10/18/00 - Wednesday, Crystal Ballroom - Portland, OR

Review:

https://archive.org/details/db2000-10-18.shnf

Image: The spacious interior of the historic Crystal Ballroom (source: axs.com)

Bazaar opens the show, and it has a perfunctory outro jam that is basically a Very Moon intro from the opening notes. It’s completely type one but very pleasant. The first jam in The Very Moon goes pretty deep; it doesn’t quite defy the structure of the song as blatantly as the previous version from 10/6/00, but it has a cool trancey theme and a fantastic buildup. The second jam develops into a very repetitive tense trance theme that mostly treads water until around the 21 minute mark, when it starts to pick up. The jam builds up to a fantastic and vaguely sinister crescendo that starts to turn toward the triumphant territory of Hot Air Balloon around the 25 minute mark. These few minutes of the jam are excellent, as is the build into Hot Air Balloon. Shelby has a breakneck pace dnb jam that absolutely crushes. It gets into weird territory, almost like an Ape jam but faster, and builds up to a solid ending. It’s a solid version, if not particularly remarkable, but the ending is flubbed hard. Magellan has a big middle jam with a great use of ambient space, and the main jam is in a similar style. Neither break the mold completely but this is still a very exploratory version.

Mulberry’s opens set two. The first jam is a little longer than usual. Magner starts on the piano before moving to the organ, but other than that it’s a standard rendition. The second jam begins in considerably more mellow territory than usual, breaking down even further to almost complete ambience. It starts to build up around the 11 minute mark, and about a minute after Magner starts to incorporate the trance synths. The remaining four minutes of the jam are absolutely spectacular. Barber remains completely in the lead, delivering blistering solos, but with the added atmosphere of the fall 2000 style trance synths. The jam culminates in a Crystal Ball ending, although the song is then played in full. After the jam into it, the Crystal Ball is fairly unremarkable, except for the fact that it contains the first iteration of the middle section. Despite the rework, the song is still clearly very rough. Brownie’s first Pygmy since 12/30/99 has some big shoes to fill. It starts off slow, but by the five minute mark Magner has developed a full-blown trance theme. He alternates between the more distorted atonal synths and the trance synths to create a very cool, vaguely foreboding effect. It moves through a variety of distinct trance themes, all thoroughly Magner-dominated, before breaking down around the 16 minute mark for a fairly telegraphed transition into Vassilios. Awesome stuff. The Vassilios jam is gorgeous. It’s focused and thematic, maintaining a melancholy tone up to around 10:15 when it begins to move toward a triumphant crescendo. The jam is gorgeous, and the ensuing segue into Humu is spectacularly executed. Humu itself is pretty short, and doesn’t leave type one territory, but the jam is still very pleasant and gorgeous. The second set proper ends here, but the band returns to the stage for a massive encore shortly afterward. I-Man is played techno style yet again, and has some short mid-verse jams (the final one of these actually gets pretty interesting). The first real I-Man jam is short and mellow, and never leaves I-Man territory before a well-executed drop into Widow. The jam out of Widow is pretty short as well, but slightly more interesting. The main jam in I-Man is quite long, though it doesn’t top 10/12/00. It has a drawn out ambient first half and a brief foray into more tense waters beginning around the 7 minute mark, but overall it’s pretty within bounds. There is a short outro jam that is pretty much a Pat & Dex intro right away. Pat & Dex drop segues from the Onery Funk section into The Devil’s Waltz. The Pat & Dex is standard but for the missing Liquid Lazer, but The Devil’s Waltz is a pretty cool version with a spacey breakdown in the middle.

The first set didn’t do much for me, but I actually enjoyed the entirety of the second set a lot more than I expected to.

Highlights:

Mulberry’s Dream > Crystal Ball

This is what fall 2000 is all about. These final four minutes of the jam into Crystal Ball are incredible. Magner and Barber manage to sound like they are both in charge of the jam, while still remaining completely in sync. A dizzying crescendo results.

Vassilios > Humu

Shorter than the preceding Pygmy jam, but more thematically focused as well. Given that they are jamming into a song for the first time ever, the band does a remarkably good job not tipping their hand too early.

Pygmy > Vassilios

Loose, psychedelic and wildly exploratory, the jam suffers from some moments that do not fully connect. However, those moments are outnumbered and outshined.

Stray Observations:

The show opens with Bazaar Escape. Earlier in the year, at All Good on 5/20/00, Barber had cited the Bazaar Escape from 9/30/99 at the Crystal Ballroom as his favorite version.

This show marks the full band debut of Crystal Ball and Widow in the Rain, as well as the first Pygmy with the full band since 1999.

This is the first jam into this section of Crystal Ball.

This is the first Crystal Ball to feature the lyrics in the middle section.

This is the first Humu to be segued into.

This is the first dyslexic Pat & Dex

At 50 minutes exactly, this is the longest encore of the year, a record previously held by 10/12/00 (44:35). It is the longest encore since 6/5/99 (54:59).

There is an incredibly skillful whistler in the crowd at this show. If you are reading this before listening, you are probably thinking that is a strange thing to comment on.

—Mr. Zan