September 23, 2001

Zan, that was great! Perfect descriptions.

As we all know; monster! As the night before, it was becoming another all timer until the "MEMPHISH" 'till end. Although only a 25 minutes segment through the encore, it was a "shoulda had a V-8" moment. Shit happens.

Not a bad show I's day; we still get a great "Pygmy" exploding, then climbing towards gOD "Little Lai" (with Eddie Vedder vocals :)(like 3 verses, don't mind me) but it's that final jam. Up up and away. Feels so good. That's how you get Lai'd.

That straight for the gut "Basis" with a favorite "Spy" is worth all of your attention. That brings us to a very top of the food chain "Shimmy". Yes, I hear you Dec. '01, 9:30 Club; Nashville '09 and the underdog gem of May 28, '03 at the Conduit! ~> perfect handoff to the "Invasion" The first Barber solo alone let's you know how for from Tennessee you truly are. The from 4 minutes to 10 is just an incredible psychedelic excursion. The 4 armed creature is ass deep in the hyperfocus realm of boundless creation. The boys snap into the last 4 minute build up in perfection. Words would be to undermine. Hi Sally. The "end"

Minus the last 25 minutes where is the burnt popcorn? I guess the standalones? "Tunnel" & "Voices"? lol not really, the 'Tunnel' is a Magner delight and I like the basic structure of 'Voices'. Some don't. I think it's an interesting, creepy little affair. This one isn't bad at all.

Set One: 9.65 / 10 Set Two: 9.10 / 10 Very nice sound. No gaps or blips between songs. Mono.

These 2 Boulder shows are definite desert island shows.

Share this music! This was our Bronze Age. Head full of  mandrake and henbane.  
I'll spew forth again,  2001 was a dream. 
It got intense in the "everything but the music" area but the love, kinship and collective flow and love when the music dropped was some that felt holy. We were high. Very high. In the most respectful manner.

Helicopters is pretty standard fare for 01: short and subdued. However, the peak is a good bit stronger than typical of these versions. Helicopters drop segues into Pygmy, and this version is actually one of the best ever. Magner delivers a very simple three notes, and Barber soon comes in with the perfect complementary theme. The theme is gorgeous, melancholy, and totally unique. It lasts about half of the jam, breaking down around the 8 minute mark for a more traditional Lai intro. Lai has a really cool breakdown and exploration into some type two space. It almost sounds like Air Song in the really quiet parts. There’s a cool, jazzy buildup back into Lai territory for a solid ending. The Basis intro is a strong version. There are three distinct parts: the first an almost ambient passage, the second a typical shuffling groove, and the third a huge buildup. The Basis middle is everything I want this section to be. It’s tense and atmospheric, with just the right amount of dissonance and a strong uncomposed peak back into the bass slaps. The jam out of Basis isn’t particularly compelling to me, but the segue into Spy is masterfully executed. The Spy outro, on the other hand, is excellent.

The Tunnel is probably the strongest version yet. It has a strong full-band jam and a massive peak. Voices is standard. The Shimmy is strong even if you don’t take the legendary outro into account. There is a short type one jam between the shout section and the Middle Eastern riff (far longer than this section has gotten up to now), and the main jam begins with Magner on piano for an extended, haunting dirge. It provides the perfect lead-in to the jam proper, which begins in earnest after 10:30. What follows is a fairly standard, but notably sinister, Shimmy jam. The outro is, of course, the reason for the season. Completely unique and almost aggressively psychedelic, the repetitive piano lines and rhythm provide the perfect backbone for the repetitive and unsettling “sleep through my alarm” vocalizations. The jam breaks down even as the vocalizations continue, and pretty soon the jam starts to build up to Munchkin pace. Munchkin is a solid version, standard but for a vaguely Shelby-esque dnb theme on the way into the ending. The show kind of falls off the tracks here. M.E.M.P.H.I.S. with Purple Haze in between the verses falls flat, and robs us of a proper M.E.M.P.H.I.S. outro (interestingly, the band messes up the verses here as on 3/31, but they opt to sing them out of order instead). B&C has a cool theme built around the Mario starman theme, but it’s pretty much completely standard otherwise.

4/5. The first three quarters are on track to be as good as the previous night (yes, really), but the weak fourth knocks it down a peg. Basis > Spy > Basis and Shimmy > Munchkin are phenomenal, but the Pygmy jam is a greatest jam of all time contender.

Stray Observations: Shimmy has Reactor vocal teases in the shout section.