12/30/00 - Saturday, The Vanderbilt - Plainview, NY

https://archive.org/details/db2000-12-30.flacakg480sck63

Image: The interior of the Vanderbilt

Review:

Story begins with a groovy and melancholy theme. It builds steadily with patience, but unfortunately drops suddenly into the ending without much buildup. The Basis is an odd version. I think the first jam is the strongest. It’s certainly the most unique, even though it begins as unassumingly as any. Shortly after the 4 minute mark, however, Magner begins to creep in with an atonal digital synth which I don’t believe he’s ever used before. It builds to a very chaotic drop into Basis. The middle jam is one of the longest yet, at around 8 minutes. It is very repetitive and spacey, but that works here. It works considerably less well in the main jam, which is probably the worst of the three and feels considerably bogged down for the first half. It builds to a strong ending in the second half, but overall it lacks that particular magic that great Basis jams should have. Bazaar and News, of course, don’t have any real jamming to speak of, making this set feel woefully short.

The second set features the Biscuits debut of Brownstein’s Chemical Warfare Brigade opera, first performed by Electron on 8/18/00. The Biscuits version is in a different order than the Electron version (the same order in which it would be performed every subsequent time), and it features the Biscuits debut of Ladies (every other song having been debuted by the Biscuits previously). Plan B and Lai are both played standard. Plan B has an uplifting Barber solo and Lai has a groovy full band jam. The debut of Ladies offers the first real interesting jam of the set. It begins more slowly than typical, but eventually settles into a driving trance groove. It doesn’t get too far removed from Ladies territory, unsurprising for a debut, but it is patient and thematic and builds to a strong peak. The Floodlights jam is very strong. It develops very organically out of the composition, built around a droning Magner trance line. It builds as a pleasant and blissful groove into a transition into Shelby Rose. The Shelby Rose jam is excellent. It explores a tense atmosphere, and is dominated by Barber, who maintains a very clean tone for a dnb jam. Around 9:30 Barber begins to lead the jam to the blissful (uncomposed) peak (the modern Shelby Rose composed peak would be introduced in the early 2001 versions). The opera’s title track, Chemical Warfare Brigade, is standard, as is the jamless vignette Three Wishes. Confrontation ends the opera on a strong note. The jam is a patient build, going from mellow shuffling trance, through a tense and chaotic passage, and finally building to the majestic peak. The Doncore features a short type one intro jam. The middle jam, like many from this year, is fairly drawn out, and this version is very spacey if not outright exploratory. Makes me wish they had ever utilized this section for segues or big type two jams. The main jam is a strong venture, with Sammy messing with the standard rhythm from the beginning of the jam. Other than this, it proceeds along a fairly traditional path, until around the 14 minute mark when it begins to break down into a tense passage. It quickly resolves into a triumphant uncomposed peak into the Don ending.

Overall, this is easily the weakest show of the New Year’s run so far. Neither set made much of an impression, although there was, of course, scattered brilliance.

Highlights:

Basis

Although the main jam is nothing special, it ends on a strong note. The first two jams, by contrast, are considerably more interesting. The intro jam is digital and cacophonous, and the second is drawn out and patient.

Floodlights > Shelby

A pretty monolithic jam which develops organically out of Floodlights and leads to the first ever segue into Shelby Rose

Ladies

In a year of strong debuts, the final debut of 2000 is particularly strong, and the highlight of the rock opera debut.

Confrontation

Fairly standard except for a short detour through tense jamming, the Confro nevertheless provides a necessary exclamation point to the CWB opera.

Stray Observations:

This is the first Biscuits performance of the full Chemical Warfare Brigade.

This is the first segue into Shelby Rose.

This is the first Biscuits version of Shelby Rose to eschew the “I suppose I can tell Shelby Rose how I feel” alternate chorus in favor of the modern structure.