November 02, 2001

As the band is playing in Portland, Portland native and longtime Biscuits collaborator DJ Mauricio opens the show. Mercifully, we are not subjected to a Mauricio Crickets or Munchkin, but rather we are treated to a full-on Mauricio > Biscuits jam, set to Koyaanisqatsi no less. This most famous of the Pacific Northwest movie jams begins with just Mauricio (although it sounds like Sammy is out by the beginning of the track). After some enjoyable tribal tech-house, by 5:30 the full band has hit the stage. It begins in very tense territory—and Barber’s muted distortion accentuates this—almost sounding like a fall 2000 jam, but it soon moves towards a triumphant, blissful theme. After a drawn-out crescendo section, the jam settles down into brooding and eerie atmosphere. From here, the jam builds to a dreamy, carnivalesque crescendo, which doesn’t reveal it’s ultimate destination until a few minutes before the track change, and even here the jam is decisively more blissful than a typical Waves peak section. The tradeoffs between minor and major key leading up to the peak are fantastic, as is the peak itself. The jam out of Waves has some really gorgeous bliss lines from Barber in a short-lived trance jam, but by the 13 minute mark the jam has shifted firmly to dnb. The theme in the second half of the jam is fantastic, and also Barber-led in the best way. There is a moment in the jam just shy of the 16 minute mark where almost all of the rhythm section drops out, followed by Brownie coming back with an absolute vengeance, that is just so quintessentially Bisco. I love it. The segue into Overture is fantastic as well. The jam out is sparse, atmospheric dnb. Magner stays mostly in the background, but Barber, again, develops a gorgeous theme, one which leads very well into the transition out of dnb. This pretty quickly lands in type one Floes territory. Floes intro is pretty standard after a neat appearance of Sister Judy’s teases two weeks before the song debuted. There is a breakbeat mid-verse jam (between the first and second, interestingly), but it doesn’t do much. The Floes jam is decent, but mainly interesting for hints of the more famous “pirate funk” Triumph from 12/30/01. Solid dub theme, including the very familiar Magner line. Strong ending.

7-11 opens the second set in a festive manner. Nothing much in the way of a towel jam, and the main jam is pretty standard trance. The Boop funk jam is enjoyable, but doesn’t break the mold at all. It’s the jam out of Boop that recaptures my interest. It begins as simple mid-tempo trance, but is distinguished by a gorgeously simple Barber theme and absolutely thunderous percussion. The breakdown heading into Spacebird is great as well, with some fantastic bass work from Brownie. The Spacebird doesn’t go anywhere near as deep or exploratory as the stellar September versions, but it’s a solid jaunt nonetheless. Great full-band jamming that leads to a great peak section. The Jigsaw that follows is decent enough. The first jam (not-counting the short pre-chase jam) is actually very good, blurring lines between dub, rock and trance. The second is fairly uninspired, however. Triumph has a decent and enjoyable uptempo bliss jam, but it’s much too short to be of much interest and it reveals its direction very quickly. Aceetobee is similarly perfunctory.

4/5. A little bit stronger than the previous night, but the second set falls off a little too sharply to earn a 5. The first set, however, is I believe the highest ranked set of the year so far, narrowly beating 3/31/01 first set. Koyaanisqatsi > Waves > Overture is some of the greatest music of the year.

Stray Observations: This is the first time a show opened with a jam into an inverted song. There are Svenghali teases going into Waves. There are Sister Judy’s Soul Shack (not debuted until two weeks later) teases in the Floes intro.