12/29/00 - Friday, The Vanderbilt - Plainview, NY

https://archive.org/details/db2000-12-29bk.archive.flac16

Image: The exterior of the old Vanderbilt Theater

Review:

The Morph opener is a standard, punchy version, with a strong conclusion. The Very Moon follows, on the heels of some very strong versions from the fall tour. I had high hopes for the first jam, based on the timestamp and past performance, and it does not disappoint. It is spaced out and exploratory, moving from type one noodling to a passage of type two full band jamming between 14:00 and 18:30. From here the jam builds up to a strong Very Moon peak. Barber misses a cue and the segue almost falls apart, but he recovers it well. The funk jam is strong as well, leaving behind the strictures of the song after a few minutes and transforming into an uplifting and fast-paced jam with hints of a potential shift toward dnb. Instead, the jam breaks down around 27:45 for a somewhat dubby transition into Hope. Cool jam and excellent breakdown. There are another 4 minutes of Hope intro tacked onto the Hope track. The Hope jam has a vaguely breakbeat progression, and is built around an ascending Magner line that continues, largely unchanged, until shortly after the 14 minute mark, when the rhythm begins to shift ever so slightly to a more standard rock groove. As the track changes, the band begins to build up a M.E.M.P.H.I.S. peak, and it’s a monster. The M.E.M.P.H.I.S. inversion is a cool one, even though it robs us of the outro jam. The “main” jam has all the mellow characteristics of an outro, with a blissful mood and steady rhythm. The tempo begins to increase after the 11 minute mark, and shortly afterward Sammy begins to shift toward a breakbeat rhythm. At the track change Magner’s synth lines become increasingly distorted, and the band builds up to an Unspoken Rhyme ending, completing the version from 12/27.

Aceetobee has a decently drawn out intro jam. The middle jam is lengthy and spaced out, even if it doesn’t ever fully escape type one territory, and it builds to a strong peak. The second jam, by contrast, is focused and thematic from the get go, with a sinister undercurrent. The segue into Spaga is fantastic. Unfortunately, the Spaga jam is not terribly interesting. The theme is well executed, but it doesn’t develop and gets stale. The band brings up Erica Lynn Gruenberg as a guest vocalist after the first jam in Spaga, and she sticks around for the next few songs. Mid-set two Home Again is an odd choice, and it’s pretty standard. I-Man is played techno style, and the first jam has a driving mid-tempo trance theme. The theme lingers in foreboding territory, building to an impressive crescendo that comes crashing into the I-Man bridge riff. The second jam is drawn out but overall pretty standard. Nughuffer provides a much needed injection of trance into the set. The theme that develops is a restrained trance progression, and it maintains a markedly more blissful atmosphere than a typical Nughuffer jam, even when Magner comes in with the Gates of Hell at 8:30. After a mini-crescendo, the jam breaks down into tense territory at 11:30, transforming into a Vassilios intro. Bucking the trend of its recent development, Vassilios does not have a jammed out middle section. The outro jam is standard shuffling Vassilios trance. Magner crafts an uplifting atmosphere until the theme breaks down shortly before the track change. From here the band rebuilds the theme, in a subtly different mood, to the Nughuffer ending.

Overall, a strong first set and pretty forgettable second.

Highlights:

Hope > M.E.M.P.H.I.S.

Creative setlisting (first inverted M.E.M.P.H.I.S. ever) and inspired playing make for an impressive transition. The jam moves from a mellow jungle theme to an explosive rock groove.

The Very Moon

Another in a series of very strong and experimental Very Moon first jams, with a drawn out passage of type two jamming.

Aceetobee > Spaga

The easy highlight of the second set is this first jam into the beginning of Spaga. It is immediately tenser than an Aceetobee jam, and the transition (very different from modern versions) yields some impressive piano-work from Magner.

The Very Moon > Hope

The Very Moon funk quickly yields to a more frenetic, almost dnb jam, before breaking down into a drawn out Hope intro.

Stray Observations:

This is the first inverted M.E.M.P.H.I.S.

This is the first true segue into Spaga.