We Love 'Em Tonight (Live at Tipitina's)
New Orleans musicians have a long-standing tradition--no doubt brought on by the need to fill up that fourth set of the evening--of playing unlikely covers that end up transcending the original hits. TheMetersdid it with "Wichita Lineman."Irma Thomasdid it with "Wind Beneath My Wings." And Galactic set out to do it on this live collection, peppering their homecoming concert with groove-laden covers torn from the songbooks ofDuke Ellington("Blue Pepper"),Allen Toussaint("Working in a Coal Mine"),Chocolate Milk("My Mind Is Hazy"), and evenBlack Sabbath("Sweet Leaf"). While those tracks earn points for novelty and eclecticism, the keepers here are unreleased originals like "Moog Marmalade" (think vintage Meters funk with lots of modal sax and analog synth tossed in for good measure) and fan favorites like "Two Clowns," which is arguably Galactic's most interesting song to date. The album is not without its excesses (the 90-seconds of applause baiting at the end of "Lumpology" wears thin quickly), but New Orleans's answer toMedeski Martin & Woodwouldn't have earned their place in the jam-band pantheon without an implicit understanding that anything worth doing is worth overdoing.--Bill Forman