February 02, 2019

3 song Dead opener is awesome. Barber on the Trey guitar for most of it. The drop into Spraypaint is done nicely. Barber switches to the strat. They sneak sound 1 in there real quick. Next sequence is shem cyclone which works really well together imo. Definitely a nice arrangement while finishing the paint hea.

Set 2 is the real fire of this show. Barber steady on the strat. The Voices > Shelby (inv) > Insane is probably my favorite part. Shelby peak gives you the instant feels and sets the tone for the rest of the set.

Barber back on Trey guitar. Little Shimmy > Humu (inv) > Miracles > In A Conga Line is solid. Closes the show out right. The inverted humu into miracles keeps hopes high and makes for a killer show.

Helix stand alone encore 🤌

Help, Slipknot, Franklin’s Tower. This is a unique novelty, but unless you’re a big Dead fan, all I hear is 20 minutes of non-jamming. Meh, not for me. The Spraypaint jam takes quite a while to get away from Spraypaint, and after it does, it’s far too meander-y for my tastes. Barber just can’t pick a lane. Even after Brownstein and Magner get pretty synced up with a nice I-VII-VI-V progression, Barber is still just all over. The Shem-Rah jam has multiple different themes, and they really hit some nice moments. There’s a portion where Allen kicks things up (pun not intended) with an e-drum-heavy jam. The Cyclone jam is near-non-existent and gets into the Spraypaint ending fairly quickly. Voices into Shelby is okay, but never really progresses into anything too interesting. On the other hand, Shelby’s jam has some really great stuff from Magner, and the switch back into Voices is well-done. In Shimmy they use the Rocket Science/Brain Surgery jam yet again. Sigh. With that said, they eventually ditch it and get into a fun trance jam that locks into a great groove before heading into Humu. Miracles has kind of a dark jam in the “middle” before returning to the Miracles progression, and then Miracles also touches on the Brain Surgery jam. Anyway. The rest of the Miracles jam is decent, but nothing that’s particularly noteworthy for me. The Helix jam has some great moments, and for a few minutes, it sounds like they’re jamming toward a Confrontation ending. It’s neat, but they never really hit the next level for me.

Highlights: Shem-Rah Boo, Shelby, Shimmy