August 25, 2001

Voices! / Magellan / Shimmy ~> Boop / 7-11! / Ladies & Sven!+ the midway point of the 'Shelby 'jam!! are all top notch, like ridiculously good....but y'all know that already :)

do not miss these Brothers Past sets....the boards are out there.

a good strain or 2 to keep you energized and euphoric for this 3 setter: [OG Kush] & /or [Strawberry Cough]

The opening Voices, as usual, begins with a mostly uninteresting intro jam and a lot of composition. The breakdown section has a little bit of Barber trickery; it could hardly be called a jam, but still more than this section has gotten in the past. The main jam is excellent, one of the best standalone Voices jams I’ve heard. Unlike the brooding melancholy of the 99-00 Voices jams, this one is blissful, with an exultant conclusion. The Magellan is likewise a strong version. The middle jam gets deeper than probably any version yet, and the main jam has a solid thematic groove before Barber begins to lead the band back to the peak. Shelby Rose, on the other hand, does not go beyond average. Magner makes solid usage of the rabbit hole synths in crafting the theme, but this jam doesn’t do much to innovate on the standard formula. Shimmy begins out of tune (you can hear Barber correct on the fly), but the jam gets going immediately. Sammy lays down a steady 4x4 beat, and the other three use heavy distortion to craft a sinister theme. The jam covers a lot of ground in a relatively short timestamp: pretty soon, the theme becomes more introspective and the intensity begins to build as the band reaches Boop. The Boop funk is pretty solid as far as those jams go. It begins in aimless ambient territory, but reaches a strong peak by way of a thematic solo. The jam out of Boop begins with a couple teases (Voices Insane and Peter and the Wolf), but kind of treads water a bit after this. Barber takes the lead bringing the jam back into Shimmy territory. There is a cool uncomposed peak, followed by some cool shredding as the band returns to type one Shimmy territory, but overall the jam is a fairly straightforward A-to-B affair.

The first ever Sound One opens set two. This, and the pre-set banter, are only available on the aud version. The Sound One is surprisingly polished for the first version of such a complex composition, but of course there is no jam (we would need to wait just over a week before this song could become arguably the strongest jam vehicle in the catalogue). The towel jam in 7-11 is a little longer than usual in this version; it is still type one but it hints at the future potential of the section that would be realized in the next month. The main jam is more subdued than previous versions. Magner dominates here. He lays down the backbone to the main theme around 8:20, and continues to layer on over this. The locomotive trance continues for less than five minutes before Barber plays a distinctive, infectious riff, which is followed by the first hints from Brownie of the jam’s eventual destination into the ending of Ladies. Shortly after this, the jam breaks down into a more mellow section before making a more gradual return to the Ladies ending. Excellent jam. The jam out of Ladies is inchoate Blissco that only begins to take shape in the final minutes of the Ladies track. Around 12:30 it starts to get good, but I wasn’t as big of a fan of the journey getting there. The jam builds to a peak just shy of the track change, with hints of Confrontation ending, before the customarily sudden (for 01) drop into Helicopters. The Helicopters, like all the other versions from this year, is short and focused, with the ending coming rather suddenly. The first jam in The Very Moon is type one, but spaced out enough to be solidly enjoyable despite this. The second jam remains in TVM funk territory until the tempo shifts around the 15 minute mark, whereupon it begins to build to a 7-11 ending. Not very exploratory, but well-executed.

Svenghali to open the third set is a banner version. The theme, into which the band locks immediately, is tense and brooding. The rhythm and tempo vary just subtly enough to keep things interesting, and the buildup to the peak is gradual and earned. The first jam in Jigsaw is that light, airy space that the band was so fond of cultivating in this era. Sammy puts a fresh spin on this jam, shifting between the pounding trance typical of the section and a more easygoing rock groove. The trance jam is a more fleshed out execution of this. The jam flirts with a standard trance rhythm and a mid-tempo, breakbeat one, before breaking down into a slow, steady beat. The band locks into an excellent, introspective theme, one which sounds completely removed from Jigsaw Earth territory. The dub jam is a mostly standard iteration, but there is some great interplay as the theme reaches its conclusion. Jigsaw Earth has a blissful, though mostly unremarkable, outro jam, using Three Wishes as its landing pad. After this, the show coasts to the finish line, with standard versions of Spy and Lai.

4/5. Unlike the three-set shows from earlier in the year, this show has large portions of worthwhile music in all three sets. The first, despite being the longest, is arguably the least interesting of the three, while the second is probably my favorite overall. The major highlights are 7-11 > Ladies and the trance jam in Jigsaw, but Svenghali and Shimmy > Boop are both a cut above, and most of the show (Voices, Magellan, Ladies, TVM > 7-11), registers as a highlight.

Stray Observations: During the Voices intro, Barber wishes a happy birthday to Cheryl Altman, Sammy’s mother. There are Voices Insane and Peter and the Wolf teases during the jam out of Boop. Prior to the second set, the band reminds the crowd that the show will be three sets. Barber refers to it as the “three-set Cheryl Altman birthday bash,” and introduces some of the mascots. Brownie says that “the skunk” wrote the next song, and Barber says that Sammy wrote it “for his mom.” Hopefully he was joking. This is the first Inverted Ladies, and first Ladies of any kind since 5/11/01. There is a Sound One tease in Ladies. There are Rivers of Babylon teases in The Very Moon.