October 31, 2001

Funeral March of a Marionette is a great way to open the show. No jam, but it's short and sets the mood perfectly. The Nughuffer jam is a furious trance vehicle that peaks around 11-12 minutes in, before settling down into a blissful, uptempo jaunt. This jam segues masterfully into the theme from Peanuts. Voices has the barest hint of a jam, nothing too interesting. Radiator makes its first appearance since April, and it’s pretty great. After a stronger-than-average guitar solo/middle jam, the band settles into a lively, Magner-dominated jaunt that soon grows menacing. The peak into the first inverted Reactor is earth-shattering. The jam out of Reactor is extremely restrained (even in fall 01, this was not the norm). There is some fantastic synth work in this jam, which reaches a Halloween inspired haunted crescendo around the 8-9 minute mark. After a sudden breakdown at 10:00, the jam rebuilds into a Nughuffer ending theme, which is mostly standard minus the botched ending.

The second set of the show is one of very few “jam-only” sets the band has ever played. The Alice in Wonderland Jam is less famous (deservedly so, in my opinion) than the legendary Akira Jam (or even the more recent Tron Jam), but it is definitely an attempt to re-bottle some of that lightning. It is, to my ears, considerably more mellow than the Akira Jam, and lacks the catharsis of the epic Basis ending that made the Akira Jam so successful. The first few minutes are almost like a Very Moon intro, mellifluous but largely directionless. The jam takes on a more aggressive tone around the 8 minute mark, spurred on by a more aggressive bass line from Brownie. Here, the band locks in for a great minor-key theme that sadly only lasts for about 3-4 minutes before we find ourselves tumbling back down the rabbit hole again. The jam remains in minor key before taking on a march quality and returning to more blissful space around the 16 minute mark. There is a chaotic quality to the next passage, with several strange Magner effects and percussive breakdowns. The jam largely treads water for several minutes, exploring several vastly different themes only superficially before moving manically on to the next (this more or less defines the entire jam, actually). Around the 30-32 minute mark, there is a complete ambient breakdown, a cool digital Magner theme, and a cacophonic build to a frenzied false peak. This space builds up gradually into an almost Shelby Rose intro (there is the vaguest hint of a tease), which yields another cool peak section. The remainder of the jam is fairly low-energy for most of the way, sounding at points like a Crickets funk or a Sound 1 intro. Around the 1 hour mark they begin to build up to the final crescendo. It’s not a linear build by any means (there’s a pretty cool, sludgy dub section in the middle), but it’s still a solid ending to a, frankly, fairly turgid set.

After a hit-or-miss set like this one, a double header encore consisting of strong versions of Ladies and Munchkin is very welcome. The Ladies has a couple of different themes and a cooldown before the ending that is all very well-executed. The Munchkin is solid, but standard for the time.

3/5. I docked a point for the second set being such a slog, and it still came up above a 2.5. The Radiator > Reactor (><) > Nughuffer is excellent and contains both of my highlights for the night, and the Ladies and Nughuffer > Peanuts Theme are both solid.