May 25, 2007

(btw above setlist) I think 'Batman Jam' merits it's own written passage before going ~> into Shem.

"Her Coochie Can't Stand Her Hand No More"  I feel your pain Betty, do you need batteries? 

1st set is mostly very good, the opening jam and half of Crystal Ball is a gritty funk factory. Oh and a huge by the way....best Lunars of the year?

2nd set. Amazing! fun, danceable like a mutha', psychedelic, and much funk. Yet a little short of the 1st. Top notch versions of Don and especially Little Betty. She is one fun sister. This Betty is #2 for 2007 and #19 all time in my notebooks. I stand by that statement lol. Very Pink Floydish at times (Mags of course) Shem is well done but average(which is still good, especially the "jump in" point). At 7 mins it is happyland, love this jam. Keyboards from hell until the handoff to Barber is complete= "THAT" groove! Spaga was good but in a year of progressive Spagas, this one is on the average with an incredible Magner/Allen jam midway through 22mins in. Is that Mahavishnu in there? I think maybe "Dance of Maya"?

Great choice for encore but too rushed, too short.

{{Crystal Ball ~> LP // then Mr.Don ~> LBB ~> Batman Jam ~> SRB}} <<<<<-------- this on repeat.

MVP= Thank You Mr. Magner.

love

The opening jam here is awesome, period. This begins with Allen and Barber just sort of vamping, and Brownstein comes in with this hypnotic bassline that has an undeniable groove to it. Magner is content to play around with some plucky synths in the upper registers. Around the 3:20 mark, Marc starts adding some chord movement to this. There’s no chance that this is unrehearsed, as Barber follows Marc’s movements a little too well for this to truly just be made up on the spot. Not to mention that the entire jam is in 7/4, which is unusual for the band. Magner’s play is evocative of Peaches en Regalia by Zappa, and I’m not sure if maybe they were even kind of riffing/jamming on that theme in retrospect. Crystal Ball has a middle jam which gets an extended treatment. There is some great textural work from Magner here, and Barber/Brownstein develop a great pocket around which Magner dances. The last few minutes here get a little weird, in a great way. Lunar jam is dark and fantastic. This is just dark, awesome trance. There’s a great ambient/space jam out of the end of Lunar, before Memphis drops abruptly. Memphis first jam is much more rock oriented than I’m typically looking for from this band, but they crush this so hard that I really didn’t care at all. The jam out of Memphis is really interesting. Barber seems to tease Spectacle and Spacebirdmatingcall as the band slowly plods toward the beginning of IRW. This is a unique jam and I think warrants listening to it for that reason alone.

There’s a very brief ambient/space jam prior to the start of Don. Don itself turns into a fast-paced trance jam fairly quickly. Magner busts out Gates of Hell for a bit. This whole jam does very little for me, and the same is true for the Boop “funk” jam. The jam out of Boop gets into this really dumb “nuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuh Batman” section, complete with jokey vocoder from Magner. Huge meh. The Shem-Rah jam is deeply thematic, with Magner hitting some absolutely wonderful lead melodies. This jam is basically all Magner as Barber is content to play rhythm guitar for the majority here. Magner never shies away from this kind of opportunity and absolutely crushes this jam. First Spaga doesn’t do a whole lot for me. I don’t hate this, but there’s just nothing that really grabbed me here. Second jam has a repetitive theme from Magner on piano. I actually kind of like this theme, but wish they would do something more interesting with it.

Highlights: Jam**, Crystal Ball**, Lunar (1*, 2**), Memphis (1*, 2), Shem-Rah*