Octaves definitely provide a lot of fun tones to work with.
The way you broke the riff down into just playing the root notes at first to learn the pattern make it easier to remember now that I am trying to do it with the full chording. Sometimes it can be a bit trickier for me to remember a progression if I am learning both that progression and new chord shapes at the same time. By breaking it down like that you make it easier to learn in sequences.
I'm supposed to play with a friend tonight. I think I'll be working on some of this and see if there's an opportunity to use any of it.
Thanks a lot for this lesson.