June 03, 2017

Spaga is a simple fakeout into the beginning of Rock Candy. The Rock Candy jam is pretty generic dance jamming. Around the 9-minute mark, they shift markedly, led by Magner’s 16th-note lead, with an evolving cutoff. This is neat for a few minutes, but re-generics itself on the way to the Crickets peak. The Crix 1st jam is bland for the first several minutes. Around the 8:15 mark, they tease a switch to Portal, then head into major key territory instead. This leads pretty solidly into Champions. Not something I’d relisten to, but not bad. The same is true for Champions, and again for Mulberry’s. Honestly, not much of this is bad per se, it’s just not interesting and doesn’t do much for me. Spaga first jam is characterized by its typically mundanity, though it is noteworthy how badly Barber butchers the peak riff. The second jam is a type 1 jam that never gets all that far outside the box.

Robots starts the second set with a pretty basic jam. Let’s Dance was probably a lot of fun live at Red Rocks. The jam, however, doesn’t do a whole lot for me. This is very Barber-shred-centric, and that never does much for me. The Abyss jam is really neat. Magner is using that arp patch that he uses in the Bombs verse, and this is overall just very cool. The band locks into a phenomenal groove, and it’s near-impossible to not bob your head to this jam. The I-Man jam is also very solid, for most of the same reason. Brownstein has a dancy Crickets tease at one point, which is neat. The HAB jam is wonderful. This is dancy, thematic, and has a great progression from Brownstein which ties the entire thing together. This is not the best jam of all-time, but it’s great, and it’s exactly why I listen to this band. The I-Man jam keeps the same energy. This is more of a typical I-Man ending jam, and again, it’s not mindblowing, but it’s very, very solid. The Munchkin jam is okay (including a Rock Candy tease), but doesn’t breathe enough to be worth revisiting.

Highlights: Abyss*, I-Man (1, 2), HAB*