April 20, 2018

Helicopters > Boop is a great start. Commecial Amen was take it or leave it for me with a decent > Helicopters. Robots was good not great I felt.

Spraypaint > Boomshanker is awesomeness. I'll need to go back to see what the Shanker > Mulberrys segue was like, but the Mulberry's > Tempest > Tricycle section is lit. Spraypaint ending to cap it off. Really great Set II.

I actually think this show is better on relisten for me than having been there. It was packed and hot and I couldn't shake that fact much of the night. I actually left before the encore this night because of it. A shame because it's a pretty fun encore!

Helix begins right out of the gate with an uptempo dance jam. For the first 7 minutes or so of this jam, they feel a lot like they’re going through the motions. At the 9-minute mark, they land on a darker, more focused theme. This isn’t bad, and it’s definitely got the head-nod-appeal, but not something I’m ever going to get the urge to listen to again. The Boop “blues/funk” jam is the usual blah. The second Boop jam is great almost from the start. This is fast, dark, e-drum heavy trance. I love it. Magner has some cool little synth plucks that are littered amongst his arps which would work in a great way. The Commercial Amen jam is more of a “rock” jam than anything else. This is not quite my preference, but not awful. Both Robots jams are exactly what you would expect.

Spraypaint develops into a very solid thematic jam. Brownsteins bass progression here is very nice. This is pretty safe playing from everybody, but it works very well, and they’re all listening to one another really well. Not bad. This develops into a really, really nice improvised peak before dropping into Boom Shanker. The Boom Shanker jam turns into an uptempo four-on-the-floor jam fairly quickly, and the band locks into a very specific rhythm that everybody seems to be hitting. They’re communicating well, though the melody/rhythm isn’t all that interesting. Mulberry’s jam is fairly short and not memorable. Tempest is another short-ish jam, before switching into the Tricycle progression. Eh. As they get through most of the Tricycle jam, I’ve become convinced that the band is checked out during most of this set. This is not horrible playing, but it sounds to me like nobody is engaged, they’re just kinda treading water until the end of the set. After Midnight has a short jam that’s not been, but not great either. SBMC is a short-ish jam as well, and sticks a little closely to the 8-bar Spacebird riff to make me want to listen again.

Highlights: Boop (2*), Spraypaint*