October 13, 2001

Confrontation has an excellent, breakneck trance jam that builds to a powerful crescendo before settling down a bit into a Run Like Hell intro. It rebuilds slightly for a strong drop into RLH. RLH has an excellent mid-verse jam. It begins in tense, foreboding territory with a fantastic theme from Barber, and it develops into another fist-pumping RLH intro. Amazing stuff here. The jam out of Run Like Hell is pretty standard festy Biscuits. There is a hype man or something in the middle of the jam, speaking Japanese. That was a little jarring, but it wasn’t a sit-in which was my biggest fear. The jam builds to a standard Confro peak. Waves starts out as standard, minor-key trance, but soon develops into an uplifting, major-key jam. It’s almost Crickets-sounding, and for such a short version the band manages to develop this theme very well. The uncomposed peak around the ten minute mark is excellent, and the transition back into Waves territory is very patiently executed. Cool stuff. The Tunnel gets into an almost Songs of Joy jam in the middle. It’s an odd choice for a festival set, as it’s hardly thrilling, but it’s easily among the most exploratory Tunnel jams so far (along with 9/26/01). The M.E.M.P.H.I.S. has the typical later 1.0 first jam, short and punchy but not particularly interesting or exploratory. The outro jam is basically a Run Like Hell jam from the jump (and is tracked thusly). It’s strong and patient even if it isn’t exploratory.

4/5. There’s nothing that stands out as among the best jams of the year; nevertheless, this is a remarkably solid show with almost no filler. The Run Like Hell mid-verse jam is my JotN, but the whole segment registers as a highlight, along with Waves, Tunnel, and the RLH ending.