January 22, 2009

Rivers is such a great song, and I always have wished that they would have done more with it. The jam here is the usual, textural jam, and relies more on rhythm and groove than the typical TDB jam. This is not so much about building a theme as it is building a vibe. It’s an interesting distinction for them, and I think it works really well, but always wish they would have extended it. The build into the ending is great. Caterpillar begins with a midtempo beat that quickly increases in pace, and features Allen on his heavier, e-kick. Magner plays around with some of the angel choir patch for a bit, and in the background he has a great arpeggiated patch that provides an impetus to move the jam forward. The jam out of Spacebird features Magner with some beautiful playing on a sine wave patch, and almost feels like a Munchkin ending jam for a brief moment. The section at 13:00 has some great interplay between Barber and Brownstein, serving solely as rhythm to Magner's lead. Barber plays the ending riff for Caterpillar a little early, but this is nice regardless. I don't know that I'd call this a real highlight as there is a decent amount of filler in the SBMC jam, but it's solid. Buddha again features some great improvisation from the band. This is a very Magner-heavy jam, with some great playing from him. He uses some eerie synths with some very long-held notes to provide an overall weird and unsettling atmosphere. Barber is doing his weird bungee cord effect for a decent part of the early section of the jam, and Allen throws in some thirst quenchers in addition to the rest of his e-drums for good measure. Allen also uses a couple of the beat repeat effects at various points, which I always love. Barber and Brownstein are content to build the progression while Magner fills out the upper register. They lean heavily on Barber as they hit the Buddha peak in a very satisfying way.

KOTW’s jam comes out of the middle of the song, and has some phenomenal improv. Magner comes up with a gorgeous progression and the rest of the band follows suit. There is a portion of the jam that sounds like Brownstein is headed toward Tempest, but that never occurs. The addition of the lower chord around the 6-minute mark from Brownstein is absolutely awesome, and helps in driving the jam forward. Barber’s playing near the peak of this jam is wonderful. He’s focused and thoughtful about what he’s playing throughout this jam, and what more can you ask for? Brownstein also sounds at some point like he’s thinking about headed to Crystal Ball, but that could be just a coincidence. This does not result in one of the huge builds into Cyclone that were common around this time, but the section around 2:30 is absolutely great. Brownstein is sort of playing the SRB bassline, sans slapping, and Barber has this great riff that he lays atop everything else.

The first few minutes of the Cyclone jam are filler. They begin with an uptempo jam with a lot of noodling from Barber, then around the 9:17 mark, they abruptly shift into a new section. This is a very great, underrated jam for me. Brownstein is still getting the hang of his MIDI keyboard, but between the e-drums, Magner’s lush pads filling the mid-range, and Barber’s hauntingly beautiful riff, this is poignant and awesome. Frankly, I wish they’d hold off on going into the Shem-Rah intro so soon, but we can’t get everything we want I suppose. Brownstein drops the slap bass riff before Barber is quite ready to leave this riff. The Shem-Rah jam is another fantastic jam. Around the 10-minute mark, Magner busts out his trusty square wave synth (think 12/14/08 Vassillios or 04/11/08 Vass > Spaga). Barber’s minimal playing here just accentuates Magner’s leads, and they eventually lead to an absolutely triumphant return to Dribble. The jam out of Dribble is unreal. Beautiful Blissco, capped by very patient play from everybody in the band. Barber’s lead riffs around 11:20 are absolutely gorgeous to conclude this section, and Brownstein jumps on the MIDI keyboard with 8 minutes left in the jam. The remainder of this jam is a more standard dance jam, and has Magner again using the square wave patch. This last portion of the jam on its own is very cool, but with the amazing major key jam preceding it, the two combine to make this an absolutely unmissable version of Dribble. The last few minutes of this have an almost ethereal quality, with Magner using a modulated sine wave to snake charm, while Barber and Brownstein come up with yet another awesome chord progression to round out this theme before closing out the Dribble jam. Around 18:30, Magner shifts on to piano and the jam gains such a great change in sound from this simple shift, including some neat dissonant play right at the end of the Dribble track. Awesome, awesome stuff. The first I-Man jam has some potential, with Magner again using the sine lead to develop some really cool stuff, thematically. However, Barber and Brownstein just don’t do it for me here. At 5:30, they drop to a half-time feel for a bit, before quickly shifting back to a dance jam. When they shift back uptempo, Brownstein hops on the MIDI keyboard for a bit, and the resulting, second half of this jam is far more interesting because of it. Magner comes in with some lush pads to develop some great body for the jam, but Barber around the 8-minute mark is just trying to do a little too much for my tastes. Had this gone on a bit longer and had Barber done something differently, this could have developed into something awesome. Oh well. The second jam begins firmly inside the type 1 box, but later develops into a discordant, dissonant jam. This is okay, but again I just feel like it didn’t have time to breathe. Mitts is a perfect encore to cap this show, and it remains one of my favorite, underrated shows of 2009.

Highlights: Caterpillar, Buddha, KOTW*, Cyclone*, Shem-Rah*, Dribble**