11/25/00 - Saturday, Trocadero Theatre - Philadelphia, PA

https://archive.org/details/db2000-11-25.mastered.flac

Image: the view of the interior of the Trocadero from the stage (source: Hidden City Philadelphia)

Review:

The show opens with a bustout: Pilin’ It High is played for the first time of the year. It is reworked slightly, but the most notable change is that this version actually has a jam! It’s only a short guitar solo, but it’s still more than the song ever had in 1999. The Confrontation jam is never the typical bliss trance vehicle that most usually are, opting instead for a much more tense and foreboding atmosphere. Barber lays down atonal, creepy riffs over Magner’s haunting theme. Around 6:30 the jam settles into a pretty cool trance theme, more energetic yet still retaining the creepy vibe. It breaks down shortly after the 9 minute mark and enters a Plan B intro. Plan B is nice and stretched out (although nowhere near as much as the last version, 11/18) and delivers a smoking hot peak. Plan B is outro’d into one of the more playful Crickets intros you will ever hear. There is nothing particularly brave or exploratory about this transition, like the Munchkin > House Dog from 11/10, but, also like that jam, it easily registers as a highlight for its smoothness and cleverness. The first jam in Crickets is the strongest iteration yet, and probably ever. It begins as a standard uplifting trance jam with feather-light touch from Magner and especially Barber. It builds patiently over several minutes, and breaks down into harsher and more sinister territory around 8:30. Just before the 10 minute mark, Barber launches into a terrifying build, and Magner introduces the Gates of Hell synths to great effect. The jam builds to a furious Crickets peak over three minutes later, and those minutes contain some of Barber’s best playing of the tour, and perhaps ever. The funk jam is short and focused, and results in one of the smoothest ever transitions into Pygmy Twylyte. The Pygmy jam is excellent. It’s a slow burn sinister trance jam, building to a brain-melting and evil crescendo that shifts to bliss in the final minute of the track and results in an excellent Confrontation ending.

The Spaga jam begins in familiar territory, but Magner soon latches onto an incredible theme that he holds for several minutes, featuring some of his most expressive synth work. The flute patch helps settle the jam down, and around the 8 minute mark it begins to rebuild into a more driving psychedelic groove. As early as 8:30 you can hear Brownstein indicating towards Floes, and the jam segues into Floes masterfully without any need to slow down. The jam out of Floes is a mellow exploration and segues smoothly into Hope. Hope has an atypical mid-verse jam that stays completely type one, but is worth noting. The main jam is a smooth dub exploration. It’s enjoyable and mellow, and a worthy addition to the pantheon of fall 2000 Hopes; however, it doesn’t really say anything new either. A straight-up (non-techno) I-Man follows, and there seems to be some confusion in the middle section. After a mellow build, Barber attempts to deliver the middle section of I-Man, but the rest of the band does not follow suit. He takes it just a little too far for me to confidently call it a fakeout, but if it was an error the recovery was seamless. From here the jam builds up into a solid Floes ending. Jigsaw follows, and it actually has a pretty spectacular pre-chase jam based on a monolithic theme that slowly bores a hole into your skull. Easily the strongest iteration of this section so far (yes, including 11/9), and the first to actually sound like a meaningful jam rather than a pre-workout stretch. The jam out of the chase section is another trance jam, but this one is far more restrained and mellow. It settles into a blissful and dubby (vaguely Hope sounding) groove around 15:30. It builds to a massive uncomposed peak just before the 18 minute mark, before breaking down chaotically into a pretty rough transition into the middle of I-Man. The jam out of I-Man starts off with standard ambient flavor, but soon incorporates darker moods and dnb patterns. It builds to a powerful crescendo which results in a strong Spaga ending. Two semi-rarities, News From Nowhere and Aquatic Ape (both not played in over a month), fill the encore slot. News is standard, and Ape is, of course, played dnb style. The jam explores a very cool dnb theme until breaking down around the 8 minute mark, rebuilding into a mellow, blissful trance theme. It finds an excellent theme around the 10 minute mark, and Barber lays down some gorgeous jazzy riffs. It builds up to a kind of wall-of-sound crescendo and segues masterfully into the chase section of Jigsaw Earth. The dub jam in Jigsaw is short and sweet, building to a powerful ending that smoothly lands in the closing verse.

While there are some massive highlights, overall this is a somewhat disappointing showing for a Saturday in Philly, and the second set is probably my least favorite of the four sets from this weekend.

Highlights:

Crickets

A masterful jam, beginning unassumingly and building to the most powerful and sinister Crickets peak ever played.

Pygmy > Confrontation

The Pygmy jam is a sinister trance vehicle right out of the gate, but what makes it especially interesting is how long the band waits to return to Confrontation territory.

Spaga > Floes

The first part of the jam is my favorite, in which Magner develops a gorgeous synth theme, but the transition is pulled off very well here too.

Aquatic Ape > Jigsaw Earth

The dnb > trance transition isn’t as cool here as it is at other points, but the jams before and after it are both excellent.

Stray Observations:

This is the first Pilin’ It High since 12/31/99, a gap of 47 shows.

Brownie plugs the New Year’s run prior to set two, specifically the Reading shows on 12/27 and 12/28. At other points he references this show as being the last of the tour, and prior to the encore he tells the crowd that the next time he’d see them was the New Year’s run. It seems unlikely that the two early December shows had not been scheduled at this point, but it’s strange that he wouldn’t mention them at all otherwise.

This was the final Biscuits performance at the Trocadero Theatre until 9/25/14.