August 18, 2016

This show has a lot of raw power. There are a few flubs and dull patches, but the high points of this show will singe your eyebrows off. Interestingly enough, I detect at least two moments in this show that sound very much like prototypes to the Space Opera songs. The soundboard has Brownie turned way the hell up, which is a plus in my book. Barber's vocals are largely exceptional, even if he misses a few cues. I differ in opinion from the previous reviewers on a few important pieces of this show, though.

For one, the T>A>A>T sequence in the first set is fairly hit or miss for me. Most of the really great passages don't stick around for long, which is a shame. The jam into Abraxas sounds a lot like what would later become Photograph. It takes a while for Barber to find something to sink his teeth into, but about 9 minutes into Abraxas he comes up with some heartfelt melodic lines before the jam splits into something more dissonant. Great stuff. There isn't much I cared for in Astronaut, although they land the return back to Therapy more or less intact. However, the standalone Robots that concludes the set is a remarkable 22 minutes of music. The funk jam is dirt nasty, with Magner and Barber having a ball trading bloozy licks. The second drum n bass jam has to be one of my favorite d&b jams I’ve yet to hear from them. Allen and Brownie provide the surgically precise rhythms while Magner and Barber explore some soundscapes right out of late 90’s Metalheadz. Magner pushes it into absolute overdrive with some lightning fast staccato piano chords before the peak hits.

There’s another hot little funk jam to open Rainbow Song which has just enough of a hard edge to avoid typical jam band fluff. I thought the Confrontation jam was great, reminiscent of a mid-70s Dead NFA in the way it consistently simmers right below the boiling point and holds the tension. The Spacebird cycles through ideas a little too quickly, by contrast. It’s at its most interesting when it teases something lightly industrial before signaling I-Man. The I-Man could be a little more focused, but overall it rips. The intro makes you think it’s going to be more of a Techno take than what it ultimately becomes. I quite like the spacy second jam, although Barber gets a little stuck at times. There’s a point about 14 minutes in that sounds a lot like what we now know as The Wormhole, though. The third jam sounds like they’ve worn themselves out until Magner works up the gumption to deploy the cheesy 80s piano-pads. This takes the transition jam into a sublime place I wouldn't have expected. I would have completely lost it if I heard Magner weave Dancing in the Dark into Confrontation as he did. Barber sometimes rises to the occasion with some beautiful phrases but sometimes he seems hesitant to commit to the bit. This makes for an initially rough landing back into Confrontation. With a throwaway jokey MEMPHIS and a boilerplate OTFP, that’s more or less the show.

My verdict is 4 stars. There are just enough unfocused and uninspired moments for this show to fall short transcendence as a whole, but it contains plenty of moments that get pretty flippin close individually.

Confrontation(reprise) has a "Dancing In The Dark" tease throughout.

Quite simply, the energy at this show is off the charts. Barber has that extra fierce vocal attack, happy, into it and having a grand 'ole time. 'Robots' comes to mind when finishing the 1st. I'm not sure about when / if Brownie changed his approach or got some new goodies in his rig but right around the summer, Camp and this Irving run he is smoother than Fonzie on Quaaludes. The whole-note roundness of his attack and low accompaniment is marvelous. No mistakes tonight, the flow is too strong. The recordings are also ultra good. Hearing it as you look at the stage. Marc right down the middle, and everyone else is 360. Unreal. Certain cymbals left, snare middle, kick middle , toms right...anyway, just fabulous. You have all been there with headphones, where you hear something and look behind you and shout to your mate "What??" "Who rang the doorbell?" or if the THC level is just right, the matingcall came, they have landed and you're sure you are on your way to Rigel 2. If you spend a good chunk of your disposable $ on HQ audiophile equipment and good headphones / DAC / Amp plus the right filtering at your PC station, you are absolutely there at the gig...smelling patchouli, herb, ball sweat and beer burps. The Theraxanaut trio to open up the show really shines and you know shit's gonna get bonkers. That Spacebird literally includes a permanent rumble earthquake bass attack for the middle jam around 5 minutes long.

Amazing show! Pretty much a 9 or 9.5 / 10 for me. I think the sets are very balanced and the playing is terrific throughout.

"I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." R. Frost

peace.

Therapy has a great jam. This has several different themes, each of which are fantastic. The band develops a nice midtempo house jam that has some great sounds all around from Magner. The jam out of Abraxas has an absolutely hypnotic groove the first several minutes, and it’s impossible to not nod your head along. This is really neat overall. The jam out of Astronaut is from the SITA section, and while it starts out as a pretty typical SITA jam, it evolved really magnificently. Around the 10-minute mark, Magner is using his vibraphone patches, and the whole thing is some really great Blissco. After they drop back into SITA, they craft the polar opposite, a dark and evil jam with heavy Middle Eastern vibes. Awesome.

The Robots first jam is forgettable funk. The second jam is dark DNB but it is also pretty forgettable. Rainbow Song has an intro jam, which again is fairly forgettable. The Confrontation jam is not bad, but there’s not much here that I necessarily find redeeming, either. The first few minutes, it seems like they’re setting up a nice foundation, but frankly they never build to anything interesting and it feels like this is a lot of treading water. The first several minutes of the Spacebird jam are fantastic. Magner is messing around with some great, textural patches, and Allen is offering up a heaping dose of e-drums and various effects. They have a dreamy little theme for this first portion, but around the 8-minute mark, the band shifts noticeably darker. They hit on a couple different themes over the next 8 minutes or so. Some of these are better than others, but overall this whole segment is good-not-great. The first I-Man “jam” is a short bridge between chorus 1 and verse 2. Same goes for the second jam. The third jam is the first real jam of I-Man and has a great bassline that sounds like a riff on the Bombs bassline. Similar to Spacebird, this is good-not-great, but a highlight regardless. The fourth I-Man jam starts out really interesting and light-hearted, but they get caught in a dreadfully boring repeater jam that loses me completely. They have a great theme headed into the Confrontation return (Barber has some great lines here), but it’s just insufficient to overtake the boredom of the earlier parts of the jam where I was just waiting for it to end. The Memphis jam is only cool because of the repeated “it’s good to have you in the band.” The rest is pretty meh. Fiddler encore is fine and does not include a real jam.

Highlights: Therapy*, Abraxas, Astronaut (1**, 2*), SBMC, I-Man (3)