The famed Chameleon Club show. For most fans, this was the show that Tractorbeam became something of a legendary occurrence. For some, just seeing the words, “Buddha > Don” can cause them to instantly recall every note played by each band member for 45 minutes or so. The show begins with a spacey ambient jam with heavy middle eastern flavor. This lasts for a few minutes, and it’s clear from the start that the band is not here to mess around. This is a fantastic intro jam, and one of the better examples of how interesting they can make a simple noise jam. This feels like they could be about to drop into the middle of Bazaar Escape, but around the 3-minute mark, Barber slowly brings in the repeating guitar pattern which forms the beginning of Abraxas. Awesome start, and we’re three minutes in. The jam out of Abraxas plods along for a few minutes, but at 10:45, most of the band cuts out and Magner develops an awesome lead theme. Brownstein holds for a few bars before returning with a nice little progression. At 11:36, the band regroups into a great little theme with some fantastic communication between Brownstein and Magner. This theme has some haunting quality about it, almost to the point of melancholy. Very pretty stuff in an unusual way. They return to a major key a little quicker than I’d like, as I would have loved to see this theme explored a little more. When they’re transitioning from minor to major, it almost sounds like they could be headed for the ending of Munchkin for a minute or so.

Run Like Hell has a very digital jam, and this jam seems to really let Allen showcase some of his toys. In fact, now that I think about it, this show was probably the first time that Allen really got to show off a lot of his e-drum effects. He’s used them prior to this, but never to this extent. The jam itself is very solid, with an evil sounding electronic theme crafted by the three melody players. Songs of Joy begins with a very tom-heavy jam that is very unique sounding. This sort of has the sound of a more digital Magellan, or something along those lines. Around the 8-minute mark, the band breaks free of this sound and into a straight-up dance jam. I’ve seen some say this is the highlight of the show. I don’t agree. It’s absolutely A highlight, but in my mind this just a nice, solid, above average jam. It’s unique in that it’s coming out of Songs of Joy, but there’s no part of this that absolutely blows me away.

The jam out of Buddha is the best part of this show to me. The theme Magner crafts at the start of the jam is fantastic, and Brownstein’s quarterbacking here is fantastic. It’s not a coincidence that most of the “best” jams from 2.0 involve Marc coming up with a multi-chord progression to lead the others. It’s a recipe for success. Barber turns on his digital distortion and plays some great complementary stuff to Magner’s rhythmic leads. As the band gets into the Mr. Don track on the soundboard, Magner has an absolutely ridiculous lead riff that he just pulls out of thin air. This is so, so, so great and just epitomizes where the band was at during this period of time. At 2:36, Brownstein grabs on to a VI-VII-I progression and the jam is taken to the absolute next level. Magner layers a pure lead on top of the mix. Absolutely glorious. The intro jam for Mr. Don is very neat, though from a jam perspective this is more “fun” than interesting. The band does a Fanfare for the Common Man jam, Barber throws in Run Like Hell and I-Man teases, they tease Norwegian Wood and 1999 as well. Don is mostly solid, although a lot of this is kind of paint-by-numbers. People talk about this as best Don of all-time, and what they’re really talking about is the jam in and the extended intro (in my opinion, of course).

The jam out of Confrontation continues with the overtly digital sound the band relied heavily on in the first set. This jam is shorter than others, but there’s still some choice sections of jamming here. I felt like this is a little too short to include as a highlight, as they basically vamp a bit and then they’re suddenly in the Buddha ending section, but cool anyway. Brownstein also has a neat little Spacebird tease, which you don’t often see. There’s no jam after Buddha before RLH. The jam out of RLH is another ambient/space jam for a minute or two before Allen drops into the Dribble beat. The next couple minutes are obviously a Dribble intro, and in circumstances like this I’d almost rather they just start the song. This dragged on a bit for me. The Dribble jam has a bassline that sounds a little bit like some disco song I can’t place (Stayin’ Alive maybe?) In any event, there’s a quick Cyclone tease from Barber, but most of this jam just doesn’t move me a whole lot. Parts of the Lunar jam are great, and other parts are just straight up forgettable. The first few minutes sound like this could be headed for the same greatness as the Buddha jam. However they wind up with some pretty mediocre, repetitive stuff for the second half of this jam. The very last minute or two has some great stuff, particularly from Barber, but not quite enough to save the rest of the jam from its own mediocrity. After Lunar, they have a short, short jam before headed into Abyss. This is just not long enough to get any traction.

Highlights: Abraxas (Intro*, 1*), RLH, Songs of Joy, Buddha**, Confrontation (2), RLH (2)

June 26, 2007

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