Widespread Panic: Live At Myrtle Beach : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

What is the point of an official live album when every onstage note played by Widespread Panic is surely out there already, making the rounds of the faithful in downloads or on CD-R? Well, we find out what the band considers a good night -- or in this case, half a night. These two CDs are just the second-set-with-encores from a November 2003 show in South Carolina; still there is renewal and promise aplenty. Widespread Panic were nearing the end of their first year on tour without guitarist Michael Houser, who died of cancer in 2002. But new guitarist George McConnell steps out with fire on slide in the long spin through Robert Johnson's "Stop Breakin' Down Blues." And the wide-open starlight of "Dirty Business," a cover from the first New Riders of the Purple Sage album, shows the Panic both deeply connected to the Sixties California-ballroom ideal and eager to go up and out -- where there are no roads.