June 14, 2014

Robots has a decent downtempo jam in it. Brownstein seems to be kinda teasing Viola Lee Blues, or at least is playing the exact same cadence for parts of it. There are parts of this jam that are alright, but as a whole it just doesn’t move me a lot in one direction or another. Robots 2nd jam has a dark and ominous feel to it throughout. I’m not a big Robots 2 guy, but this is sinister and creepy in the exact ways that Robots 2 jams are supposed to be. The first AC2B jam is fine. It’s a type 1 jam that never leaves the box, and if you like AC2B 1 jams, you’ll enjoy this. The second AC2B jam begins with a very spacey, dark jam, featuring some creepy keys courtesy of Aron Magner. This turns into a really wicked sub jam, including Allen using some tabla FX on his e-drums. This jam is all Magner and Allen, and while Barber and Brownstein aren’t front and center here, they provide a perfect platform for the more digital parts of the band to flourish. Around 15:15 Allen drops a laid-back four-on-the-floor groove, and Barber’s playing provides a brilliant atmospheric backdrop for Magner’s array of pitchy synths. This is really, really cool. Then, as the band builds up the intensity, Barber lands on an absolutely marvelous riff at 17:56 that serves to bridge this more lowkey sound to the more deliberate, persistent jam that has been slowly building. The Don jam is another very good jam. The band develops this sort of weird theme that feels uneasy and danceable at the same time. It feels for a while like they’re headed toward a Ladies peak, as Magner and Barber seem to be teasing that very hard. Eventually Brownstein seems to realize what’s happening, and drops the Ladies peak bassline. Frankly, if I can hear a solid Ladies peak without subsequently having to hear “LITTLESHELBYROSETHISISHOWITGOESANDYOUKNOOOOOOWWHATITTAKES” I’ll take it. The Magellan doesn’t really have a jam, just an extended ending section.

Overture is not one of my favorite songs, mostly because they seem to wind up stuck in fairly bland, uninteresting DNB jams. This occurs here, although they do a weird Buddha peak in the DNB jam, and continue the Buddha bassline thereafter, when they drop to half-time. They manage to get out of this, but around the 13-minute mark they wind up in a “repeater” jam that feels like it lasts forever. At least this one has a decent groove, even if it’s wholly uninteresting to me. This builds and becomes more interesting than the repeater section would let on, but ultimately I still don’t care about this segment all that much, even though it gets marginally more interesting as the band nears Gangster. I am betting a lot of people have really loved this jam, but it is just not for me. Similarly, Gangster just doesn’t do much here, though the drop into RLH is fine. RLH’s first jam is alright. Nothing too noteworthy, but not bad either. The second RLH jam starts off with some uninspired midtempo house jamming, but around the 10:30 mark the band speeds up dramatically for the transition to Pat & Dex. Always cool to see a bust out, even if this is not my favorite song.

The Shem-Rah jam has a really neat spacey theme from Magner, though I feel like they could have developed this a little more. Around the 7-minute mark they ditch this for a more swirling-vortex sounding jam. This doesn’t last nearly as long as it should, but it’s really neat for what it is. The B&C jam is okay, although there’s a really neat Life During Wartime tease from the band that is rather unexpected. Very cool stuff. Magellan Reprise encore is reworked but still jamless of course.

Highlights: Robots (2*), AC2B (2**), Don, SRB

That was a reworked magellan reprise and it was the perfect cap to a great show