January 18, 2008

What a show opener! I love the energy of a great 42 opener, it sets the evening well. You get into the spacedancing rather quickly to shake off the ick. And this Highwire!? I never thought it could be this good. They played the exact combo of Highwire ~> 42 as well to finish the 1 set show in Scotland in March which is just a smudge under the jam width from this night yet still in the kick-ass realm.

I think the segment to start the 2nd: Star Jam tease/snippet/hallucination ~> Caterpillar ~> Shem-Rah Boo/ ~> Little Betty Boop(><) ~> Waves end jam is tremendous. All segues are clean well thought out. Just a well played hour of the Biscuits on their A game. This Colorado quattro run to start the year is mighty interesting.

"...Days that we spent starry eyed run deep within my soul..." this fills my Biscuits Boomer heart with love.

42 begins the show with an ambient jam that lasts a few minutes of awesome, psychedelic spaciness. Around the 3:30 mark, Allen comes in with a steady, half-time kick beat that pushes things forward, and 30 seconds or so later drops the full four-on-the-floor beat. Barber and Brownstein are mostly content to sit in the background here while Magner spaces out the entire building with some texturing and a solid complementary lead. The jam out of 42 is relentless. Right out of the gate, Barber has this ascending/descending riff that’s heavily affected with delay, and the end-result is this delightful, playful sound that contrasts really well with the straightforward trance themes from Brownstein and Magner. This had my head bobbing the entire time. Voices has an organ-heavy jam that really doesn’t do it for me. I’m not sure what it is about this, but this just didn’t interest me at all. The last couple minutes here prior to Astronomy Domine have a neat, almost Magellan-like quality to them that I thought was much better. Based on that, I considered noting this as a highlight. However, it’s really just the last couple minutes and the dissolve into Astronomy Domine that are worth relistening – and probably not worth listening to more than once. Highwire begins with a four-on-the-floor jam which quickly shifts into an uptempo breakbeat jam. I love Magner’s synth – it’s an overly delayed, plucky synth, but almost feels a bit like the Strobelights intro synth as well. They craft a really neat vibe during the first few minutes of this jam. Around the 3-minute mark, Barber comes in on the MIDI keyboard. To be honest, I had forgotten he used this in 2008. I don’t think he adds a lot to this jam here with it, but fortunately this is fairly short-lived. The rest of this jam is a fine return to 42, but the choice section of this jam is really the first few minutes out of Highwire.

The Caterpillar jam to open the second set begins as the usual midtempo house jam, turning into a breakbeat jam. Allen has e-drums out in full-effect, including e-kick and thirst quenchers. This jam is pretty aimless and doesn’t do a lot for me. In fact, if I’m honest, the Shem-Rah and Boop first jams do nothing for me either. The second Boop jam is mostly forgettable until they get into the Waves track. These last 4-5 minutes of the jam are just high-intensity, extremely fast, dark electronic music. I enjoyed this a lot, even if it’s not terribly innovative playing. The Memphis first jam doesn’t have the full e-drum treatment that many Memphis first jams of this era received, but Magner is in full-effect with the psychedelic, spacey, atmospheric effects that essentially yield the same sorts of results as the “hip-hop” Memphis’s. There is a melody in here that is very similar to one of the Park Ave melodies from Magner, and overall while I enjoyed this a lot, this is fairly comfortable playing from everybody in the band. Near the end of this, the build almost feels like it could be headed for a Basis intro drop, but they eventually return to Memphis. The peak that they build is really fantastic immediately prior to the Memphis return. The second jam begins with a slowed (100 BPM) jam that has Magner on the Rhodes-y patch, with Barber throwing in some filler guitar riffs here and there. This eventually shifts uptempo for the return to Caterpillar, but it felt like this took way too long to really get going. I get the gradual build thing they were going for, but this is just teased out a bit too much for me with no real direction. They eventually pull the ripcord and then drop the beat for the Caterpillar return, which begs the question why they spent so long teasing out the preceding jam. The Caterpillar ending jam is, as is typical around this time, very solid. The Shelby encore is fine, just too short to really be notable, and I also thought they could have spent more time in the minor key section of the peak, particularly with how well Barber’s fingers are working here. He has this descending major key riff that he plays immediately after the shift to major that is absolutely gorgeous, really interesting, and perfectly played.

Highlights: 42 (Intro**, 1*), Highwire, Boop (2), Memphis*