September 22, 2017

On Time is fine. They don’t stretch their legs here much but it’s not as boring as it typically is. Tunnel has a type 1 jam in it, although I think they make this about as interesting as they can within these particular confines. Shimmy gets dark and ominous, and the band plays around with some evil themes here in some interesting ways. Most of Safety Dance is pretty solid dancy stuff. This is a little more generic, but I like the groove they settle into here, and Barber kind of has a Safety Dance tease here and there in the jam which I liked. Champions features a Magner tease from something I can’t place (Tchaikovsky?) The first few minutes of this Champions jam have a nice, pretty, happy vibe. Sadly, they ditch this way too soon and head toward the ending of Shimmy, which is just okay.

Floodlights has a very long jam. The first several minutes are pretty boring, but around the 13-minute mark the band develops a very solid groove. This eventually speeds up and develops a neat dance theme as well, which is very Magner-heavy. I like it. The Cyclone jam feels a little too meandery to me, and there’s not much here that made me take notice other than some solid drumwork by Allen. The Waves jam begins with Brownstein playing NANANANANANANANA-BATMAN over and over again. Okay. Both House Dog jams are very generic with respect to the typical jams here, and Portal is well-played but type 1.

Highlights: Shimmy, Safety, Floodlights