December 30, 2014

Neck Romancer has a nice churn to it, but it’s merely a warm-up for a gooey, molten funk workout in Strobelights. I love Jon’s tone from this period. The Cyclone jam almost seems like it’s not going to come together, but Allen imposes order with a blistering house beat. Waves rides in on its coattails; it’s a decent version, but the d&b jam following is fairly unexceptional until it mounts its frantic dash into Munchkins.

Magellan is pretty conventional, but well-executed. I’ve never minded if a Magellan doesn’t color outside the lines as long as it’s decent. The first half of Dribble is all Magner, who solos quite a bit. The spacey jam in the back half is pretty interesting at first, although they also sound a little caught in a rut with it. The first slice of the Spacebird sandwich is pretty conventional until the first tease of Spraypaint from Brownie, which brings forth a few good transition jam ideas. From this point, the rest of the second set treads water a bit. The jam out of Spraypaint sounds way too similar to the jam into it, but less effective. Barber botches the landing into Spacebird pretty bad; it’s one of those weird moments where he’s out of sync with himself.

Generally, though, this isn’t a bad 2014 show. It’s just a little anonymous in spots, unraveling as it goes along. You could probably play the much better first set and skip the second without losing much. I’d give this a 3.5 but it could’ve been a 4 if the second set was more focused.