May 24, 2008

The show begins first with a very slow Robots fakeout, then a jammed out Wizards in Winter. Not sure why they continued playing this song, but here we are. The jam begins with them struggling to find their footing a little bit. Around the 6-minute mark here, it’s mostly just Barber shredding aimlessly. Ultimately this flips to a Morph ending jam, which is fine. The HAB jam begins with Barber very quickly teasing Sound One. Neat. The jam itself is really only about 5-6 minutes, but this has a great dance groove, and Magner has some really nice work throughout. They really botch the drop into Kamaole Sands, although when I say “they” what I mean is Barber doesn’t listen to the rest of the band. The jam out of Kamaole into the ending of Wizards in Winter is fine. Rockafella is jamless. The Air Song has a mysterious, spacey downtempo jam that has great stuff from Magner. This builds slowly and patiently, and culminates in a solid peak to end the first set.

Shem-Rah Boo is a short, fairly forgettable jam. The first couple of minutes out of The City are the same, but as the track flips to Ladies, the band shifts uptempo and this turns into a neat, Magner-led Ladies peak. Solid stuff. The Ladies jam begins with a great groove from Barber and Brownstein, with some plucky square wave stuff on top from Magner. This is fantastic basically from the first note. After a minute or so, Barber comes in with some strummed arpeggios and chords, and Magner follows suit with more of a melodic line rather than the plucked notes he was playing before. This develops into a fantastic, thematic jam that eventually becomes a major key return to Kamaole. During the major key portion, Barber is on fire with quick, clever play in the solo prior to the Kamaole drop. The jam in Mastermind is, interestingly enough, a dark, dissonant jam. If they made any attempt to gel here, this could be fantastic, but instead this is just meandering and forgettable. Around the 9-minute mark they ditch this jam and drop into a four-on-the-floor dance jam. The rest of this is much better, but still never really crosses the threshold into interesting. World is Spinning has a “rock” jam in it. Doesn’t do much for me, but at least it’s not jamless.

Highlights: HAB, Air Song, The City, Ladies**