July 01, 2006

Spectacle begins with some funny banter from Barber and Brownstein. The pair joke about how the festival has been so perfect that they don’t want to ruin it, so they’ll just be playing a single note for an hour (an A). Spectacle itself is alright. This intro never really gets to the next level for me. Abraxas is standard, jamless. Pinball Wizard has a dance jam in the middle of it with a decent groove, but not much else. Frog Legs is standard, jamless. Munchkin has the worst jam they’ve ever played. This has a guest sit-in on flute, and it is straight up obnoxious. I don’t know who in the band thought this was a good idea, but they were wrong, wrong, wrong. This is monotony with nothing interesting. Awful. Fortunately, the jam into Hope is actually really beautiful, even if it’s sort of a type 1 jam for a chunk of it. There is a “Gentle Nature” jam in Hope which is fine.

Highlights: Munchkin (2**) Lowlights: Munchkin (1)