Article Contributed by L. Paul Mann
Published on 2026-02-23
Warren Haynes | Los Angeles, CA | February 17th, 2026 | photos by L. Paul Mann
Warren Haynes doesn’t walk onstage so much as he settles into a room. On February 17th at the brand-new Blue Note on Sunset Boulevard, there was no arena glare, no festival thunder — just warm light, wood-paneled intimacy, and a guitarist whose tone has carried five decades of American music. The first notes rang out softly, almost conversationally, as if he were testing the air. Within minutes, the club no longer felt new. It felt broken in. It felt lived in. It felt like Warren.
He opened the Los Angeles leg of his Winter of Warren solo tour with two sets — 7:00 PM and 9:30 PM — but what unfolded wasn’t simply a double bill. It was a study in space, restraint, and the kind of emotional authority that doesn’t need volume to make its point.
He began both sets seated with his Guild acoustic, easing into the night with songs that leaned on story and texture rather than force. The early show favored folk-blues depth, including “Indian Sunset” and Gov’t Mule staples like “Gordon James” and “Wine and Blood.” When he moved into “Is It Me or You” from Ashes & Dust, the room seemed to narrow — the kind of moment where you’re reminded how rarely songs are allowed to stand this unguarded.
The shift to electric came gradually. When he strapped on the sunburst Gibson Les Paul, there was no grand gesture, no dramatic cue — just a subtle rise in voltage that changed the temperature of the room. His rendition of U2’s “One” was one of the evening’s surprises, recast not as an anthem but as a slow-burning blues meditation. He found its ache rather than its sweep, pulling the song inward instead of letting it explode outward.
Material from his 2024 solo album Million Voices Whisper — “This Life as We Know It” and “Back Where I Started” — carried that same measured intention. These weren’t songs delivered to impress; they were songs delivered to connect. There’s a difference, and Haynes knows it.
Closing the early set with “End of the Line,” he offered a slide guitar performance that felt almost surgical in its precision. The notes didn’t rush. They hovered. They bent and resolved with patience, reminding everyone in the room why he remains one of the most respected guitarists of his generation — not because he plays the most notes, but because he plays the right ones.
The 9:30 PM show carried a different pulse. Looser. More elastic. “Listen to the Lions” and “Blue Maiden’s Tale” stretched into after-hours territory, and by the time he moved through “Come and Go Blues,” “Soulshine,” and an aching “Hallelujah” encore, the Blue Note felt less like a new venue on Sunset Boulevard and more like a seasoned juke joint that had always been there.
Throughout both sets, Haynes rotated between his Guild acoustic and electrics including the “Big Red” 335 and a gold sunburst Les Paul. The tonal changes were seamless, but what lingered wasn’t gear — it was control. Even when the electric passages intensified, the volume remained perfectly calibrated for the room. He never overpowered the space. He shaped it.
For fans accustomed to seeing Haynes command arenas and festival stages, this residency offered something rarer: intimacy without dilution. No bombast. No extended band workouts. Just the bones of the songs, exposed and breathing.
In a career defined by power and presence, Warren Haynes proved at the Blue Note that subtlety can hit just as hard — and sometimes, it lingers longer.
