10/12/00 - Thursday, The Great American Music Hall - San Francisco, CA

https://archive.org/details/db2000-10-12.mastered.flac

Image: The interior of the Great American Music Hall (source: sfweekly)

Review:

Munchkin begins with some hesitancy, but after the first few seconds it is ironed out. The jam begins as high speed trance with a touch of melancholy. It continues along this thread until a sort of breakdown at 8:40. Magner seems to signal a shift and Sammy’s drumming becomes less rigid, incorporating more breakbeats. Around 9:45 the bliss of the Shelby ending begins to creep in, and the build to the Shelby ending is gorgeous, even without the characteristic Shelby peak. The Helicopters covers a tremendous amount of territory, especially for its length. It begins as the standard meditative mid-tempo jam, evolving into bizarre psychedelic droning madness. Magner makes liberal use of the iconic fall 2000 drone synths, and Sammy incorporates some breakbeat flourishes while never fully committing to dnb. The jam breaks down around 9:40 into a distinctly more blissful section, which gradually creeps toward more and more sinister territory as it arrives at the ending of House Dog Party Favor. Very cool jam. Stone > Waltz mid-set is an odd choice, but it’s more forgivable in set one. Stone is Stone. Waltz is a hard rocking version with a great Barber peak. Aquatic Ape follows, now firmly a dnb vehicle. The jam is a very fun exploration of the Ape theme until about 7:40 or so, when it starts to get really interesting. The journey from Ape dnb to Unspoken Rhyme dnb is not a particularly long one, but these next few minutes were strangely captivating. I found myself needing to rewind a couple of times to parse what was happening. Barber’s usage of the muted distortion as Magner’s synths grow steadily more triumphant and symphonic is quite impressive. Great buildup into Unspoken Rhyme.

The dyslexic completion of Unspoken Rhyme opens the second set. Bucking the trend for fall 2000, the conventionally dnb Unspoken Rhyme jam quickly departs those confines for more of a mellow rock groove. It’s a sort of brooding groove, at times pleasant and at others introspective. The jam maintains this vacillating mood until the track change, where the eerie theme begins to gradually give way to triumphant bliss. The buildup to the M.E.M.P.H.I.S. peak is fantastic, with triumphant, life-affirming shredding from Barber and a theme that is close enough to M.E.M.P.H.I.S. to make for a smooth transition, but not so close that it ever seems obvious where the jam is heading. Absolutely fantastic stuff. The jam out is immediately darker than a traditional M.E.M.P.H.I.S. jam. It pretty quickly resolves into a sort of droning trance jam that quickly reveals its direction. Solid build to Munchkin. Spaga is a welcome addition to any setlist, and this is a pretty strong version. It doesn’t get very deep, but it is the first of the year since Brownstein rejoined the band, and they do it justice. The second jam still isn’t very long but the section has shown considerable improvement over the year. I normally don’t remark on these things, but the Kamaole middle jam, such as it is, is particularly strong. The main jam is pretty Barber heavy. Magner develops a great theme early on, but doesn’t get to do much with it, and Barber hits some great riffs, but overall this version is not particularly cohesive. Mr. Don has a middle jam of about four minutes long, which may not be any longer than average, but certainly feels it. Magner has a really cool series of riffs around 7:30; these sound like a tease but I’m not sure of what. The main jam is fantastic. Sammy’s drum beat remains the only real constant, never straying too far from Don, but the rest of the band move through a variety of moods and themes, at first tense and uncertain, then moody, then more triumphant. The jam seems to be heading toward a massive Run Like Hell ending until 18:45 when Barber suddenly plays the Helicopters riff. He tries to play the full ending, but the rest of the band does not follow suit. Barber takes a step back and allows the build into Helicopters to develop more organically. Despite this hiccup, the jam is excellent overall. The encore is the longest so far on the tour. I-Man, again played as a techno version, features a drawn out high tempo intro jam. It isn’t particularly compelling, but it does feature Magner on an interesting and unconventional synth choice. There are jams in between the verses, which I typically don’t care for, but the jam between the first and second verses is pretty good—better than the intro jam actually. In the jam between the second and third verses, Sammy quickly shifts from a techno beat to a more traditional rock style. This carries into the first main jam, which explores a variety of styles. The jam builds up to a triumphant trance crescendo that breaks down shortly after the 15 minute mark into an eerie soundscape. Magner uses the flute patch concurrently with his drone synths to a pretty neat effect. The jam continues further into spooky territory. Around 18:45 Magner (I assume) begins using a demonic vocoder effect, and the jam steadily builds to a haunting crescendo as it reaches Shimmy territory. Shimmy is ending only and outro’d. The outro jam is basically an I-Man middle from the jump but it takes its time reaching its destination. The I-Man jam is almost surprisingly good. The first theme features a dreamy repeated theme from Magner as Sammy sounds like he is trying to demolish his drum kit. The jam begins to move toward I-Man territory shortly after and by the 11-12 minute mark is firmly there. The rest of the jam is a fantastic build to I-Man. Another excellent encore, a category in which fall 2000 is still batting a thousand.

I enjoyed this show a lot. First set was only okay, and kind of short, but the second was very good with a few must-hear jams.

Highlights:

I-Man > Shimmy

Fall 2000 has had some big encores, but this time the encore stole the whole show. I-Man > Shimmy is simply fantastic. The jam goes from a symphonic trance masterpiece into a bizarre breakdown, covering some primal territory before patiently building back up into Shimmy.

Unspoken Rhyme > M.E.M.P.H.I.S.

The Unspoken Rhyme jam subverts all expectations, and actually replaces what is typically a dnb style jam with a more steady rock groove. The jam starts off poppy and blissful, but soon begins to sound more like a M.E.M.P.H.I.S. outro before reaching a crescendo not unlike a M.E.M.P.H.I.S. main jam. Subverting expectations again, Barber leads the band into the beginning of M.E.M.P.H.I.S. rather than the end.

Mr. Don > Helicopters

The third and final iteration of this pairing delivers some impressive improvisation. The jam never gets quite dark, but it is still moodier than a typical Don jam. It builds to what might be generously called a Run Like Hell fakeout before the ultimate segue into Helicopters.

Aquatic Ape > Unspoken Rhyme

While not particularly out there, this is nevertheless a great example of a perfectly executed dnb theme. Great interplay between Barber and Magner.

Spaga

Great standalone version.

Stray Observations:

This is the first Stone > Waltz and Spaga of the year with the full band.

This is the first split Munchkin Invasion.

Although it is not notated, M.E.M.P.H.I.S. is unfinished, and it does not appear to have been finished at a later date. Both of these facts were fairly uncommon for the time.

Shimmy is ending only. It is possible that this Shimmy was intended to complete the version from the night before, which is notated as inverted but in which the band did not sing the final verse. If that is the case, then it could be argued that the Shimmy from 10/11 is not actually inverted.

—Mr. Zan