Sturgill Simpson made his eagerly awaited return to the road on Saturday, kicking off his first tour under the Johnny Blue Skies moniker at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre.

According to the set list, Simpson and his band wove a number of surprise covers into the evening, including bits of “L.A. Woman” by the Doors, “Midnight Rider” by the Allman Brothers Band, and Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” in addition to his regular versions of When in Rome’s “The Promise” and Steve Fromholz’s “I’d Have to Be Crazy.” To close the show, he covered Prince’s “Purple Rain,” segueing into the song from his own “One for the Road.”

Simpson bridged “One for the Road,” off Johnny Blue Skie’s Passage Du Desir, with “Purple Rain” via a crystalline guitar solo and promptly began singing the verses. When it came time for the track’s spiraling outro solo, he ceded the spotlight to guitarist Laur Joamets, who rejoined Simpson’s band to re-form the group’s classic Metamodern Sounds in Country Music lineup. (Keyboardist Robbie Crowell, formerly of Midland, is also onboard.)

The rest of the set included songs from Simpson albums like Metamodern, the Grammy-winning A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, his 2013 debut, High Top Mountain, and the 2019 rock album Sound & Fury.

Passage Du Desir (French for “Passage of Desire”) is Simpson’s first album in three years. In its four-star review, RS said the LP is “heavy with heartache, burdened by past mistakes, adrift in impossible dreams, and desperate for relief — or at least some kind of escape.”

Simpson’s tour heads west this week with gigs in West Calley City, Utah; Bend, Oregon; George, Washington; and Missoula, Montana.