August 13, 2023

For this show it’s all about that first set. Not to say that the rest of the show wasn’t good but it definitely wasn’t as memorable imo.

Basis opener was legit, we needed that! Then into a tight Times Square which exploded into a top 5 freeze, can’t beat that. Orch is gonna orch but the way in ended up into the ending of one chance. Oh shib. LFG.

I was immediately worried by the very sorry-ass, lifeless Basis that there wasn’t a lot of gas in the tank after a weekend in the Catskills (and I was not particularly moved by the second night of Mountain Jubilee either). Thank goodness it was more than redeemed by a beautiful Times Square. The first 11 minutes of TSq are maybe the best take they’ve done on this song yet. It doesn’t stray fully into Type 2 territory, maybe 1 ½. Magner provides amazing support with delicate, mournful e-piano chords once they start jamming. Barber doesn’t always find inspiration from this, though; occasionally Barber just noodles while Magner throws new chords at him to find something that sticks. The ramp into Freeze is pretty pedestrian, but Freeze is damn funky once it starts. The jamming here is exquisite, building slowly from some faint arps. Whatever difficulty Barber was having getting into the headspace earlier, he fires off all kinds of great lines with ease. Magner rises to the occasion with powerful saw pads behind him. Great stuff. The jam following the reprise has some treats too; Brownie teases a number of dancy tDB songs before they head into a brief epic-sounding passage that deftly conceals the upcoming Orch Theme. Orch Theme is always a pretty easy layup in my opinion, but Barber showboats with some unexpected blues licks. Then, he fudges it again once they jam toward One Chance. This man really is the John Daly of guitar sometimes. One Chance isn’t all that deep, but it’s a nice little sliver of Blissco to wrap up the first set.

As with s1, s2 opens with a long take on a classic Bisco tune that looks way better on paper than it sounds in execution. There have been some excellent Dribbles lately but this isn’t one of them. The opening jam is actually really impressive and reminiscent of some of the wiry jams of early ‘78 Dead, but the rest of the Dribble jamming seldom pushes out from basic midtempo boogie. Also as with the first set, they snap back into focus with a Space Opera song. Although Tourists is a little on the short side, Magner and Barber get in some soulful licks. Magner’s little solo is much less boogie-fied than usual, instead entering Jim Steinman Bat Out of Hell territory. The rest of the second set struggles to keep up, though. LSD is fine and the transition from Photograph to Shimmy is actually quite clever but there’s nothing outside of the box otherwise. Otherwise, the last few tracks are pretty sloppy.

I’ve felt that a lot of these shows from the back half of the summer sound a little tired. Parts of this show are the most tired they’ve sounded in a while, if you ask me. There’s still a good selection of redeeming moments, especially in s1, but it feels overly generous to rate this above a 3.