February 28, 2008

The opening jam to start the show here has a great melancholic sound for the first couple of minutes. Then it switches to a more straightforward jambandy sound. This has a bunch of Blissco going for it, and I really enjoyed this up until the Don intro portion, which begins around the 9-minute mark. The dark type 1 jam in Mr. Don is extended significantly. Doesn’t necessarily go anywhere, but at least they’re trying something a little unique. The second jam in Don is long, but that’s about all it has going for it. At one point, it sounded like they were headed to Abyss, and they had this weird, experimental dance sound, with Magner layering this atonal noise over the top of the jam. I thought this had potential but just never resolved to anything all that interesting. There’s a jam out of Therapy, but this mostly involves Barber just shredding hard as the band approaches the beginning of Shem-Rah Boo. The jam out of SRB is largely forgettable, though the last few minutes before the return to Therapy are really interesting. Near the 12-minute mark, Barber hits a VI-VII-I progression that the rest of the band follows. They use this to build a pretty great peak back into Therapy. Great stuff.

This was the part of 2008 where they were still trying to make Mastermind into a thing. It’s not a terrible song as far as Marc songs go (with the exception of the chorus which is awful). That said, this jam really goes absolutely nowhere. The Memphis first jam is an e-drum heavy “hip-hop” jam, and Marc plays the Caves of the East bassline for nearly the entirety of this. Caves would debut the next night, so sounds like Marc was just excited about the new tune. Barber hops on MIDI keyboard for part of this jam. To be honest, even though I have a sweet spot for these jams, this one just doesn’t do a lot for me. Near the end of the jam, Brownstein lands on an ascending progression that is almost the ending progression for On Time. This is probably more a coincidence than anything else, as it’s a pretty simple bassline. This eventually shifts uptempo to a dark, ominous dance jam that slowly evolves into Ladies. I enjoyed most of this section of the jam, including the Ladies peak which is solid. The Ladies jam has a solid little Blissco jam for the last few minutes. Barber here is restrained, which is more than I can say for much of the remainder of the night for him. The jam out of Voices has some potential with Magner playing some dark, trancey stuff. However, this just never really coalesces in the way I wanted this to. The jam in Spacebird is way too short, way too straightforward.

Robots begins set 3 with a vampy, straightforward jam. I’ve seen praise for this elsewhere, but this just never really hooked me. Barber feels a little like he can’t decide where he wants to land, and before you know it they’re headed toward the Memphis peak and he’s just in full-on Rock God Barber mode. Beginning around the 5-minute mark, the band embarks on a Blissco-y jam, primarily led by Magner’s switch to major key with a big three chord movement. I really wanted to like this because it’s so firmly in my wheelhouse. However, this again just never clicks, and again it’s Barber in particular who is just all over the place. The entirety of the Reactor/Crickets segment is forgettable, and frankly pretty bad.

Highlights: Don (Intro), SRB*, Memphis (1), Ladies