October 19, 2020

A splendid first set and a fine but unexceptional second set. Shem>Rock Candy is the obvious highlight here. Magner in particular is having a lot of fun, with his tones ranging from Enigma-style chimes and wispy pads to arps right out of 12 Ragas Set to a Disco Beat. Rock Candy pivots into rockist blissco that justttt skirts the line of not sounding too typical jam band peak-y. The Strobelights jam is fine, although not as interesting as what came before.

The bulk of the Orch theme jam saves the second set, which was largely Just OK. None of the other jams were /bad/ but there weren't a lot of interesting ideas. The first SOTW jam is a great example: I was really grooving to it, but it's nothing we haven't heard them do a million times before. The Orch Theme jam starts off a little rough (I prefer them a lot crisper, anyway) but they actually lean into the relative lack of oomph and do some chill, exploratory stuff I wouldn't often associate with Orch. Once they find their footing, they glide from idea to idea without hardly ever getting lost. The end of the Abyss jam, when Barber is just making a bunch of weird noises, also sustained my interest although I think it would've gotten annoying had it gone any longer.

I'm giving this one a 4, as the show's centerpieces are must listens. The rest is a little workmanlike, but there's minimal flab.

The Home Again jam gets stretched out somewhat, but ultimately this is a little too meandery for my tastes. Shem-Rah gets spacey and weird almost immediately. Magner has some wonderful leads that haunting and psychedelic. Around the 9-minute mark, Brownstein plays the first three measures of the “Brain Surgery” jam, but seems to decide against pressing forward. The sort of metallic xylophone sound Magner has around the 10:30 mark is so great, and I love when he plays around with that tone. The band continues with this highly digital sound for most of this jam, and I absolutely love it. I don’t feel like they ever hit on a specific “theme,” so much as a “feel,” if that makes sense. Around the 19-minute mark, the band embarks on a decidedly different sound, with a four-chord progression that descends, as Magner and Brownstein match one another. I have to say – the most surprising thing about this 15-minute long Shem-Rah jam is that I was fully engaged during the entirety of it. The first several minutes of the Rock Candy jam are basically Brownstein playing four bars of the Brain Surgery jam, while Magner and Barber play around atop him. This doesn’t do much for me. I’d rather that they just played the stupid jam and moved on to something new. Finally, at 11:20, they finally get into actually playing the jam. Great, way to go guys. The Strobelights jam has a fun, airy quality to it. I like this a lot, even if it’s a foregone conclusion very early that this is headed to B&C or something similar.

The first several minutes of the B&C jam don’t do much for me. Around the 12-minute mark, Magner kicks up the piano a notch, almost as if to play Barber offstage at the Oscars. The band takes a marked shift to a darker sound. This has a lot of Barber messing around with electronic effects on his guitar tone, and I like it a lot. I think they get into Orch a little too quickly for my preferences, but such is life. The first Orch jam has a “you don’t win friends with salad” thing from Brownstein that gets old quickly. The second Orch jam has a few different themes, each of which are very solid. This is a wonderful little odyssey, and I was captivated for the entirety of this. Specifically, the two-chord jam near the Story transition is sublime. The first Story jam is fairly forgettable. Typical Story fare, though they at least stretch their legs a bit. The Abyss jam features some interesting stuff from Barber, using his various new bells and whistles. They also hit a portion that sounds like they could be headed for the SITA section of Astronaut. Neat.

Highlights: SRB*, Strobelights, B&C, Orch*, Abyss