January 24, 2014

Great run in Denver and other Colorado ski spots. This was a crazy fun energy show with at least half the crowd on the beautiful speckled trout mushrooms I brought from Vancouver Island.
A solid 8 out of 10 show.

I think they could have cut a couple of songs to make the jams longer but it is what it is. I find this show to have tremendous rhythm and set appeal.

The next day I broke my wrist and 3 fingers at Breck on the last run of the day...lol...my life to a T. Thank God I never ever travel to the states without insurance, that would have cost me $15 000 easily

**Strain 'o the day for pain and lifting of spirits::::
[Blueberry] great pain-fighting cannabinoids as well as its relaxing and numbing effects.  This bud quite simply slows time, heals and calms the mind & body. Enjoy! **

TVM first jam is a type 1 jam, nothing new to hear here. The second jam is a boring funk jam. Eventually, they hasten somewhat and hit a dance jam as they get closer to the Shimmy transition. Still not all that interesting. The Shimmy jam has aspects of it that are incredibly cool, but I hate to say that Allen kinda ruins this jam for me. He can’t seem to decide which kick he’s going to use (acoustic or e-kick) and it’s quite frankly distracting. This continues for several minutes. He eventually settles on the acoustic kick, and the jam instantly evens out. Around the 19-minute mark, the band is completely locked in for a fantastic theme. Barber and Magner are playing off of one another very well. They flesh this theme out more and this is really nice overall. Brownstein tips the Tempest transition WAY too soon, and they lose a little momentum as a result, but they get some artificial momentum by playing the Tricycle peak. The Tempest jam features a “Sweet Dreams” tease from Magner. There’s not much to say about this jam. It’s not all that interesting. Ape has its usual DNB jam, but around the 8:35 mark they drop to half-time and I think it winds up much more interesting as a result. Nearly everybody drops out around 9:00 as they start rebuilding. They develop a nice, happy, upbeat four-on-the-floor jam that leads somewhat obviously to Story. I think this is pretty good, although they’re not breaking any new ground. Story has a generic midtempo funk jam. Meh.

Crickets has a pretty typical first jam. This doesn’t do much for me. The second jam develops into a really cool, dreamy breakbeat jam. This is really nice, and has a pretty unique sound to it. Memphis 1st jam is a little too Rock God Barber for my tastes. Memphis 2nd jam is a spacey odyssey led by this slow, evolving synth lead from Magner. Even if this jam doesn’t really go anywhere, I like it a lot. Around 14:30 they drop a four-on-the-floor beat and speed up significantly. They manage to keep the same spacey feel, which is a-ok with me. The segue into Abraxas is incredibly smooth and it seems they’re playing the song suddenly without ever having changed what they were doing. Marvelous. The Abraxas jam doesn’t move me. The Munchkin has a really cool theme from Magner throughout. This is quite frankly not as long as it ought to be, but it’s a really cool theme and worth relistening.

AC2B > Catalyst > AC2B in less than 20 minutes is disappointing. This segment could easily be a 45-minute segment. The AC2B jam barely exists, and is closer to a drop segue. Catalyst back into AC2B is not interesting either. Encore is standard.

Highlights: Shimmy*, Ape, Crickets (2), Memphis (2*), Munchkin