September 04, 2001

Stone > Waltz is standard and meandering. Lai is surprisingly interesting, breaking down into a sparse, moody passage, building up to a vaguely foreboding theme, and culminating in a triumphant, Magner-led peak. After some clunky composition in Shem-Rah, the jam gets off to a pretty interesting start. The tempo breaks down, and there are hints of Strobelights and Martinis. It’s a cool atmosphere, but it never really develops in any meaningful way. Jigsaw has the standard, atmospheric pre-chase jam that doesn’t do much. The jam after the first chase section departs the norm fairly quickly. The first few minutes sound as if the band could drop back into another chase section at any point, but around the 9 minute mark the jam begins to break down into percussive madness. Brownstein dominates this section. It gradually returns to more standard territory and culminates in a strong peak into the chase section. The dub jam is enjoyable but not groundbreaking.

Plan B is standard, but strong. The Boop first jam is very solid, fairly mellow and restrained in keeping with the expectations for the year. It’s pretty cool atmosphere, and the vocal teases from Barber are a nice touch, but it doesn’t really do much. Boop drop segues into Munchkin. Munchkin has a pretty straightforward jam. It’s blissful, in keeping with the song structure but a departure from the stronger spring versions. The jam is fairly monolithic, but solid atmosphere, and a solid conclusion. The Munchkin outro shows some promise, but it’s really just a mish mash of type one ideas—the dub theme resolves into a Floodlights intro pretty quickly, and this soon morphs into an I-Man intro. The middle jam is very solid. Brownie pushes the jam forward with a very simple, pounding bass line, and Barber and Magner carve out a melodic space that is removed from the strictures of I-Man. It builds to a triumphant crescendo (not unlike a Boop middle) before returning to I-Man. The main jam in I-Man is excellent, a minimal trance vehicle that builds to a furious peak. After the strong I-Man, the rest of the show is standard. Spy and Bazaar are jamless, and Grass is Green is fairly unremarkable.

1/5. Not quite enough for a 1.5, but better than it perhaps looks. The I-Man is an excellent version, and the Lai is unconventionally strong. Jigsaw is very solid as well.

Stray Observations: Munchkin Invasion features an outro jam for the first time of the year, and first time since 11/16/00.