December 27, 2007

Looking at the setlist, one might be forgiven for assuming the segue out of Sgt. Pepper’s was probably a “drop” segue, rather than a full blown jam. Fortunately, that assumption is wrong, and the band jams out of Sgt. Pepper’s into a tom-heavy jam. This feels like it could be headed into Magellan at times, and I think generally speaking this is well-played. Magner has some great leads that play off of Barber very well. The end of this sort of falls apart, and it feels a little bit like Allen winds up out of time. Not sure if my ear is off, but the switch to the swing just felt a little jarring. The jam out of Plan B involves the band taking some risks. They have this sort of tom-heavy psychedelic jam which features Magner with some sing-songy leads. I’m not blown away by this, and Barber’s play is particularly mediocre. I’ve seen some people go absolutely nuts for this and call it the best Plan B ever. In my opinion, this really gets much more interesting as they get into the Rock Candy intro jam. This gets dark and dissonant, and segues into Rock Candy really fluidly. This portion of the jam is no doubt why people feel this is the best Plan B ever, combined with the fact that this develops so organically from the Plan B jam. I’ll take it. Rock Candy has another very solid jam, with this version being dark and digital from the very start. DTTB has another solid jam, although this one is perhaps not as memorable. This is not nearly on par with the two preceding it, but they hit a solid groove and the interplay between Magner and Barber is pleasant. This is a filler jam in some ways, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad by any means.

The Humu jam to begin the second set is not bad, but this just never really had much that stuck out to me. Magner jumps on angel choir for a bit, and Allen throws in a couple thirst quenchers, but I’m just nonplussed by most of this jam. That is, until they switch to the Mr. Don track. This goes from kind of meandering midtempo stuff into a full blown dance jam. Brownstein has his quarterback hat on here, and he’s fully responsible for this digression into a trance jam. It sounded like Magner and Barber were ready to just begin Mr. Don when Brownstein convinced Allen (and subsequently, the rest of the band) to get crazy dancy for a bit. Allen drops the e-kick, and this has a real duntzgeon vibe for a couple minutes. I felt like after the first couple minutes of this, they lost direction a little bit and remembered, “Oh right, the next song is in a major key.” This could have been absolutely marvelous, but I felt like they stopped short. Don has a middle “jam” here. Normally I wouldn’t count this little vamp section, but they really deliberately extend this one. The result is nothing all that interesting, but worth noting I suppose. The second Don jam here gets dark and digital, featuring a lot of fantastic work from Magner and Allen. Barber’s restraint here is very solid as well, and Brownstein holds down a great pocket for the melodic players to play out. This feels a little one-dimensional, but hell if it’s not a great dimension. The peak into Cyclone is absolutely awesome, and one of the best examples of them slamming into Cyclone, ever. The Cyclone jam is again, overtly digital, with Allen and Magner making a strong case for co-MVPs of this show. This is great, especially the portion immediately prior to the Ladies switch. The jam out of Ladies begins with tremendous potential. Magner has some great odyssean leads, but he and Magner never really seem to get on the same page here. There were so many parts of this that felt like they could be primed to really take off. However, Barber just doesn’t seem engaged here.

Highlights: Plan B**, Rock Candy**, Humu, Don 2(2*), Cyclone, Ladies