October 31, 2015

Home Again is one of my favorite openers. It’s got such a great vibe and is a very good tone setter, particularly when they stretch out the jam a little bit. This is a great jam to start. They never stretch too far outside the box, but it’s really well-played, and Barber sounds focused and interested in what he’s playing, which is always nice. The Catalyst is very, very solid as well. Again, they’re not really stepping far outside any boxes, but just playing well and patient (particularly Magner and Barber). Shout out to the guy on the soundboard recording who can be heard asking, “So how much of this is pre-programmed?” How much indeed. The first several minutes of Rock Candy feel like foundation laying. I expected something really great when they came back in from the drop-out-build-up but instead, this was just pretty good. I’ll still label it a highlight, but I thought this was going to be much cooler. The Cyclone jam ditches the trance portion almost immediately – first for breakbeat, then DNB. Initially, I’m underwhelmed here, but this lands on some interesting stuff around the 11:30 mark. My biggest complaint with most DNB jams is that there’s no cohesion. Most of these simply involve the band playing as fast as they can. This one has cohesion and thoughtful playing. I’ll take it. The first several minutes of Munchkin are punctuated by Allen’s clever snarework and Magner has some neat repeating melodic lines. However, they never really build anything from here. Honestly, most of this jam I was just bored.

The Memphis first jam is mediocre, and includes horns near the end, which I couldn’t care less about in the context of a Biscuits show. This second jam has some fantastic tone from Barber. If he sounded like this all the time, I probably would listen to nothing else. I’m not in love with the jam itself, but the tone wins me over. It shocks me to say this, but the Get Down On It jam is great. They develop a really nice Blissco jam, and Barber’s play here is patient and thoughtful. At so many points I thought this was headed for a Helix transition, and they wound up simply allowing it to drop down to nothing. I prefer this. Spacebird begins with an immediate tease of Bombs by Brownstein and Magner. This jam is okay, but eventually devolves into some generic disco funk as they prepare for the transition into Funky Town. Also, what a terrible cover. Hate this song. There’s really no jam out, and they go into “You Should Be Dancing,” followed by “Born to be Alive.” Like…did somebody in the band discover that disco existed or something? Why? This is all not for me. Born to be Alive at least has a jam out into the end of 42, but this is nothing memorable in any way. The Morph jam slides immediately into Give it to me Baby, and the Morph ending is a bunch of brass noodling. Meh, not for me. Fiddler encore is okay.

Overall, the first set here was very good, but the second set lost a lot of steam with gimmicky stuff.

Highlights: Home Again, Catalyst, Rock Candy, Cyclone, Memphis (2), Get Down On It*