March 18, 2008

Rockafella is unfinished here, and rather than the usual Rockafella jam, they launch into a gypsy jazz jam which immediately is evocative of the Bazaar Escape. This has a solid little groove from the band, particularly Allen and Marc, who communicate nicely on this jam. There is not much to say about the Bazaar Escape first jam which hasn’t already been said. Rather than the middle section, the band plays an extended, psychedelic “space” jam, featuring Allen using tabla sounds, Barber on spacey middle-eastern guitar riffs, and Magner providing just general trippy effects. The band opens things up for a second jam as well, a DNB jam that is really solid, and features some great leads and pads from Magner. Easily the best version of Bazaar Escape of all-time. World is Spinning is actually extended with a full-on jam, and the jam is not half-bad, despite being essentially a straightforward rock jam. Probably in the conversation for best WIS ever, even if I only just casually enjoyed this. Air Song is a return to reality, with the band playing a mostly noodly, jambandy jam. This isn’t even terrible, but just never really turned into anything interesting for me.

Shelby has a typical drum and bass jam. While I didn’t think this was terrible to start, there’s just no evolution from the beginning to the end of the jam. They have some interesting things going on almost immediately out of the gate, but ultimately they don’t really develop any of those themes until they get to the peak section. The peak is very well done but otherwise this is a mostly forgettable jam. Spectacle has a 3-4 minute intro jam. This is the usual uplifting major key stuff but nothing of particularly interesting note. The jam out of Spectacle comes from the “count it” section, which is an interesting spot from which to begin a jam. I really wanted to like this, given the unique quality of where they jammed out. However, this was incredibly aimless and directionless, and just really left me with no impression at all. Allen utilized a lot of e-drums, but ultimately the themes that the melodic players were coming up with were all over the board. The 42 jam has a neat little theme from Barber and Magner. This is far too short as I felt like this could have become interesting, but I enjoyed this for the couple minutes that it existed. Had this been 3-4 minutes longer this could have turned into a really neat jam. The encore is obviously jamless.

Highlights: Rockafella, WIS*, Bazaar (1**, 2*)