December 09, 2018

Overture opener is the usual DNB jam, and doesn’t do anything for me in this instance. The first AC2B jam has kind of a laidback, 1.0 vibe to it, and features Magner on the Rhodes patch for much of it. There isn’t much here that’s interesting, but they seem to be clicking well. This turns into Tricycle with a lot of telegraphing by Brownstein well in advance of the switch. The jam out of Tricycle is really wonderful. Magner comes up with a brilliant melody that feels familiar and new at the same time. Barber jumps in on the fun here and they have some great interplay back and forth. Pure Blissco, baby! There’s a very short jam in AC2B before the ending that is meh. First HDPF jam is a type 1 jam that never does anything. Second jam has some really neat stuff from Magner. This is not really outside the box, but it’s very cool.

The Nughuffer story is all about Colorado and how Nughuffer is a song about adversity. Brownstein once said that he kind of breezes through these stories, and this is absolutely one of those times. Mediocre. The jam on the other hand begins really nicely. Magner has some extremely fast gated patches that provide a neat textural effect, and Barber’s guitar licks here work together with Brownstein’s bassline to create a really great pocket. Magner comes up with a sort of retro patch for the lead here, and he crafts some really neat lead lines here. Any jam where Magner really plays out like this, it’s almost always very nice, and the is no different. The Ape jam is a downtempo/dub jam, and Magner has the pan flute patch out in full force. There are parts of this that are really neat, especially the portion where Magner is using the pan flute in really fast repeated riffs. Neat stuff. Caterpillar, Spraypaint, and Helix to end the set are all mediocre, and the Mitts encore is standard. Sub-par ending to an otherwise very solid show.

Highlights: Tricycle**, HDPF (2*), Nughuffer, Ape