Notes From The Drop Zone - 10/25/20

Image credit: Jesse Faatz Photography

Anticipation was high for the one-off Sunday night show in Frederick Maryland. The band opened the show with Spy, a relatively complex and compositionally rigid tune that, despite being played standard, is always a welcome setlist choice. After Spy, the band launched into a classically inclined intro jam, with some gorgeous piano lines from Magner. The intro jam had me guessing, but pretty soon resolved into an Air Song intro. The jam out of Air Song stayed in type one territory for a long time, with Magner on the clav. After a little while, Barber developed a cool uptempo groove. The jam sounded like it would return to Air Song, before a bizarre and chaotic breakdown. It built back up with thunderous percussion into a pretty standard Hot Air Balloon intro jam. The Hot Air Balloon jam spent a lot of time in type one territory as well (at this point, very little of the set had been anything else). When the jam finally left Hot Air Balloon territory and began to head toward darker waters, I was originally guessing Gangster (a common pairing), but the jam built up instead into a patient and well-executed Abraxas ending theme. The Abraxas composition had a few issues, and the jam out had a shaky start as well. The jam began with that distinct Tractorbeam style, a welcome addition to what had been a fairly restrained set up to this point. Barber’s guitar effects fit the jam well, but there was still a bit of roughness to the first part of the jam. However, the roughness was short-lived: the jam settled into a very cool theme that built up to a fantastic major key crescendo. This part of the jam was the easy highlight of the set for me, and watching the band move from the more electronic style of the Tractorbeam jam to the classic rock style of the Hot Air Balloon ending was more than enough to remind me of why I love this band so much.

I had a lot of hopes for the second set that were only slightly dashed by the choice of The Very Moon as opener. The Very Moon is one of my favorite compositions, and at its best can yield incredible jams, but the average Very Moon (and tonight’s was certainly an average version) usually means we are in for around seven minutes of composition, and many more of type one jamming. I had some hope that this version would be split (as were the past two versions), but this hope was dashed as well. The first jam in The Very Moon was played straight-up, though there were a couple of excellent riffs from Barber preceding the peak. The outro jam saw the band struggle to break free of the structures of the distinctive bass riff. At some point (I would estimate 15-20 minutes into the set) Magner introduced a more percussive synth effect, and the jam began to head towards Basis in a very Barber heavy intro jam. The jam out of Basis is where things took a turn. It began with Magner on a palette of digital synth effects, and shortly afterward Barber began to experiment with his synth guitar effects. As always with these “Tractorbeam” influenced jams, the effect was not a consistent success; however, the moments where this sound worked (usually when Barber was playing more minimalistically) were more than worth those moments where it didn’t. The jam settled into an excellent groove on the way out, building up to a triumphant theme which broke down into an experimental sounding passage. From here the band built the jam back up into an Anthem intro. The front and back of the jam were a little rough, but the vast majority of it was both interesting and enjoyable. The jam out of Anthem, on the other hand, was largely successful the whole way through. It began out of the “middle” of Anthem, settling into a groove-oriented jam featuring heavy usage of Magner’s marimba synths. This theme broke down into a more Barber-led passage, which featured some bizarre Magner effects. From here the jam rebuilt into a Shimmy theme, and the band delivered the first inverted Shimmy in over six years. The jam out of Shimmy was probably the winner of the night, featuring Barber at his best and the band in general at their most cohesive. Barber’s minimalist playing in the first part of the jam was excellent, and it was refreshing to hear a Biscuits trance jam that wasn’t dominated by the Tractorbeam style (as much as I’ve loved this innovation, I’m loving even more that they don’t use it in every single jam). Barber took over midway through the jam, leading the band through the key change and to a solid Basis peak.

This show was a solid cap to the second weekend of the drive-in tour. I would have a hard time ranking the shows from this weekend, as I think all of them were more or less consistent with one another, in contrast with the Yarmouth shows. I don’t think any of these shows topped 10/17 or 10/19, but I would put them comfortably ahead of 10/18 and 10/16.

Highlights:

Shimmy > Basis

I mean, that’s a pretty classic pairing. It was also the most classically “Biscuits” sounding jam of the night.

Anthem > Shimmy

Spooky island themed sounds yield to the sinister Shimmy ending. Great stuff.

Abraxas > Hot Air Balloon

It isn’t the most successful of the Tractorbeam experiments, but I loved hearing the band move from that style to the classic rock sound of Hot Air Balloon; it manages to sound great while being very experimental.

Basis > Anthem

The vast majority of the jam is another great example of the Tractorbeam experiment succeeding.

—Mr. Zan