April 12, 2008

Late night at the Late Night. I miss 'stupid human tricks'

OK matrix recording; there is some crowd chatter in quiet sections and the sound is sort of wonky, thin and too "digital" sounding; perhaps I'll try a different copy / source; we charge forward.

Barber is excellent tonight. The bass is fierce, Mr. Mags' grand piano sound is tremendous. Allen is an alien sent here from the Andromedan galaxy as previously stated.

I believe this show exemplifies 2008 to a T. Definitely a transition year and this show sends off the 2007 style and slowly welcomes in the 2009 vibe.

Although the 1st night is better, this show has plenty of great moments. Some "musical redundancy" but when you are in a non-stop hour and 10 minute set you will find yourself on an island at some point(s).

} The jam in MEMPHIS is awesome. Like monumental good, emphasis on mental. } I really love the 1st jam in Shelby, it's a typical SR jam but it definitely has that extra gusto and energy we would luckily soon taste on a regular basis the following year and '10 until 'wristgate' ; even the outro towards 'Airsong' is purrrrty. } wow, this 'Airsong' intro is much better than I remember. Beautiful song, I especially like Mags' piano here, perfect complimentary playing. } very cool AtW...it blazes as an inverted finish to last night's show. A complete 'AtW' and Magner adds great vocals here. The typical Waves peak is on full display and is the best part. From 17:00 minutes till the end is definitely full power. I estimate a burning of 5000 calories in this jam. All limbs in motion. } after a rare appearance from 'Resurrection' we jump into an extremely fun 'Spacebird'. The opening is loud & proud. There's a tremendous funk groove developing here; still in intro-jam mode. Kinda sounds like 'Safety Dance' at 2X speed for a while. } 42 - perfect placement. It finishes with some smoke that is for certain. } encore: Mulberry's Dream. wow. A damn firecracker of an encore! A wicked version.

Today's Strain Of The Day is for late summer patio tunes and ginger ale. Mellow and perma-grinning.
{Shangri-La} this is some heavenly herb. a 50-50 hybrid that crosses parent strains Fudo Myo-o and 9 Pound Hammer. It's pretty simple. It's as close to an anti-depressant as you can get. Grinnin' and dreamin'. Make note and poke around for you will adore this medicine. 

"Well I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't under such heavy sedation" - David St. Hubbins

Memphis begins with a hip-hop electronic jam with lots of e-drums and distorted bass from Marc. I have a pretty soft spot for these jams, and I enjoyed this completely. The jam out of Memphis is very noodly from Barber for the first couple of minutes, and then he switches to the “digital” guitar tone briefly. He can’t seem to make up his mind, and while this part was cool, they just ditch it immediately. They then switch uptempo and Magner jumps on the angel choir patch, only to then switch themes as they get dancier into Lunar Pursuit. Again, they really just can’t seem to settle down and resolve to a particular theme. Barber’s tone the next couple of minutes is really solid, but I’m not overly interested in anything he’s playing here. Around the 2-minute mark, he comes up with a neat little theme, but then they ditch it after 8 bars and head to LP. Okay. The jam out of Lunar begins with the usual trance jam, but they quickly shift to a downtempo dub jam. This has a great mysterious vibe to it, and while Allen drops the kick back to double-time a little quicker than I’d like, Barber is much more patient here. Barber has some really solid guitar riffs here that balance out Magner and Brownstein really nicely. This leads to a really nice Shelby peak, which is both patient and well-done. The first few minutes of Shelby are mostly forgettable DNB. However, as the track switches to Air Song, Magner starts using the “reverse” synth sound and this section is really cool. Other than this couple minutes, I didn’t find this very compelling. Barber also turns into Rock God Barber with basically zero direction. The jam out of Air Song again is a little frustrating. They can’t seem to decide where they’re going. Initially this sounds like it’ll be headed for a dark, digital jam. Then they flip things to an airy Blissco-y sound, then back to the darker sound. It’s a little too ADHD for me, even though I generally liked bits and pieces of what they were playing in each of these little themes.

The jam out of Rockafella into Waves is forgettable. Waves has a wonderful little interlude jam between the ending and the beginning. This is only a couple minutes long but it’s really beautiful, and almost ambient in a way, but really more just sort of spaced out blissful playing. This is very neat. The trance jam out of Waves is fast and features some really cool lead melodic work from Magner. Barber does his best to derail this at times, but overall Magner’s cool theme really shine through. The jam out of Resurrection begins with a few minutes of filler, and really doesn’t get all that interesting until the track switch to Spacebird. Magner is doing some really cool stuff here with his arpeggiated patches, but the rest of the band never really seems to get onboard. I really wanted to like this, but it just never really felt like they fully locked in here. Again, Barber seems to be the main culprit. The jam out of Spacebird into Shadow feels like a night-and-day difference, where Barber is focused and playing off of Magner. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like the combination here is all that interesting. Feels like they were one idea away from something really cool, then they sort of go back down to segue into Shadow. There is an extremely short jam out of Shadow into 42 that’s mostly just for the transition. The first few minutes of the 42 jam are extremely interesting, with this almost hypnotic groove going on. Magner uses this descending arp patch that has a really cool overall effect on the jam. I wish this got played with a little bit more, but for the few minutes that they vamp this out, it’s really cool. The encore features two very short Mulberry’s jams, neither of which has anything of any interest. Barber butchers the ending peak for a mediocre end to an overrated show.

Highlights: Memphis (1**), Lunar, Waves (1*, 2), 42*