May 21, 2007

this second set is really something else. I agree with the other reviewer that it can be pretty weird and out there at points, but it's pretty neat. Definitely worth a listen for Magellan fans.

The show begins with a long, drawn-out, spacey jam. The band here is patient in such a fantastic way. Sometimes when they draw out a jam like this, they feel the need to do too much. Here, they sit back in a great little pocket, content to just build the atmosphere. Magner has a rhythmic arp that permeates nearly the entirety of this jam, and gives everything a really neat texture. This is 10-plus minutes of very solid work from the entire band. The jam after the first verse in RLH develops into some dark territory almost immediately. I’d like to have seen them explore this a little more, but they head back toward more major key stuff as they draw toward verse 2. This isn’t bad, but not a portion worth re-listening to. The jam out is another drawn-out dance jam. Barber’s work here uses a lot of chords and strumming rather than single-note riffs, and it’s clear how engaged he is. As they near the end of the RLH tracking, he mixes in several single-note riffs in addition to his strummed playing. There’s nothing insane about what they’re doing here, but it’s all very solid. Strobelights is jamless. The Pilin jam gets dark and ominous for the first few minutes, until about the 6-minute mark, where the band shifts toward major key territory in anticipation of the switch to Sven. The rest of this is basically a Sven jam. Eh. The first portion of this had a ton of potential (even as much as DNB jams are my least favorite), but they came up short up here. Don’t get me wrong, the Sven peak is absolutely phenomenal. And following the beginning of Sven they open things up into an absolutely wonderful, Middle-Eastern sounding ambient jam. Around the 11-minute mark, the band locks into a plodding, rhythmic march that exemplifies what’s so unique about this show. There are very few (if any) jams I can think of that sound like this. This was truly the band jamming without a net. This coalesces so wonderfully into a fully charged, balls-to-the-wall piece of freight train jamming that leads flawlessly into the beginning of Munchkin. Absolutely phenomenal. The first few minutes of Munchkin features the entire band showing patience once again. The first few minutes feel like an ordinary, if pretty, jam. Around the 9-minute mark, Allen drops the snare, and the band is off. This develops into a dark, nasty jam that returns to Pilin and marks another high point for the band in an already very good first set.

Second set begins with a jam on Billie Jean. Meh. The last minute or so sounds like it could be headed for Air Song. The first few minutes of the Sven jam are neat, and features the band doing an extended intro jam for Svenghali. Unusual stuff for them, and again feels like a lot of jamming without a net. Not something I’ll go out of my way to re-listen to, but not bad. The jam out of Sven gets weird. Really, really weird. This is weirdly dissonant and pretty at the same time. Really interesting stuff. The first Jigsaw jam is basically a reggae jam. I don’t find this terribly appealing, but fortunately this only lasts for a few minutes. The rest of the jam leads pretty obviously to Orch Theme. The Orch jam has, again, some unique jamming. There’s really no theme here, it’s just everybody playing sort of texturally as they plod forward through a dark dance groove. It’s cool, even if this isn’t something you could hum to yourself after the fact. Around the 7 minute mark they speed and coalesce around a driving rhythmic pulse, starting first with Brownstein, then joined by Magner. Barber noodles around on top of the pulsing as the band begins the trek back toward Jigsaw. There’s a brief, 4-minute jam after the middle of Jigsaw and before, “Jacob sat…” This is a throwaway, treading water jam. Similarly, there’s another 2-3-minute jam around the 9 minute mark that again is just unnecessary filler. Mercifully, they keep the drum solo here to just a couple minutes. At 14:40 they hit on another absolutely marvelous ambient jam. They have the ability to make these so interesting that it beckons the question why they simply haven’t done more of this over the years. This is spacey, Floydian, and features some female audio samples which talk about some sort of sexual hypnosis. The whole thing is insanely psychedelic and still remains one of the coolest things they’ve done. The “jam” out of Magellan and into Lunar basically is Brownstein plucking on the offbeats and the band playing around on top of this. Even though it’s short, this is noteworthy in that it’s such an unusual sound for the band. If this lasted longer it really could have turned into a monster of a jam. Instead, they sort of slide into Lunar in a really neat way. There’s another Billie Jean tease just before the Lunar drop which I wish they hadn’t done, but what can you do? The jam out off Lunar is this weird, off-kilter pirate-y jam. This is, once again, the band getting outside its comfort zone and just sort of seeing what happens. Really neat stuff, even if this isn’t completely my vibe. The end of Magellan features them fleshing out the finish a little bit, though not necessarily jamming it. The encore has a really solid jam out of Safety Dance into the end of RLH to end the show. This ends the show very similar to the way it began. Solid, inside the box playing to leave the crowd going home and happy after an exceptional, exploratory, legendary show. They bliss out the peak a little bit and come up short of a straight up Blissco jam. Awesome stuff, and a great ending. Five stars all around.

Highlights: RLH (Intro, 2*), Sven (1**, 2*) Munchkin*, Orch, Jigsaw (4**), Magellan (1), Lunar, Safety Dance*