October 27, 2007

Opened with barber noodling a Floyd type lick then the band preceded with a stellar IRW. Next a clean Boop into a jam that featured barber on midi. Then into a top 15 Shelby peak right into a grimey triumph. Ending the sequence with a fan hyped bazaar. Spraypaint/abraxas sandwich was solid filled with a nasty seque into the inverted version, ending with a hard victory

In set 2 Story launched into a very driving groove going into inverted ladies which was the overdone thing at the time. Morph/basis back n forth was definitely the high point of the show. The build up to that point was brewing with intensity. Just when you thought they were gonna wrap it up they kept you on your toes.

House dog encore was typical 15 minute encor. Imo I think the first set slightly outweighed the second set as far as energy but the whole show was fiiiyyaaaaaa

Boop to begin the show starts with a fast trance jam with some minimal play from Barber. Around the 6:30 mark they switch from minor key trance to a pretty major key theme. Barber switches on to MIDI keyboard for a bit, and the resulting jam here is actually very nice for about 60 seconds. However, they pretty quickly switch back to minor key and head toward Shelby. The rest of this minor key jam is mostly saved by Magner as he has some neat leads littered throughout. Barber switches back to guitar for the Shelby peak, which is mostly very well done. There’s no jam out of Shelby, just a straight drop into Triumph. The jam out of Triumph begins with a dark, plodding march. However, this develops into the upbeat, major key theme that ultimately morphs into the ending of Bazaar Escape. Nicely done, although the jam itself is not all that interesting. The Spraypaint jam sounds like it could be headed for the ending of Abyss for a bit, as it’s a very similar progression. Instead, they get darker and head toward Abraxas. The resulting jam here is pretty solid, including some nice licks from Barber littered throughout. The section right at 8:15 has a great vibe to it, and this alone is worth the price of admission to me as it relates to this jam. The second half of this features Barber on MIDI keyboard. This section is fine, though it’s basically just a long Abraxas intro at this point, and I’m not sure Barber here playing around with different arp patches is adding anything meaningful. The jam out of Abraxas opens up with a great theme. At 10:32, Brownstein drops a great bassline, and feels like they’re building toward something great. Instead, Allen cuts the e-kick and Brownstein’s bassline becomes a little less interesting. Barber follows Brownstein here, but feels like they get caught treading water for a bit. When Magner finally moves the jam forward, it’s really solid, and he has some nice leads here in addition to the pads that wash over the rest of the jam. Unfortunately, they abruptly pull the ripcord here and return to Spraypaint. Feels like a missed opportunity as this was so great sounding.

The jam out of Story is almost entirely boring, up until they get near to the Ladies peak. This is very solid, although it’s really just the peak that’s solid. I noted this as a highlight for this reason alone, but much of this jam just didn’t do it for me. As a disclaimer, I’ve seen others say they loved this Story. I don’t see it, but judge for yourself. The jam out of Ladies is very interesting. Almost feels like this has a Shadow-y jam at one point. Overall, I enjoyed this a lot. The Morph jam is flat out boring. There are parts of this that were difficult to sit through. They make a marked shift toward Basis later in the jam, and everything that follows from there is generally solid. This wasn’t enough for me to really fall in love here, but it’s not bad, either. Magner drops some of the balloonhands samples that made their way into so much of Fall 2007. He also does so in the jam coming out of Basis (which, notably for the time, comes out of the middle section). The jam into the middle of Basis is just too short, but the beginning of the Basis track has a great vibe to it that I wish they would have extended. The second Basis jam has a really neat vibe throughout much of it, and honestly near the end I thought this was going toward Spacebird before they turn hard back to Basis ending. First House Dog jam just does nothing. Second jam has potential but is just too short.

Highlights: Boop, Spraypaint, Story, Ladies*, Basis (2*)