June 04, 2016

The Shimmy jam starts out with some potential, but I feel like they lose it pretty quick. This turns into an Abyss ending fakeout (ish?) and I think that portion of the jam is far less interesting. They take a little too long to leave this fakeout, but near the end of it as they get closer to Humu, they develop some really pretty stuff. Around the 18-minute mark of the Shimmy track is really gorgeous, with some great texturing from Magner. I don’t think this makes up for the preceding 7 minutes being basically forgettable, but it’s nice for a few minutes before Humu. Humu on the other hand is boring as can be. This is midtempo “funk”-ish, and I don’t find much redeeming here. Also, wowwwwwww do they butcher parts of this Crystal Ball. Brutal. The jam out of Crystal Ball is really neat. It begins with a section that sounds like it could be a Munchkin jam. Magner, particularly, has that feel. They change from that into a more straightforward jamband sound, including Magner on organ. This second half is okay, but I wish they would have continued with the first theme as it was much more interesting. Two minute long Basis intro...? Why? Who is this for? Why?! The second jam doesn’t do much. They have a four-chord progression (three, technically) that they develop right out of the gate, but they don’t do much with it. Eh.

The Knights of Cydonia jam turns into a straight up trance assault. Magner and Allen are all-stars here, and while Barber and Brownstein don’t get in the way, frankly they don’t even really need to be here for this one for most of the jam. This is killer, and it’s pretty rare for a cover to have a middle jam. Neat. The Sweating Bullets jam is very long, but that’s about it. I don’t find a whole lot of this all that interesting. This is pretty cookie cutter stuff, including the transition into Waves. The Waves jam starts out with sort of a generic feel to it, then by about 7:20, they have developed an incredible, haunting theme. I’m not even sure how to describe this. It’s really great, but almost feel like Stranger Things come to life. Retro but creepy, groovy but interesting. This is awesome. The Spacebird jam starts pretty solid. They lock into a nice groove for the first few minutes, and around the 8:30 mark, they force a key change. They manage to do so without losing too much steam. A few minutes later, around the 11:30 mark, they get pretty weird with just a lot of sounds flying in every direction, and they resolve into a nice groove. Leaving Rock Candy, they keep the set headed in a positive direction. They almost sound like they’re going to head toward the end of Abyss, or a progression along those lines, for a minute. Around the 6-minute mark, Brownstein and Barber get locked into a repeater jam, but fortunately they’re able to pull themselves out of it. Magner keeps this jam alive. Around the 7-minute mark, Magner has some really great melodic stuff going on. This doesn’t last quite as long as I’d like before headed toward the middle of Waves, but overall I like this. Maybe not enough to re-listen, but a solid jam, and keeps the momentum going in the second set. The jam out of Waves back into Shimmy gets pretty dark as they near the transition. I don’t think there’s much going on here worth re-listening, but they do this effectively, and I’m all for dissonant, Phrygian jamming. Home Again encore is 4 minutes long. Not even a type 1 jam here.

Highlights: Crystal Ball, Knights of Cydonia**, Waves*, Spacebird

I absolutely LOVED this second set. Knights of Cydonia was an interesting cover that I hadn't heard before, and the jam in it is super digital... Magner just nailed it with the synth patch and lick that he comes in with. Each jam in the set has multiple thematic licks from Barber, he was just truly on fire. Definitely one of the bigger Red Rocks shows they've played, I remember it being more than 3/4 full and you can see it in their band/audience photo that they took. First set was okay and had a beautiful sunset jam going into Humu, but nothing else was really memorable. Basis For a Day as a set closer at Red Rocks is obviously awesome no matter what, but it seemed like they were rushing it to keep the set lengths in order. Long story short, check out the second set for some solid 2016 Biscuits!