12/27/00 - Wednesday, The Silo - Reading, PA

https://archive.org/details/db2000-12-27sch.archive.flac

Image: The exterior of The Silo in Reading, PA

Review:

The show opens with a Pygmy that sounds like it could be lifted out of 1999. Magner plays some jazzy leads on what sounds like a modified electronic organ. The first theme breaks down quickly, around 5:30. Sammy lays down an untz beat, and Barber steps out into the forefront. After 6:30 Magner moves to the trance synths, and the tempo of the jam begins to increase. After nearly barreling out of control, the jam settles into an excellent trance theme that carries to a strong Waves peak. The jam out of Waves begins as a simple trance theme, but shortly thereafter settles into a dub jam. Sammy’s punctuates the jam with occasional breakbeat fills, but overall the dub jam holds its very mellow focus. Around the 15 minute mark, the jam begins to depart dub territory: Brownie holds down the bass line but Sammy moves the rhythm more firmly towards breakbeat. Shortly before the 18 minute mark it sounds like the band could segue into Svenghali, but they instead shift the jam back into dub territory. After a playful theme, the jam settles into a Munchkin-esque pattern around the 19 minute mark before settling into a distinctly “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” intro. Despite landing firmly in Plums territory, the rest of the jam is actually pretty excellent. A solid, chaotic type one theme builds and breaks down as the band settles into Plums. Fall tour powerhouse Svenghali follows the holiday favorite. Svenghali has a fantastic, clean jungle jam. Barber’s playing grows increasingly chaotic over the backdrop of a Magner soundscape. The jam grows tenser until a breakdown shortly after the 10 minute mark. Sammy’s beat transitions smoothly from jungle into a housey rock groove, while Magner maintains continuity with his previous theme. The groove becomes distinctly more playful around the 13 minute mark, not unlike a M.E.M.P.H.I.S. intro. Barber shifts to the muted distortion shortly afterward to great effect. It leaves this playful theme only in the final seconds of the track, building in tempo rapidly for the transition into Hot Air Balloon. The jam out of Hot Air Balloon is a strange one. The part that is tracked with Hot Air Balloon is pretty tense, with a creeping Brownstein bass line, while Magner remains on piano and Barber plays some cacophonous riffs. Sammy shifts to breakbeats as the track changes, and the back half of the jam is considerably more cohesive. What remains is a solid, if standard, build back into Svenghali.

The first jam in Mulberry’s remains type one, but has a drawn out breakdown and rebuild that separates it from standard versions. The second jam gets off to a strange start, with some odd vocalizations from what sounds like Magner. It remains in a kind of tense space, with Magner on the rabbit hole synths, before a gradual build to a powerful ending. The Shimmy jam enters bliss territory immediately. It builds on a monolithic theme to an uncomposed bliss peak, in the vein of the winter and spring 1999 versions, but instead of heading back to Shimmy it breaks down completely into a Crater intro. Crater is played standard. Rhyme follows, and the jam is excellent. Magner uses a synth effect that would come to prominence in 2001 for, I believe, the first time, between 5:30 and 7:00. He crafts an excellent theme around the dnb rhythm that builds to a triumphant crescendo, which culminates as Sammy shifts the rhythm very suddenly to a trance beat for a somewhat jarring transition into Run Like Hell. Run Like Hell has a strong mid-verse jam with considerable acid synth presence. The jam out is a cacophonous trance jam that breaks down in the final minutes into what sounds distinctly like a Crater intro. From here the jam rebuilds into a bliss theme, building to a crescendo that culminates in a powerful Shimmy ending. Shimmy has an outro jam, which builds into a melancholy groove that finally culminates in a Hot Air Balloon ending. Good jam and good Flight to cap off a solid set.

Like many of the fall tour shows, this one is a little uneven. The first set can hang with some of the best of the tour, but the second has its moments as well.

Highlights:

Svenghali > HAB

That rare combination of an impressive segue on paper that is executed equally impressively, if not more so. The dnb is excellent, unsurprisingly, but the transitions out of it, and into Hot Air Balloon, is masterful.

Waves > Plums

Drawn out jamming with multiple distinct themes, including a Waves dub and a lengthy and well-developed Plums intro.

Rhyme > Run Like Hell

The segue isn’t very good, but the Rhyme jam might just be the best one yet.

Run Like Hell > Shimmy

Included mainly for the back half and transition into Shimmy, which reaches its destination by way of a Crater fakeout.

Stray Observations:

This is the first Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy since 12/30/99, marking the second year in a row that the cover was played over the New Year’s run and signalling the beginning of a tradition that would continue, off and on, into the present day.

This is the first Haleakala Crater of the year. The last was 10/25/99, for a gap of 59 shows.

Sammy seems to play the beat to 7-11 in the Barfly intro. There are vocal teases of something but I can’t tell what’s being said.