December 31, 2019

The Jigsaw beginning jam to start is a great little bouncy jam. It only lasts a couple minutes, which is a shame as they had a nice groove going. Once they get into the actual Jigsaw jam, they’re able to maintain the same sort of bouncy groove. This is not the most groundbreaking improv, but I thought the little riffs Barber was coming up with were well-placed, and Magner’s texturing is great here. Brownstein keeps the pocket going hard, and Allen is a machine. Stars in the Sky > Basis is enjoyable. Frankly, while not an incredible Basis, this is what I’m looking for in a Basis intro. Cohesive jamming and growing intensity. I think Magner could have played out a little bit more here, but I enjoy it nonetheless. The Basis 2nd jam has a great vibe to it. Magner on the little vibraphone thing for a bit is great, but overall I like this 2nd jam a lot. Again, not reinventing the wheel, but very solid play. The RLH > Anthem simply never is given time to breath. Orch Theme intro and middle jams are fine. The jam out starts out fantastic, and I thought could have developed into something huge, but they ditched it to head toward Spacebird far earlier than I’d have hoped. There seems to be a lot of hype around this jam, but I’m not overly impressed. The jam out of Spacebird takes FOREVER to develop, and when it finally does, they basically start a 4th of July intro. Wasted time. The rest of this set is milquetoast and forgettable. The Dribble does little for me. However, the Helix jam takes off right from the start. I love the vibe of this jam, and it has such a nice pocket that it’s hard to resist bobbing your head. WLTP has a great jam out of the song itself, then a great ambient jam pre-Tractorbeam. The Tractorbeam > Helix and Frog Legs > RLH to end the show are both forgettable.

Highlights: Jigsaw, Basis (1, 2*), Helix, WLTP