February 06, 2009

Uber Glue begins the show without a jam. Very weird they played both this and Tamarin Alley despite playing both the night before. Ugh. Spacebird begins in 6/4 time, but fortunately the band manages to get out of this fairly quickly. The jam is rather forgettable, and somehow manages to feel like a Spacebird ending jam for its entirety. The last two minutes the band forces has a switch to 42, and we’re off. The 42 jam begins for five or 5-6 minutes with a generic dance jam. However, around the 13-minute mark, the band shifts into an uptempo breakbeat rhythm. This shift results in markedly more interesting music, and is almost entirely driven by Allen and his array of e-drums. Around the 15-minute mark, the band cuts the beat for eight bars or so and comes back in with a four-on-the-floor beat. Brownstein‘s bass riff upon coming back in is simple but effective. Magner and Barber spend the next 3-4 minutes harmonizing with eighth-note patterns, and around the 17-minute mark, Magner brings in the angel choir patch. They do a relatively good job of creating a big build and peak, although I did feel that Marc‘s simple bass riff wore out its welcome near the end of this. There is no jam out of Gangster, just a drop into I-Man.

The first I-Man jam is a driving dance jam, with some fantastic stuff from Magner. This only lasts for a few minutes, so they never really get a chance to get too far outside the box, but regardless Magner is on fire here. The second I-Man jam is a Breakbeat jam, with Magner on a videogamey, square wave lead with some overdrive. This is interesting and I love the tone, but again they only give this a couple minutes to play out before dropping back into the composition. The third jam is a type 1 jam from the start and never goes anywhere novel. The first Memphis jam begins the typical hip-hop, e-drum stuff. Allen develops a nice little beat, complete with thirst quenchers. Brownstein switches on to the MIDI keyboard, and as compared with many of these hip-hop jams, this one actually has some really great movement and thematic work. This is primarily led by Brownstein on the MIDI keyboard, and the band crafts a very cool, digital theme. Magner has some great melodic work in the upper registers, and Barber in this jam mostly is settled playing simple minimal riffs in the background. As the band approaches the peak, Barber switches first to chords, then to soloing, and the band crafts a solid peak before dropping back into Memphis. The second jam in Memphis begins with this laid-back jam where the band seems to be finding its footing initially. This is almost evocative of some 1.0 jams, where the band would sort of just feel things out for a while. I generally don’t have a problem with it, provided it leads to something nice, as this does. Around the 12-minute mark, the band is playing the progression for what I believe became Loose Change, although I highly doubt this was intentional. That said, this is a really cool sound, and eventually as they start speeding up. It almost sounds like Marc wants to go into Story. Instead, they shift uptempo for the return to 42. An ending to what is actually a very good one set show.

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