Santana and The Doobie Brothers. Jiffy Lube Live, Bristow, Virginia. June 24, 2026.
When two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bands share a bill, the standard play is to keep things cordial — your set, my set, goodnight. Santana and The Doobie Brothers didn’t play it that way Wednesday night at Jiffy Lube Live. By the time Carlos Santana handed his guitar to Tom Johnston somewhere in the middle of a John Lee Hooker cover, any notion of two separate concerts had long since dissolved. This was one show. One very good show.
The Oneness Tour hit Bristow eleven days in, and both bands arrived at Jiffy Lube with the loose confidence that comes from a run of dates already under their belts. You could feel it from the first note.
The Doobie Brothers
The Doobies opened with “Rockin’ Down the Highway” and immediately reminded everyone in the amphitheater why they’ve sold 48 million albums across five decades. The set was a master class in sequencing — familiar enough to feel like a reunion, smart enough to reward the faithful. “Walk This Road,” from their new album and the first-ever Doobie Brothers studio record to feature Johnston, Simmons, McFee, and McDonald writing together, slotted naturally into a catalog that sounds as lived-in as anything in American rock.
The hits landed exactly the way hits are supposed to: “Long Train Runnin’,” “China Grove,” “What a Fool Believes,” “Black Water.” “Minute by Minute” got the kind of quiet attention it deserves. An instrumental “Amazing Grace” served as a bridge into “Takin’ It to the Streets,” which brought Andy Vargas and Ray Greene — both members of Santana’s band — onstage to close the Doobie set. The handoff was seamless. The collaboration had already begun.
Setlist: Rockin’ Down the Highway / Take Me in Your Arms / Dependin’ on You / I Keep Forgettin’ / Walk This Road / It Keeps You Runnin’ / Minute by Minute / Without You / Jesus Is Just Alright / What a Fool Believes / Long Train Runnin’ / China Grove / Black Water / Amazing Grace (Instrumental) / Takin’ It to the Streets / Listen to the Music
Santana
Carlos Santana opened with “Soul Sacrifice” and the temperature on the lawn went up ten degrees. The Oneness Tour is built around Santana’s extraordinary catalog — five decades of Afro-Latin, blues, rock, and jazz woven into something that doesn’t sound like anything else in music — and the Bristow set moved through it with authority. “Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen,” “Evil Ways,” “Oye cómo va,” “Maria Maria” — the songs are so deeply embedded in the American musical memory at this point that the crowd was singing along before the first chorus landed.
What keeps a Santana show from becoming a jukebox is the spontaneity woven throughout. Benny Rietveld and Cindy Blackman Santana’s bass and drum solo stretched into Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” before coming back around. “Jin-go-lo-ba” dissolved into a snippet of Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” “Oye cómo va” found its way to Carole King before returning home. The band plays at a level that makes those left turns feel inevitable rather than gimmicky. Santana himself, now the recipient of The Recording Academy’s 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award, showed no signs of treating this tour as a curtain call — he played like he had something to prove.
Then the Doobie Brothers came back out.
The joint set covered four songs — “Let’s Get Together,” “Them Changes” (with Dennis Chambers joining both drum kits), “Boogie Woman,” and “I Love Music.” “Boogie Woman” was the moment of the night: somewhere in the middle of the song, Carlos passed his guitar to Tom Johnston, who played a solo on it. If there’s a better image of what this tour is supposed to be about, it didn’t happen Wednesday night in Bristow.
The encore closed things out with “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” a drum showcase, an extended instrumental jam with band introductions, and then “Smooth” — because of course it ended with “Smooth.” Twenty-seven years since that song hit number one and it still works exactly the same way on a summer night in Virginia.
Setlist: Soul Sacrifice / Jin-go-lo-ba / Evil Ways / Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen / Oye cómo va / Maria Maria / Foo Foo / Everybody’s Everything / Bass and Drum Solo / Samba pa ti / Let’s Get Together (with The Doobie Brothers) / Them Changes (with The Doobie Brothers & Dennis Chambers) / Boogie Woman (with The Doobie Brothers & Dennis Chambers) / I Love Music (with The Doobie Brothers) / Hope You’re Feeling Better / (Da le) Yaleo / Put Your Lights On / Corazón espinado/Guajira / Encore: Toussaint L’Ouverture / Drum Solo / Instrumental Jam / Smooth
The Oneness Tour continues June 26 in Hershey, PA at Hersheypark Stadium and June 27 in Holmdel, NJ at PNC Bank Arts Center before wrapping up August 27 in Shakopee, MN at Mystic Lake Amphitheater.
