October 12, 2007

Run Like Hell ~> Story(inv) is astronomical. The opening lead-in to Run is so great in pace and patience. The segue is one of the best parts, definitely a "goosebumps" situation into the inversion. Such great Barberisms in the second jam, A+

Of course we must speak of the 40 minute 'Robots" It's a laid back never ending smooth space dub jam with plenty of samples over top. Great version.

Another big highlight for me is the 'Spacebird' Magner is at his best, especially in the first half. The jam is slow starting as far as "action" but it's still manifique. Barber is way low in volume yet intricate as hell. This is great stuff, very trippy. This lasts all the way through the end of the tune and into the "Robots" return. A great show and festival along the Chattahoochee, deserves many re-listens.

It's a shame that The Echo Project never worked out. It had good people and a fantastic mission but you just cannot operate in the red. Business 101.  
The young 'Trustafarian' that seemed to get the $$ out of nowhere and put it on, did some nasty things with the money. It doesn't help when the place can have 80 000 people yet only 15 000 actually come and pay. Such a good lineup too!
The Biscuits always did such good things for projects and charities, hats off. And to work it inside such a hectic touring schedule is amazing.

ps- btw, info is from a guy who worked for the company hired by Echo. apologies for steering this into non-musical territory, so here's a joke:

How do you get a bass player off of your porch?

Pay for your pizza.

This first RLH jam is absolutely fantastic. There is such a long, winding, dark, psychedelic jam that I thought for sure this was headed to Basis for a long, long time. The first 10 minutes are slow, plodding, and have all the hallmarks of a phenomenal Basis intro. Instead, the band shifts uptempo and eventually turns this into a more major key sound. Really amazing stuff, and an absolutely remarkable beginning to the show. Second RLH jam features some angel choir from Magner, and Magner also uses his square wave lead for a healthy portion of this jam. I generally enjoyed most of this, and it’s so clear how comfortable this band was playing together during this time. The third jam is pretty clearly a Story jam from the first note (looking at you, Marc). The Basis intro has a lot of potential. Love what they have going on, but this feels cut way, way too short. Still noted this as a highlight as it’s great playing, but would have loved to see them develop this more. The Basis jam has what is essentially a Ladies jam in it. Feels like Marc is leading to the Ladies peak fairly deliberately. I didn’t hate this, but felt like something was missing.

The second set begins with a 40-minute Robots. This sounds amazing on paper. First jam, however, is beyond monotonous. Magner is fixated completely on the Mr. Balloonhands sample, and Brownstein is fixated on a mostly uninteresting riff. Magner busts out the pan flute after a while, and this gets more interesting as the band gets nearer and nearer to the return to the composition, but overall this is about a 17-minute long jam with just a small portion which is interesting. The second jam has a couple of sections that are absolutely fantastic. This is mostly great communication between Barber and Magner. They eventually drop to half-time and into a nice little groove-based jam. The jam out of Home Again quickly turns into an uptempo Spacebird intro jam. Not enough here to be fleshed out. Spacebird back to Robots just didn’t have anything that I was terribly interested in, and the Spaga encore is…jamless? Okay.

Highlights: RLH (Intro**, 2), Story, Robots (2**)