July 07, 2007

The Reactor jam has a Bazaar Escape tease, sort of? This jam just goes nowhere at all for several minutes. However, the section around the 13-minute mark is really great. The band develops a thematic, multi-chord motif that features some great communication between Barber and Brownstein. This unfortunately drags on a little long with virtually no change at all. I’ll still note this as a highlight, but they lost a lot of steam here. This is the Shem-Rah that changed things for the band, apparently. This particular Shem-Rah is unfinished, and begins a 2.5 year period where the band never finished Shem-Rah Boo. The jam in Shem-Rah is deeply familiar. There’s something about the progression that Brownstein hits on that I absolutely love, and the rest of the band’s play around him is very solid as well. There’s a brief Astronaut tease from Marc and Jon in the first Orch Theme jam. The jam into Confrontation features some guy on lap guitar, and this is very boring. They extend 7-11’s intro section to the point I’d call this its own jam. Meh. The jam out of 7-11 into Lunar continues with this boredom. Fortunately, this is the “reworked” Lunar, with only one repetition of the composed section, meaning they ditch the “middle” jam that appeared the first few times they played Lunar. Nice.

There’s no jam out of Dribble, but there is a really nice jam out of Strobelights. The jam out of Cyclone and the “toast” jam in Dribble are equally forgettable, but the jam out of Dribble back into Orch Theme has some great dark themes from the band. This is nothing amazing, but generally solid. At one point, they hit on the same progression which would eventually become the end of On Time. This is probably coincidental as it’s a simple progression, but neat regardless. The last two jams in Orch and Mr. Don are both just okay.

Highlights: Reactor, Shem-Rah**, Strobelights, Dribble (2)

This was my first show and I had been listening to the Biscuits for about ten months at that point. Stoke level was high, it was a late night show, it was at my favorite festival in the world, but they did just not deliver. Brownie later mentioned that it was more of a Tractorbeam show since there was minimal lyrics and it was a pretty nonstop untzy show. Barber played a telecaster the whole show, which was a little strange from an aesthetic and tone point of view. Dan "Lebo" Lebowitz sat in during a large chunk of the first set on lap steel guitar, and while being somewhat tasteful at times, Barber and Magner were just giving him WAY too much room and not playing anything interesting themselves. There's even a point when they send Lebo off on the mic, and then he just ends up staying on stage and sitting in for another twenty minutes. Second set wasn't too much better... Just boring. I've given this show many second tries since it was my first show and July 2007 is one of my favorite months, but it has never gotten any better. The next night on the Big Meadow stage was completely different and SO much better.