January 19, 2008

Reactor begins with a fairly typical, straightforward trance jam. At one point, Barber teases the major key riff from The Great Abyss, but other than that this is mostly forgettable. I feel like a lot of Reactors from this era just don’t have direction or much of anything going on, and this one certainly falls in that category. Near the end they get into a drum and bass jam that then is quickly flipped to half-time for the transition into Rainbow Song. I actually thought these last couple minutes were neat, and sort of wish they would have messed around more with segueing into Rainbow Song and actually jamming into it. Interestingly enough, after having been played with consistency every few months in 2007, 2008 was the year in which Rainbow Song became relatively rare. Played twice in 2008, Rainbow Song would wind up averaging being played less than once per year for the next 10+ years. I actually think it’s one of the better Marc songs, all things considered, and lyrics aside. The Spacebird jam initially goes nowhere, however near the end of this they come up with a really neat chord progression. This is almost evocative of progressions from music in old westerns. This only lasts for a few minutes but it is incredibly interesting and very unique. The Digital Buddha jam is again mostly forgettable, although there are a few minutes immediately following when the jam begins that are interesting.

The I-Man to begin the second set begins with a 20+ minute jam. Of this, there are 10 minutes that are very, very good, and 10 minutes that are mostly forgettable. There is a 3-4 minute jam after verse one. This jam has a little bit of potential but ultimately goes nowhere. For a minute or so it sounds like they could be heading for Ladies, but that quickly returns to verse two. After verse two there is another extended jam. This one is perhaps the least memorable, with Barber and Brownstein content to contribute absolutely nothing. After verse three there is yet another extended jam. Unfortunately, this one is again, forgettable. At this point the band has played 40 minutes with essentially only one-quarter of that being particularly interesting. The jam out of I-Man and into Nughuffer is at least better. The first several minutes are dark, dirty trance. This gets a little bit more predictable and less interesting as they are closer to Nughufffer, but overall I enjoyed this. There’s a major key theme in here that I liked, and eventually this turns into a short, minor key theme (also neat) prior to the Basis drop. Basis has a short middle jam that is more noteworthy for its existence than its content. The second jam has a great four chord progression that the entire band hits around 15:15 mark. Pretty much from here through the end of the jam is solid, with Magner and Barber balancing each other out really nicely here. The encore has no jam, just a drop segue from Hope into (groan) Wizards in Winter.

Highlights: Spacebird*, I-Man (Intro**, 4), Basis (2)