September 07, 2001

"You guys gotta take it easy at the hotel tonight. No seriously. The Disco Biscuits are low-pro". -Marc Brownstein

What a fun show this was. A tiny little bar/dance club in between Albany and Saratoga-ish, near Troy as I remember. It was near the Mariaville/Schenectady area of the BEST Camps, Camp Creek, The Vibes and other endless incredible festys.

Obviously a different spot today than the old one that lasted until mid 2K's(a fire I believe(?)). Amazing sound, small...deadicated fans but lots ticketless people. The weather was fantastic, ended up missing the fire Hartford show the next night and of course missed my 40 minute "Triumph~>Floes" all because of those addictive jet-skis we rented on the Mohawk. Oh and we hadn't slept since the night of the Burlington show. I was 30 and could still go hard in the paint. Today I have have a 6 pack and a couple of shots and feel it for 2 days. A little fresh liquid and a 1/2 of White Widow and you're golden. Apply benzos carefully, as prescribes or as close as you can.

[I got to Cohoes and was already somewhere not on earth. The band is made of humans, you can see that...hell, the drummer even loses a stick at one point. At RLH's conclusion, the person to the left of me screams "I have LOST my mind." I was feeling transcendent myself, but confused...What fascinating noise could take a person's mind that quickly, off something so plain and innocent? I asked him if he wanted a hit off our joint....he almost broke down in tears as he simultaneously has a Jack Nicholson manic smile a la "Shining" ...we changed locations.]

Very nice Kam Sands, especially the nice Barber / Mags percussive jam towards the outro into Waves...warts and all. No real flow broken. While some see this Waves as perhaps confusing, I fn' love it. Dr. Sam, Brownie and Magner really get a nice mid-tempo jam to cruise along with until the big scary monster jam near the end. Simple and effective (IMO) It's a weird one and I like it. The Munchkin is very spacey and minimally well directed even if it doesn't blow the roof off the joint. Very fun Jigsaw, I'll take these jams all day, all night. It can't be all perfect spiral touchdowns. The UNTZ is strong tonight young Jedi. Dribble is another highlight, with of course a couple of 'where are we now' moments but the tune is a good 35 minutes long...bound to get sparks off the guardrail a few times. At the 13 minute mark you'll hear one of the better segments of the set by Barber, where Magner eventually drops real nice atmospheric space, all the while Sammy is Buddy Rich and Keith Moon clones in one. Beautiful!! And long! (correct: that's what she said.....or whished for) I nominate this Mindful Dribble for something.

Magner gets the MVP tonight with the good doctor right there close by. September through the PAC NW at the beginning of November 2001 was Sammy's most incredible 3 months ever with the Biscuits to me. He could direct any part of any jam back on track while staying off redundant popcorn weed jams.

Awesome show. The 2nd a few steps ahead of the first. 1st set:: 7.05 / 10 2nd set+encore:: 8.55 / 10

ps - Listen guys, I've been eating way too much weed. Do you think I'll get a pot-belly?

peace.

There is a large portion of the Run Like Hell missing, so the first jam of the night is really the main jam. The jam is pleasant and blissful but totally inside-the-box. Pilin is of course still boring as hell (as it was basically every time it was played until 5/28/03). Jigsaw has a very brief jam before the chase, and then a longer trance jam. The main trance jam is pretty hectic and frenetic, and is solid overall, but the “dub” jam is more interesting. It really isn’t dub at all, more of an unconventionally blissful rock jam that builds to a gorgeous major-key crescendo. This is an exciting and unconventional take on this section. Spy is jamless. M.E.M.P.H.I.S. has the same rockstar Barber jam that you’ve heard, but the outro is worth hearing. It starts as a steady deconstruction of the M.E.M.P.H.I.S. ending riff and builds steadily around a groove-oriented jam to a strong 7-11 peak (completing the previous night’s version).

The Kamaole jam doesn’t do much to interest me until around the ten minute mark when the band seems to find a groove. Unfortunately, Barber attempts (and seriously fails) to segue into Waves at this point, so it’s a bit of a wasted potential. This throws things off for a few minutes. The Waves jam has the vaguely dubby, mellow feel of a fall 2000 Waves. Barber is firmly in the lead, but the jam is still very restrained. Around 5:30 he comes in with the muted distortion, and it creates a great effect here. The jam builds to an unconventional, percussive passage around the 10 minute mark, and from here makes a non-standard journey to the Waves peak (I had assumed they would transition directly into Munchkin, as it isn’t difficult and it sounded like that’s where they were heading, but the Waves peak caught me by surprise). There is a solid drop segue into Munchkin. Munchkin is a characteristically strong 01 version. It begins as mellow trance, breaking down into a Floes intro fakeout, and finally builds to a strong ending. Widow provides a nice Phish-style cooldown between the two big improv segments. This Dribble is one of the great monumental versions of the band’s career, and it sounds exactly like you would expect the first version after the paradigm-shifting 9/1 to sound. The band spends several minutes exploring a deconstructed Strobelights intro, for much longer than the more scripted 9/1. Magner delivers a spectacular, Strobelights-esque riff as the jam moves away from Strobelights territory and into type two. The band builds on a standard groove until 15-15:30 when Sammy goes absolutely off the wall with a furious, thunderous rhythm. Barber switches on the muted distortion around the 17 minute mark, and builds the jam to a spectacular crescendo as it returns to Dribble. If the first jam is unconventional, the second is even more so. Magner utilizes a variety of non-musical sounds, such as a dog barking, a chugging helicopter, and an accelerating car. Barber holds down the pocket, and the band builds up to what sounds like a Munchkin ending fakeout before sticking the landing into Kamaole, completing this behemoth of improvisation. The HAB encore is a solid placement for that song, but of course the jam is barely existent.

3/5. The second set is pretty excellent even without the all-timer Dribble, but the first is largely a wash minus the excellent and unconventional Jigsaw and a solid M.E.M.P.H.I.S. outro.