April 21, 2006

B&C begins with a Blissco jam. Lovely way to start the show. Barber has a bunch of great modifications to this happy little riff he litters throughout this jam. Wonderful stuff, really. The Dribble first jam is alright. I think they develop a decent little theme, although this isn’t something I would relisten to again. The jam into Buddha beginning begins pretty mediocre, but they develop this into a really cool theme in the 3-4 minutes immediately prior to the beginning of Buddha. The Buddha jam is very solid. Nothing too far outside of the box, but some nice play from Magner. Sven here is absolutely fantastic. I am not generally a fan of the band’s DNB jams, but this is aggressive, dark, and great. Allen is absolutely on fire here, and there’s a great call-and-response going on between Barber and Magner.

Highwire, IRW, and Barfly are jamless to start the second set. Puke. The Rock Candy jam develops a very cohesive theme, but the theme is pretty uninteresting. Sounds a bit like 42, which basically gives me PTSD. The jam out of Abyss back into Buddha sounds like it could be headed for Blissco territory, but instead it winds up in this very circus-y sounding jam that straddles the line before happy and unhappy. I don’t hate this, but I can’t say I love it either. The Floodlights jam is a sort of “jam-funk” jam that I couldn’t care less about if I tried really hard. The Memphis first jam sounds like it could easily go into Basis. Not bad, though the drop back into Memphis is abrupt. The second Memphis jam almost immediately becomes a fast, dark trance jam. There’s a great contrast between Barber and the rest of the band that begins around 15:45. Everybody else is just pushing the pace as fast as they can, and he basically starts playing a riff in half-time. I really like the effect a lot (and like the riff that he comes up with as well). He eventually joins the rest of the band at double-time (or regular time, I guess), and the ending to Waves is solid and well-played.

Highlights: B&C**, Dribble (2), Buddha, Sven*, Memphis (1, 2*)