July 03, 2008

The first I man jam features some great thematic work from Barber. Magner and Brownstein are mostly content to lie in the background, but generally speaking both of them add some nice flair to this jam as well. Allen essentially keeps this consistent at a four and the floor groove for the entirety of this jam, but he too is solid overall. I wish that this had lasted longer than it did, but ultimately I really enjoyed what they had going on. The second Iron Man jam gave absolutely nothing of interest. The band mostly killed time until they got towards the middle section of Iron Man, and this mostly is treading water. Third eye Man jam is unfortunately more of the same. Again, this is a lot of water treading until they hit digital Buddha. The transition into run like hell is fine, although Brownstein‘s choice of baselines is mostly unremarkable here. The first RLH jam is short and forgettable, and the second (featuring David Murphy) is boring beyond belief. The home again jam is squarely inside the box and does nothing noteworthy. Shelby and The City are more treading water. There is a middle jam inside of Orch Theme which is forgettable, and suddenly it’s starting to look like the entire show is kind of a gigantic waste of time.

The second Orch jam begins with Magner on the orchestral patch, and this is actually very tastefully done. It always surprised me that they didn’t utilize more sounds like this, and the entirety of this jam is very cool, specifically because of Magner. Barber mostly stays in the background here until they get closer to the Shelby return. That said, the Shelby return is way, way too drawn out for my tastes. Barber just doesn’t seem to get the hints the rest of the band lie down. The Story jam is forgettable jam funk. The Rockafella jam to end the show is essentially a RLH ending jam from the very beginning. Meh.

Highlights: I-Man (1*), Orch (2**)