March 23, 2008

Step Inside to begin the show is jamless. Air Song has a significantly extended jam. While I enjoyed all of this a lot, it never really gets far outside of the Air Song box, and I also think it’s not as developed as it could have been. This is probably one of the best versions of Air Song regardless, but I felt like they were holding this back from really escalating to the next level. The peak is phenomenal prior to dropping back into the song. The jam out of Robots is mostly pretty standard until around the 8-minute mark. Brownstein changes up the progression, and there’s this poignant little moment before the band makes an abrupt shift to a major key. From here through the peak and Home Again ending, this is gorgeous Blissco, particularly Barber. Awesome stuff. The jam out of Home Again is a pretty straightforward Robots first jam from the first note. Brownstein tips his hand big time, and while I think there’s some cool play from Barber and Magner, this whole thing just felt very predictable to me for the first several minutes. Around the 8-minute mark, they land on this very syncopated section which features a nice little call-and-response section. This had a really nice groove to it, and my only complaint would be that I wish they’d have landed on it earlier in the jam. Ironically, once they land on it, they don’t really do much with it, and this eventually becomes pretty monotonous before dropping back into Robots. There’s a 2-minute section of this that was neat and had some potential, but otherwise this is a long chunk of music which can be skipped. Second Robots jam is fine. The Resurrection jam is mostly forgettable jambandery. The City still includes the “15 floors above the city” lyrics during this version. There is technically a segue from The City to Wizards in Winter, but it’s almost an immediate transition and this is not really a jam. Vacation is somehow 9 minutes long and jamless. Groan. Rockafella begins with a spacey downtempo jam, but Allen quickly drops a double-time beat and the jam is transformed into a DNB jam. Allen flips this between regular time and double-time several times, and Magner rounds out this jam with the pan flute patch for an interesting vibe. Around the 4-minute mark, the band makes a deliberate and emphatic switch uptempo for a full-on dance jam. This was really solid throughout, and culminates in a solid Basis peak. The Mulberry’s encore features two short, forgettable jams.

Highlights: Air Song*, Robots (1), Rockafella*