March 27, 2001

The show opens with an intro jam. It sounds like it will be a Voices intro but it drops into Story instead. There is some compositional difficulty in the beginning: Barber’s mic is off for the first verse and chorus, and the bridge is played hesitatingly, but the jam gets off to a hot start immediately. The theme is tense and danceable, and builds to a strong Story ending. Overture has a mellow and melancholy dnb jam, which gradually shifts to the symphonic and triumphant territory of the Unspoken Rhyme ending. Unspoken Rhyme is inverted. There is a neat dnb jam mid-verse. The jam out begins as an unconventionally mellow dnb theme. It builds to a crescendo reminiscent of a Svenghali ending progression around the 9-10 minute mark. From here it breaks down into the more tense dnb typical of Overture jams, building up to another bliss theme before dropping into the end of Overture. The Jigsaw trance jam is pretty standard, but the dub jam immediately locks into a haunting theme. It reminded me immediately of 4/14/01, one of the definitive Jigsaw dub jams of the era. It leads to a strong conclusion into the end of the song. The Don jam is a solid venture with a strong ending. Great version.

The Run Like Hell intro jam is a pretty short build. It’s solid and unremarkable, and the drop into the song is smooth and mellow. There is no mid-verse jam, leaving the remaining 14 or so minutes dedicated to the main jam. The first part of the jam is very patient, with tense atmosphere, envelope filtered bass and chugging riffs. Just shy of the 15 minute mark, Barber takes over and begins to build to the peak, which is soaring (despite a minor flub going into the ending). Humu is a far cry from the most recent 12/3/00 version. It’s a pretty standard build, except for the final minutes, in which the band appears to be building to the ending but instead break down into a spacey passage. The debut of Save the Robots follows. Compositionally, it’s pretty rough and unpolished, and gives the impression that it is still unfinished. However, there’s a lot of magic to this early version. The verse section and lyrics are pretty similar to modern versions, as is the bridge. However, the Robots funk emerges after the bridge, and is jammed into a second bridge. This is followed by the dnb jam, which concludes with a reprise of the chorus (which is not played in the bridge as in modern versions). It’s a weird layout, especially compared to modern versions. Both jams are pretty perfunctory but atmospheric. Magellan is standard. Crickets represents a departure from the late fall 2000 versions (as well as the one from earlier in the year), in that the first jam is a pretty straightforward build to the peak without any minor key detour. The funk jam is very short and standard.

2/5. The one segment in the show does not get nearly as dirty as I would have liked; nevertheless, it still registers as a show highlight along with Don, RLH, and the Jigsaw dub.

Stray Observations: Unspoken Rhyme is inverted for the second and last time, and the first with the full band.