November 21, 2019

Ignore TFers review.

This show was one of the best of this tour hands down.

First set started with a fiery robots. Then proceeded to a Ac2b tempest sandwich that we were all waiting for. The debut of 4th of July which is a great lead intro song to Don. Hero was again one of the new instruments sandwich’d here which was a great spot for this Don.

Set 2 is amazing. Heated Ladies started the set to get the energy flowing into a much loved Cyclone. Then the Tractorbeam Section 🙌🙌 I can’t say enough About this other than this was the next phase of progression for tdb. Meshed up well with combined elements of Jacques Your Body (Les Rythmes Digitales) + Alakazam (Justice). Just see for yourself brownie and magner layered this perfectly. Station was a good stand alone, don’t think they know what to do with this yet but nonetheless another great new instrumental.

Show ended with a traditional reactor at the higher ground. This time LP was sandwiched in. Imo these songs compliment each other well. Encore was a common spy but always glad to see it in there once in a while.

Robots! Admittedly, I am not normally a fan of the Robots DNB jams. This one is great. Cohesive, interesting, dark, digital. Awesome. Additionally, the computerized/ambient jam prior to “GO!” is really cool. Magner with some awesome effects that sound like a computer having a heart attack. AC2B’s jam is nothing special, and the “drop” into Tempest comes out of absolutely nowhere. However, this is almost immediately forgiven as the Tempest jam back into AC2B is absolutely beautiful. Magner is on one in a major way. Gorgeous. I’ve never heard “4th of July” before, and again I’m not really sure where the composition starts and ends. The composition portion with the piano riff over and over again is absolutely boring, and Barber’s tone here is god-awful for a song like this. However, the dual descending riffs that Magner and Barber play near the peak of the jam are very pretty, and I love the swirling psychedelia feel to them. I’m a fan. Don > Hero > Don is meh. Ladies is fantastic. The band is firing on all cylinders, and Barber is satisfied sitting in the pocket while Magner takes over with pads and texturing effects. A head-bobbing jam to the nth degree with a bunch of e-drum effects. Cyclone has a nice, albeit short, trance jam, followed by a very cool ambient jam. Afterward, they jump into a Tractorbeam jam. This is cool, but the more I think about these Tractorbeam jams, they just feel like a way to jam without actually jamming. Honestly I’d prefer a 29-minute Cyclone to a 10 minute Cyclone followed by a 15-minute rehearsed set of jams, followed by a 4-minute Ladies peak. With that said, it’s a solid Ladies peak. Station is fine. The Reactor jam is sloppy, and has a “fakeout” that really feels more like an abandonment, and heads into Lunar. The jam after the fakeout actually feels like it could be really cool, but doesn’t have nearly enough time to be fleshed out. However, the first minute or so of the Lunar track on the soundboard is really cool until Brownstein just starts playing Lunar. Immediately after Lunar, they head back into the real Reactor peak. Gigantic “who cares” at this point from me.

Highlights: Robots*, Tempest*, 4th of July*, Ladies, Cyclone