10/26/00 - Thursday, The Metro - Chicago, IL

https://archive.org/details/db2000-10-26.mastered.flac

Image: the exterior of the Metro in Chicago (source: eventbrite.com)

Review:

The Confrontation that opens this show is a pleasant house jam. It builds up to a strong Confrontation peak, but overall it is neither as strong nor as exploratory as recent versions. Munchkin Invasion, by contrast, is a completely novel version. It begins in considerably more upbeat territory than past versions. Magner crafts excellent atmosphere, and Barber lays down some life-affirming riffs. This theme begins to break down around 7:45. It enters into a much more tense theme, with Barber using some heavy distortion and Magner using his more abrasive synths. The jam builds into an absolutely evil theme. A couple minutes before the track change, Magner lays down the trance theme that builds to the transition. The build to the Shimmy ending is absolutely spectacular, a complete 180 from the first attempt at inverted Shimmy. Some of Barber’s finest playing is enshrined in this transition. The jam out of Shimmy is very solid. It’s pretty mellow and playful most of the way, but shifts gears toward more triumphant territory around the 21 minute mark. The buildup to the Munchkin ending is spectacular, especially the final minute or two before the transition up to the peak. Munchkin is outro’d, for the first time. It is not a particularly exploratory jam, but it’s fantastic nonetheless, fun and playful, and segues perfectly into Home Again. Home Again is another excellent version, type one jamming notwithstanding. Magner uses a poppy arpeggiator effect and Barber absolutely murders the ending.

Kamaole Sands begins with some jazzy riffs and piano lines, until Sammy begins to shift towards a house rhythm and Magner begins to move to electronic synth effects. It develops into a solid trance jam that builds to a great Kamaole ending. The Overture jam is spectacular, beginning as the tense dnb typical of an Overture jam, but soon taking on an ethereal quality towards the middle. Just shy of the 13 minute mark, Sammy drops the breakbeats in favor of a more steady rhythm. It retains the mellow atmosphere of the preceding theme even as it begins to build towards Waves, and one of the most immaculately patient Waves peaks is the result. Incredible jam, and incredible Waves peak. The jam out of Waves is equally patient. A dubby trance theme builds over several minutes, breaking down into a chaotic passage around 14:30. Around the 16 minute mark Sammy begins to return to breakbeats, and the jam builds to a phenomenal crescendo shortly afterward. It doesn’t break down until the band drops, smoothly and easily, into the ending of Overture without needing to slow down. The Very Moon has another long, drawn out (but still very type one) first jam. The funk jam remains pretty close to the structures as well, but the band develops a really solid theme pretty quickly. It breaks down around the 21 minute mark, and builds up to a Lai intro jam. The Lai is a bit more stretched out than usual. It breaks down to a very minimal passage before building up to the typical Lai ending. For the encore, the band delivers a long-awaited Nughuffer. The jam out of Nughuffer is excellent. It’s eerie and trancey, and builds up to a more uplifting passage before the drop into Pygmy. The jam out of Pygmy is eminently patient. It begins as a blissful, digital theme, with Magner and Barber interlocking melodies. A little shy of the 5 minute mark Magner begins to incorporate the Gates of Hell, which had been debuted earlier in the tour but used sparingly until now. The jam slowly enters sinister Nughuffer territory shortly after the track change, and builds to an excellent Nughuffer ending. The Jon the Barber solo is similarly excellent.

One big segment in each set makes this one of the more consistent shows of the tour. I lean towards the first set just for personal preference, but I cannot dismiss the Overture > Waves (><) > Overture lightly.

Highlights:

Munchkin > Shimmy

It begins as a stronger than average Munchkin jam, but soon devolves into sinister territory, and builds up to a spectacular Shimmy peak. Some of Barber’s finest work happens between the track change and the Shimmy peak.

Overture > Waves

One of my favorite types of transitions, especially in the golden age of 1.0 Biscuits, is the transition from dnb to trance, and this jam perfectly illustrates why. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Sammy shifts styles, but the result of this combination is one of the more well-executed Waves peaks, and one of the more atmospheric dnb jams.

Waves > Overture

Making the reverse journey, the jam traverses a chaotic breakdown as it moves from dubby trance to breakbeats, eventually culminating in one of the strongest Overture “peaks” yet played.

Shimmy > Munchkin

It takes a while to get going, but it culminates in one of the finest Munchkin endings ever (and easily the best so far).

Nughuffer > Pygmy > Nughuffer

I didn’t want to choose one jam over the other in this distinctive and iconic encore. The return of Nughuffer contains two very well-executed trance themes, as well as the first extensive usage of the Gates of Hell.

Stray Observations:

I believe this may be the only inverted Shimmy in which the band sings the ending of the song.

This is the first outro'd Munchkin.

This is the first show in which the band played two inverted songs in the same night.

This is the first Nughuffer since 12/31/99, a then-unprecedented gap of 31 shows. Nughuffer had become distinctly less common beginning with the summer and fall of 1999, but this was still the longest the band had gone without playing it.