June 04, 2009

Awesome first set on this one. Really sweet spaced out jam out of 7-11 until they find a killer groove into munchkin. Great trance like jam out of munchkin with especially awesome interplay between barber and magz. Love the little funkish riff around 11m or so then a nice blissful jam to cap off munchkin. rest of set is decent, felt like barbers guitar was hella outa tune during shem jam, but not bad by any means.

second set starts with safety jam which really doesn't go anywhere at all for the first chunk but starts to get moving around the 11min mark but then kinda dies back down a little bit. pretty decent segue into astronaut. feels like they're trying to find a groove thoughout thejam, but never really catches its footing until it starts getting more uptempo around 11/12min and segues into lunar pursuit. jam out of lunar pursuit also really goes nowhere for the most part but into atw is where the set really starts to take off for me. love the waves jam and the groove out of it around 10min or so. second astronaut jam is really awesome as well, around 6min or so super untzy then the tempo picks up around 10min and goes all out. just fucking awesome 09 biscuits in this segment. Fun little story to round it out and that's basically it.

3/5 - not a ton of reslistenability but really enjoyed the ATW > astronaut and some points of the first set.

Not much to add here but to pimp the hell out of this 1st set. Truly incredible with no real slumpers. Opening Rivers is played flawlessy, a song that would become 2009's unsung hero. Shem has that heavenly feel to it with a gorgeous solo, melting into a very strong ''Tricycle'' bridge into SD. To me, this may be Barber's best 1st set of the year...and there are some Super Bowls abound. This show has been x-rayed up and down for 14 years so just play it and get a silly grin going because this ''7-11 ~> Munchkin" is where Barber busts out of his refrigerator a la the Barber 2010 post injury comeback video.

When the masses get hold of the gov't's time travel equipment, let's rerun this epic of all epic weeks from Colorado and Red Rocks through the 6th at Starscape. This time, no gack. Just simple hippie-flipping.

Aloha

Rivers to open the show has the usual 2-3 minute jam, but I actually really enjoy this version. Magner has some stuff in here that I think works really well, and despite this being a type 1 jam, it caught my ear. The 7-11 “Towel” jam is straightforward. The second jam is fantastic. This is just a dark trance jam from the first moment. Great vibe, all around. They’re not breaking seriously new ground here, but this is great, hypnotic, and kept me engaged and interested. Munchkin has an airy jam in it, and Brownstein finds a really nice pocket here. Around the 11:00 mark, Barber finds a really catchy guitar hook that fits this nicely. This is very safe, but that’s not always a bad thing, and certainly isn’t here. Shem-Rah Boo has a fantastic jam in it as well. This begins with a C > Em progression from Brownstein, and Barber has a great minimalist riff he’s messing around with. Around 7:30, Barber plays a riff that feels wildly out of place. I’m not sure what the intent was here, but this just doesn’t sound great to my ears for a few stanzas. However, Allen does take this as a chance to increase tempo, so maybe Barber meant for this to be a tension/resolve. They do resolve into a much more straightforward minor key theme at 8:15, and Barber’s play here is wonderful. Magner starts using a rhythmic, plucky arp sound that gives great texture for the rest of this jam. This has a really cool feel to it, rounded out by Marc’s switch to MIDI keyboard. The descending riff Magner comes up with as they get closer to Tricycle is absolutely fantastic. This is lauded as one of the best Tricycle peaks ever, and I think with good reason. This is ridiculously cool, and while the build is a little less “peaky,” it’s phenomenal in terms of the thematic play. All-around, awesome, awesome, awesome first set.

The first several minutes of the Safety Dance jam are largely filler, with the band feeling out how they’re going to increase tempo. They eventually do so and wind up in a minor key dance jam. While I didn’t dislike a lot of this, it also still felt like filler. The last three minutes are really solid, and push this over the edge into a highlight for me. The band begins the SITA jam with some cool stuff from Magner. I especially enjoy the trumpet patch that he’s using. They wind up extending this into type 2 territory, and while they initially have some interesting tension and release stuff going on, eventually this unravels into a relatively meandering dance jam. They lose a lot of steam as this goes on. As they shift uptempo, they do get more locked in, but not enough for me to want to relisten to this. Interestingly enough, as they reach Lunar Pursuit tempo, it almost feels like the band is headed toward something like Basis, given the overall sound and major key of it all. The Lunar Pursuit jam is similarly filler. I didn’t feel like any of this ever came together for a cohesive theme until they get to the type 1 ascent to the Waves peak. Continuing a theme in 2009, the band jams Waves out of an interesting spot. They jam this out of the songs intro riff, and while the resulting jam is fairly milquetoast, I appreciate the effort regardless. The second Astronaut jam begins with some dissonant, dark, minor key dance jamming right out of the gate. I really love the synth lead Magner uses for the majority of this jam. It almost has a New Deal-y quality to it. Barber begins this jam with a heavily affected tone and begins with some half-notes that serve for overall atmosphere. The first 3-4 minutes of this are great, but at 9:45 when Magner opens up the cutoff filter this gets way cooler, way more duntzgeon-y. This section is absolutely awesome and they just keep the intensity up in a very cool way. Park Ave is jamless. Story to end the set begins with the typical “funk” house jam. They eventually branch out beyond this, and while this wasn’t bad, I wasn’t blown away by this. There’s a section where it’s basically a long Magner solo, which is kind of a neat change of pace, but other than that I felt this was a lot of filler. Highwire encore is jamless to end the show.

Highlights: Rivers, 7-11 (2*), Munchkin, SRB**, Safety Dance, Astronaut (2**)