who were afraid that it was permanently shelved after not making the cut on the last album.
Some frequently played songs from the last few tours were also noticeably missing:
Hello Again,
Stand Up,
Old Dirt Hill (Bring That Beat Back),
Out of My Hands, and
Everybody Wake Up (Our Finest Hour Arrives)were among the newer songs missing from rotation.
Sugar Will and
Crazy-Easy were also missing, alluding to the possibility that they may have been permanently shelved after not making the cut on the last album.
The tour also featured some very memorable venues.
Topping their tour off in home town
Charlottesville's new John Paul Jones Arena was a fitting end to a tour where their travels included a double-night return to
Randall's Island Park, a performance in the
Hollywood Bowl, a return to
Shoreline Amphitheatre, and a two night run in none other than America's oldest ballpark,
Fenway Park, where they played two very memorable shows that ended up being released live.
Among other notable surprises:
The Stone found itself a rarity,
only being played once.
All Along The Watchtower was only played three times, and did not debut until
nine shows before the tour's end. Both
Pig and
So Right enjoyed several
encore slots.
What You Are, usually a steady slotter on tour, only came out 4 times,
only one of which was a slot (encore).
#40 was played full band the
second night at Deer Creek after Dave made a promise to the audience
the night before following a heavy tease. The band returned to expanding on
Loving Wings with the help of interpolative magic from Rashawn.
If I Had It All,
Dreamgirl, and
You Might Die Trying all received structural changes.
Stay (Wasting Time) found itself as the premier
encore song, ending out one third of all shows.
Also to note, the following show did not receive any official show poster: Scranton 7/5