10/11/00 - Wednesday, The Roxy - Los Angeles, CA

https://archive.org/details/db2000-10-11archive.flac16

Image: West Hollywood's famous Roxy Theatre (source: Getty Images)

Review:

The first set is a single piece of music, a medley drawing on some of the least likely candidates in the Biscuits’ catalogue. This is a pretty risky endeavor, and overall it pays off nicely. The jam out of Magellan comes out of the instrumental section preceding the “rolling like a cobra” verse. It develops very organically, featuring a distinctly rock and roll style and absence of electronic elements characteristic of a Magellan jam, yet still sounding absolutely nothing like one. It builds to a lumbering crescendo, with an almost out of place tease of the Magellan peak, before settling into a Chemical Warfare Brigade intro. Chemical Warfare is jammed out of the guitar solo for the first time. Around 5:30 the pleasant and blissful CWB solo becomes distinctly melancholy, and shortly afterward Sammy introduces a house beat. Magner develops an absolutely haunting theme that carries through most of this jam, which maintains its eerie and somber atmosphere throughout. Right at the track switch, Sammy adroitly shifts the tempo toward a Down to the Bottom intro. Brownstein’s work in this transition is phenomenal; the shift from a trancey beat to the more relaxed Down to the Bottom would have been very jarring were it not for Brownstein laying the groundwork for the transition. Excellent jam overall. Down to the Bottom takes a while to catch my interest, but it develops a very cool theme after several minutes of staid trance jamming. After a breakdown and focus shift, Barber develops a catchy riff that he carries into the next theme. The band builds up a profoundly psychedelic trance jam to a rocking crescendo that comes crashing into the debut of Floodlights. Floodlights has a tense minimalist jam that treads water briefly before taking on a life of its own. By the ten minute mark the jam has settled into a very pleasant groove that builds over the next several minutes. It doesn’t peak so much as it crests a mellow wave, settling into what sounds like a potential Vassilios intro around the 14 minute mark. The jam continues in this vein, building up to a very Barber heavy crescendo before an expert transition into Hot Air Balloon. Hot Air Balloon, like Magellan, is jammed out of an unconventional section: the instrumental bridge between the last two verses. The band can barely break free of the confines of the song before it becomes, clearly, a Magellan jam. The journey back into the final verse is pretty short. Magellan has a full main jam, which has a distinctly more major key feel for much of it, but is otherwise pretty standard. The jam out of the reprise section is very mellow and pleasant, and retains some traces of Magellan influence even as the tempo begins to increase heading toward CWB. A solid CWB ending ends the set.

The House Dog jam is standard once again, the Camp version clearly a fluke. It is well-played, and features some excellent distorted Barber towards the peak. The Party Favor jam soon develops into a mellow house jam. The jam proceeds with little variation (Magner is the only one really innovating, but he is boxed in) until the key changes with the track. The band rapidly builds up speed to a perfectly adequate Shimmy peak. This jam was well-played and had some cool moments, but it just did not grab me at all. There is some confusion as to which verse the band wants to sing; they mess up once, and then seem to settle on the first verse. The confusion persists throughout the rest of the composition. Things start to improve again with the jam out of Shimmy, which is equal parts foreboding and digital. As the track changes, Magner cuts through the haunting atmosphere with some simple piano riffs as the jam heads, unmistakably, back into Hot Air Balloon. Like the second Magellan in set one, this Hot Air Balloon has a full “jam” (which is still just Barber’s guitar solo) included, as well as a Flight section. This was the first time the Flight had been played mid-second set (outside of an opera show) since 5/5/99, and I think this show illustrates the reason for that perfectly: such a long, slow and rigid composition can be detrimental to the momentum of a set. The band’s setlist choices don’t exactly help either. News From Nowhere is a song I have a soft spot for, but it’s more of an encore song than a late set two choice. Confrontation is the only one to buck the trend, and gets things moving again. The jam starts off as a tense house/trance vehicle, with Magner using his distinctive echoing synth effects. It builds up to a sinister crescendo before the band changes keys and moves back into Confrontation territory. A very solid sophomore effort. Eulogy, another very perplexing late set two choice, follows. The most interesting part about Eulogy is by far the intro jam that precedes it. It has a distinct Spectacle feel to it, more than five months before Spectacle finally debuted. Everything else about the song is pretty standard. Hope fills the encore slot. The Hope track is entirely composition; the jam begins on a track named “Basis jam.” It is definitely distinct from a typical Hope jam, and there are some similarities, but I don’t know if it warrants a separate tracking. Whatever it is, it’s easily my favorite jam of the entire second set—just downright fun, fist-pumping triumphant trance. The build to the Run Like Hell ending is spectacular, reminiscent of the best 1999 versions. An excellent way to close the show.

I have some very mixed feelings about this one. The first set is one of my favorites of the tour so far, but the second is one of my least favorites. Highlights below:

Highlights:

Chemical Warfare Brigade > Down to the Bottom

The combination of inspired playing out of a rarely utilized section and into a difficult transition make this jam all the more impressive.

Floodlights > Hot Air Balloon

A stellar debut. Tense and creepy fall 2000 style trance yields a surprisingly pleasant and mellow theme, before building to a thrilling caveman rock crescendo

Hope > Run Like Hell

Head and shoulders above anything else in set two, this jam is a pure rock of unadulterated Bisco crack.

Down to the Bottom > Floodlights

Takes a while to get going, but the quality of the theme in the back half of the jam is enough to make it worth your while.

Shimmy > Hot Air Balloon

Not particularly cohesive, but plenty of interesting moments, and a very well-executed segue into Hot Air Balloon.

Stray Observations:

This show features the Biscuits debut of Floodlights, the first Chemical Warfare Brigade and News From Nowhere since 1999, and the first Down to the Bottom, Shimmy, and Eulogy with the full band since 1999.

This is the first inverted Shimmy (although there is some evidence to the contrary. More on that later). The number of inverted songs in the Biscuits catalogue reaches six (Boop, Waves, Unspoken Rhyme, Ape, Story, Shimmy).

This is the first split Chemical Warfare Brigade.

There is a Magellan tease in Magellan, shortly before the segue into CWB.

During the encore break, Barber says that since they didn’t know what they wanted to play, they would just do a count off and all start playing a song. They bring an audience member to do the count, and Brownie teases Nughuffer, and the crowd cheers very loudly for one of those things. Amusing banter alert.

Assuming this Run Like Hell is intended to complete the 10/6/00 version, this would be the first three-part Run Like Hell in the band’s history.

—Mr. Zan