December 27, 2019

There was a huge box office computer fuck-up that led to hundreds of people missing most of the first set, including my wife and I (after my wife got in and tried to get some bottled water, she ended up missing the WHOLE set), so I can't really review the first set. I only saw Abraxas > Spaga and it was fantastic.

The second set and encore is absolutely A+ Biscuits. Always love the Tunnel and they nailed it pretty well, but the whole segment after that is the highlight. Really beautiful Astronaut SITA jam, the debut of Running Into The Night was SO powerful, uplifting, and catchy... At the time myself and my crew were saying that it may be our new favorite Biscuits song. Then they go into the Tractorbeam jam, which was the darkest techno shit I've ever heard them throw down... One of those moments in which I wished the whole world could witness this and discover that four guys can make sounds like this. Jam back into Astronaut is solid, and the Buddha encore was just about perfect. I wish they chose another song besides Tricycle to put in the sandwich, or maybe just do a standalone Buddha, but it was still fantastic. Such an amazing start to the NYE run.

Strobelights starts out with an upbeat jam that has a very nice pocket. I could do without the minute of Magner’s tease, but that’s not a big deal. They eventually bring things down a little lower, and I think the dynamic change is nicely timed. The switch into Electric Slinky is done nicely. Feeling Twisted has a great jam in it, very digital feeling, and has the vibe of being a jam into Abraxas without being an Abraxas intro jam. Really cool. Abraxas itself feels like it has the potential, but never quite hits that next level. Spaga DNB always makes me fall asleep. They jam out of Astronaut via SITA, and sometimes they have a tendency to get sort of “stuck” on the SITA theme for too long. This is not one of those times, and they get into some pretty dark territory initially, with some dissonant stuff from Barber. However, it opens up into a beautiful, subdued little jam around the 8:30 mark. This is fantastic Blissco. Running Into the Night has like a 7-minute long type 1 jam that I couldn’t care less about. The jam into Solumon, the Solumon track, and the SITA jam are fine, but nothing noteworthy for me. The post-SITA jam starts out fantastic with some Magner arps that provide a great texturing effect while Marc and Barber lay in the pocket. The Buddha > Tempest > Buddha encore is (surprisingly, I know) rushed and not interesting.

Highlights: Feeling Twisted, Astronaut (1), Astronaut (2)