November 01, 2007

''Well I'm lost without I-Man''

(from the "harmonica-sounding" solo halfway through the tune until the transition into "Gangster" it has some incredibly beautiful, diverse and bone chilling sections. This ain't no noodlin' 'till we find the right key" shit. No, this is the culmination of 13 years chopping wood and gettin' good!!)

I was very fortunate to get on tour at this Albany show and the following 3 afterwards; 2 in Ohio and ending in Buffalo. The best MDMA I've taken was on this mini run.

At that point, I think they had been on the road for a month solid with a day off only every 4th or 5th show....crazy...but what was incredible of course is the quality of this tour. Today we look back in awe and well deserved but at the time, dare I say, we were in a such an elite groove that all of these talked about shows these days were the "normal" so to speak. The spring and summer gave us so much anticipation to see all the shows possible before they were to become Phish 2.0 and play the amphitheaters and hockey barns that was surely around the corner. Alas, it didn't, it all stayed in the sweet spot...the ultimate zone of packed theatres, halls, College gyms and the occasional smaller rinks.

please don't forget this Albany 'Hope'~> as well as the 'Dribble' (which I thought for certain was going into 'Air Song'; Magner sure pushed for it in a way. It just seems there are many little nods to the song in various places, by various members for various amounts of time ) I'm not a musician therefore cannot give precise info of any kind on the keys and such at these various moments...but they are there :)

I clearly remember the great 'Robots' strumming and exciting ending and the massive change, pop and rush of the crowd as 'Dribble' was crowning. The Palace was loosing it's collective mind. Still get shivers thinking about it. Then it was the most wonderful funky jam ever into a top notch 22 minute version for the ages. Brownie and Mags get down! Of course Barber enters the party like a Doctor right at 10 minutes in, not 9:59, not 10:01 but 10:00. Syncromysticism proof #278. "In a native centered world, one picks the fruit right off the trees, On a wild blue island in the deep blue seas"......hell yeah.

ONLY the best strains for you good people, with the most appropriate of effects to listen to this jamfest of a show filled with ecstasy, arousal and uplifting:: [Space Queen] crossing 'Romulan' and 'Cinderella 99' - hybrid - huge buds - very psychedelic high inside a balloon of whip cream &/or [‘88 G13 Hashplant] hybrid way leaning indica - if you want a sensible body high while feeling every note swim around your soul like a $5000 satin bedspread. Relaxed as hell but beware...you will eat a large pizza by yourself and have room for 'Ben & Jerry's' "half-baked' flavor. After you have amazing sex you will sleep in the arms of an angel. big hash-like buzz. Crossing 'G13' and 'Hashplant'.

much love, tea paysse

The Astronaut to start the show has a nice little SITA jam. This gets into type 2 territory for just a few minutes. Has a lot of potential, but they just bail on this a bit too early for my tastes. The second Astronaut jam features a “Goldeneye” jam and a lot of e-drums from Allen. Honestly, I wanted to like this, but I just couldn’t get into what they were doing here. The jam in I-Man begins sounding like it’ll be a straightforward type 1 jam, but then they really, really stretch their legs out. This turns into a fantastic Blissco jam, and even though they keep this a fairly “jambandy” sounding jam, they absolutely crush the thematic work (Barber, in particular). This is beautiful and really interesting play. The second I-Man jam begins with some psychedelic Shpongly patches from Magner, while Barber and Brownstein vamp a little bit, building a foundation for the jam. However, they then go basically nowhere for several minutes. In some ways, this jam is demonstrative of what they were doing in 2007. Give them enough time, and they found something great. Despite the first 8 minutes or so of this jam just going nowhere, around the 28-minute mark of the track, they finally hit on something really interesting. Barber has this distorted, noise-only riff that he plays for a bit while the rest of the band develops around him. What ends up developing is a multi-chord progression that Magner and Brownstein absolutely crush. This I-Man is widely regarded as one of the highlights of the Fall 2007 tour, and rightly so. The jam out of Gangster basically goes immediately into Astronaut.

Hope features one of the last “Gentle Nature” jams from the band. While this one doesn’t really get far outside of the type 1 box, it has a solid groove to it. Nothing really warranting a re-listen here, but a solid jam regardless. The second jam is a DNB jam which features Barber on MIDI keyboard for parts of it. The first Robots jam has this great dark groove to it. Really great stuff from everybody in the band, particularly Magner. First Dribble jam actually produces an interesting change, which is a marked departure from what this jam does very often. Here they develop a multi-chord theme that features some great work from Barber. The second jam is a pretty generic jam that doesn’t really do a whole lot. The jam out of Confro has Barber immediately switching to MIDI keyboard, and not doing much to add to the jam.

Highlights: I-Man (1**, 2**), Robots (1**), Dribble (1)