Notes From The Drop Zone - 10/30/20

Image credit: Dave DeCrescente Photography, via Disco Biscuits Facebook

Review:

After a continuous first set at the first of three nights in Lafayette, the band returned to the practice, observed in roughly half of the drive-in shows, of opening with a short standalone. The Portal To An Empty Head that the band opened with did not begin with promise—there was compositional uncertainty in most of the intro and first verse—but the band managed to deliver an uplifting and well-executed jam. The Portal was followed by Freebis Slinky, here and elsewhere demonstrating that, along with Running Into The Night, it was among the strongest of the new batch of songs for producing jams. The jam stayed in Freebis territory for a while, with Barber playing some typical bluesy riffs over some interesting digital synth sounds. After a while, the tempo began to abruptly pick up, and, though the transition is a little clunky, pretty soon the band settled into a more cohesive theme. Magner used some of the heavier synths in his repertoire while Barber alternated between complementary riffs and more leading roles. The jam appeared to be heading toward a Rock Candy intro until a breakdown. Barber switched over to the synth guitar effects typical of the Tractorbeam jams, and the jam finally built up to the Rock Candy intro that it had been hinting towards. The jam out of Rock Candy was absolutely spectacular, the easy highlight of the set and one of many highlights of the tour. It started off in the Tractorbeam style, with Magner on some symphonic type synths and Barber on the heavily distorted repeater effect. In the best Biscuits jams, I find myself completely unable to focus on the individual members, so enraptured am I with the gestalt, and that’s exactly what happened here. It was hard to follow exactly which sounds were created by Barber and which were created by Magner. Eventually, Barber turned off the repeater effect (but kept the distortion), and the jam moved through a few other experimental themes. All of these were successful. Eventually, Barber switched back to the traditional guitar style, and the jam moved from dark territory to a more uplifting, triumphant theme as it built to a strong Grass is Green ending. The jam out of Grass is Green covered a similarly large territory. It began as a more traditional sounding Biscuits jam, blissful and pleasant. After a few minutes the jam headed toward a distinctly SITA sounding theme. I had personally witnessed the band combine Grass is Green with SITA themes before (6/2/17) so I was skeptical that they would actually play it, and sure enough the jam began to build up in intensity shortly after. Magner laid down a powerful Great Abyss style synth line, punctuated with more abrasive synth effects. Here is where the band fooled me; I was certain they would drop a regular Great Abyss (non-inverted that is, for what would have been the first since 7/19/19. This theme too broke down, however, and Barber switched to the Tractorbeam style synth guitars. This experimentation was brief, however; Barber switched back to traditional guitar effects and the band built up to, and delivered, the rare Rock Candy ending to close the set.

The second set opened with Highwire, a dyslexic completion of the version from 10/23. The jam immediately left Highwire territory for a dark theme. Magner started off on piano, and later moved to clav, but before long the jam entered Tractorbeam territory. The band built up a spectacular, transcendent theme; like the Rock Candy jam, it was difficult to pinpoint who was doing what. The theme was energetic and euphonous, and built over several minutes. After a while the jam broke down into some gorgeous and spacey atmosphere, while still retaining some continuity to the previous theme. It built back up into a spectacular Astronaut middle, or SITA, section. The Astronaut jam alternated between sinister and triumphant. I had assumed that this Astronaut would be middle only (to complete 10/18), but the band soon began building on an Astronaut ending progression. Astronaut was outro’d (for the first time since 12/29/13) and the outro jam quickly left behind its sinister type one qualities and moved towards a bliss theme. It stayed in this beautiful territory only briefly, before it quickly sped up as the jam began to move towards Crickets. The Crickets peak happened pretty suddenly. It felt somewhat rushed, and didn’t have the usual power that it so often does. The Crickets funk jam was very fun. Magner incorporated some rave synths into an otherwise standard jam. Suddenly, out of nowhere, BAM! Dribble hits. The band very steadily built up to a solid Dribble ending, alternating blissful passages in between the Dribble hits. After some noticeable confusion in the Dribble ending (completing the 10/17 version), the outro jam got off to a fantastic start. The band locked into a sinister ascending theme, which built up to a powerful crescendo, sounding at times like a Miracles ending and at others like a Shadow intro. This theme broke down into a Pimp Blue Rikki intro. I had imagined that PBR would have a short, flashy solo, with Barber showing off all of his new toys, but my expectations were completely subverted: the PBR had a drawn-out, restrained solo that gradually broke down into a cool spacey jam with some grungey synth effects from Magner. The jam got pretty far out there before returning to PBR territory.

This show was excellent. The first set was slightly stronger, but the second set was strong as well, with the Highwire jam being my favorite of the entire show.

Highlights:

Highwire > Astronaut

Immediately enters sinister territory, and before long builds up a spectacular Tractorbeam theme. The theme informs the structure of the entire jam, establishing continuity between the more energetic first half and the more blissful second half.

Rock Candy > Grass is Green

Locked in from the very get go, the jam moves through a variety of Tractorbeam themes before building up to a triumphant Grass is Green ending.

Grass is Green > Rock Candy

Two distinct “fakeouts” include a SITA theme and a Great Abyss theme before the band delivers the rare Rock Candy ending.

Dribble > PBR

Thematic and sinister, befitting any great PBR intro jam. There are distinct Miracles/Shadow vibes as well.

—Mr. Zan