Live at Roseland Ballroom by Gov't Mule (CD, Oct-1996, Foundation Records)

Earlier this century, there was an Internet entity that ruled my world. It allowed me free access to hundreds of thousands of bands and songs that otherwise I might never hear, or worse, never even find out about. I must have downloaded six, seven thousand songs. Some of these were just nice, clean copies of music I already had on Vinyl, tape or CD but some of this was stuff I was interested in buying but wanted to hear first. At that point in my life ( I was 46 years old at the turn of the century) I was tired of buying a CD to learn I liked 1 or 2 songs. At this point I'd like to mention that right now I have over 8,000 LP's, CD's, 45's and tapes. So I didn't feel bad at all about using Napster as I did not feel as if I was abusing it. I was able to find out what exactly I liked and then I went out and bought it.
One of the bands I downloaded was Gov't Mule. I got their version of Steppenwolf's 'Don't Step On The Grass, Sam', one of the first and greatest ever songs about pot and freedom ever recorded. Warren Haynes absolutely owned this song and I wanted to own the CD. Guess what? I couldn't find a copy to purchase anywhere at any price. In the meantime I bought several other Mule items, including a live endeavour they did called Blue Floyd that had Matt and Woody doing a bunch of Pink Floyd tunes!! Last December, 2005 I joined the eBay community, not just to sell some of my music that I've transferred to digital files and then made CD copies of but also to search and find some of the great stuff I was having trouble getting here. Charleston SC has some great record stores and some very knowledgable people working in them (Clay at 52.5, Ray and Meredith at Cat's, Aaron and Galen at Monster) but this CD was beyond their reach. Then, one day, I remembered to look for it on eBay and lo and behold there it was !! :-) !! Oh happy day! I lost the bid. :-( Then I was given a Second Chance offer at it (still sealed) and of course I took it. This is not a case of where the chase is better than the catch. This is a great CD, the birth of the Mule, if you will, LIVE on New Years Eve. Now if there only existed a DVD of that evening! Knowing the Mule, it would proly be a triple set.
Well, this is my story of the chase and catch. It worked for me...