February 15, 2007

There’s a short “jam” in Shadow that does nothing. Air Song is jamless. The “Smash” track has a jam that leads into Glastonbury. Eh, this is alright, but nothing special. Glastonbury has a short jam that leads into DTTB which is not memorable (although I like the effort). The jam out of DTTB is the very first solid jam in this show. Brownstein’s bassline is a great little rhythm that really pushes things along, and Magner has some great texturing atop the jam. The jam out of the Mario Star Jam prior to Crickets is an awesome little ambient thing. Awesome. Crickets first jam has a great theme. Brownstein’s bass progression is catchy, and Barber’s picking on top of it is really great. This is one of those minimalist forms that Barber comes up with which is simple, but oh so effective. The peak is not great. Second Crickets jam gets a little chaotic and psychedelic in a really cool way. The band build a huge cacophonous peak before resolving back into Crickets ending. Very cool stuff.

First Robots is a decent funk jam, but not something I’d listen to again and again. Second Robots jam doesn’t do anything for me. After Robots, the band jams on Immigrant Song. I’ll count this as a jam, but it’s really just the band kind of meandering and killing time. The jam out of Pygmy turns into a major key peak that sounds like it could be headed for something like Helicopters, before ultimately dissipating and going back into the Starman thing. There is no jam again until Mr. Don. I’ve seen people refer to this as one of the best Mr. Don’s ever. I don’t hear it. This just doesn’t do much of anything for me. It says something about this show that the Moshi-Fameus jam does nothing for me. This is just a lot of meh. Sweat Box is such a weird song for this band. I weirdly both love and hate it, which is about par for the course with a lot of the Planet Anthem tunes. Minions has a very solid dark dance jam, and Rockafella is jamless to end the set.

Highlights: DTTB, Mario Star (2**), Crickets (1*, 2**), Minions