2019-07-06 Boston, MA

7/6/19 Boston

Carini - The one-set Fenway gig opens with a red hot Carini. It does exactly what you expect it too, but it makes great use of its 7.5 minute run time. The guys just go for it, kicking in the proverbial door right off the rip. Fantastic opener!!! Even goes into a mini "aquatic" sounding kind of jam towards the end before segueing perfectly into Possum. Terrific opening!

Possum - Great segue and set placement! Keeps the energy sky high! Excellent but nothing noteworthy. Hot Possum is hot Possum and that's just fine.

Set Your Soul Free - Ah yes here we go, my favorite Dad Rock jammer. This one is pretty excellent. It's only 13 minutes but felt more like 20. The guys cover a lot of different ground and explore a number of different sonic landscapes. Absolutely worth your time. Let me put it like this, if I wasn't really tired right now I would be raving over this!

Thread - Maybe the strongest composition-heavy song since Mercury. One of their best songs in recent time, imo. Why this is such a rarity still befuddles me. Awesome to hear! This one revisits Carini territory. Very dark and mangled. Unfortunately the guys don't seem to know how to jam it out or where to take it just yet. Trey fumbles around kind of lost. Pretty hesitant version, imo. Performed fine, just unsure of where to go. SO WHY DONT YOU GUYS PLAY IT MORE SO IT CAN GROW, EH?!

Wolfman's Brother - After the failure-to-launch that was Thread, what else do we get but everyone's favorite crowd pleaser (mine too!). The guys take their time and build this one slowly. Really great quasi-retro 70s funk playing from Page with Trey plinko-ing around the joint. They are keeping it real mellow and chill, letting the groove flow. Very slowly they dial the heat up until we reach your typical Wolfman's heat. Very nice version! Really good - they took us for a journey instead of just jumping in the deep end!!!!

Reba - Absolute clunkfest by Trey unfortunately. C'mon mate, at least practice it before the gig...The solo is beautiful as always, but I'd say this Reba is mostly skippable, unfortunately.

Back On the Train - Pretty nice and extra chill. Trey is doing that "playing too softly" thing I hate so much. Watching this webcast of it, he barely played anything during the song itself, lol. There were big sections of him not even strumming along etc. Still, a million times better than Reba. A fine BOTT when all is said and done.

Mound - Heck yes! Love me some Mound! They nail the intro (I still can't figure out the counting here ) and proceed to give us a pretty strong version. Also, love Gordo's solo and the boomer guy in the crowd singing along to every word.

About to Run - Another of my favorite new songs. Haven't heard a bad one yet and Trey rips this one up. Hell yes.

Down With Disease - Loaded with energy. Trey is totally into it ("Dancing on my field!!!"). Really, Trey is Mr. Smiles, dancing all over the stage, tearing it up. Love it. Until Trey ripcords us into Simple. JUST as the Type II ambiance was about to begin he goes "NOPE" and just launches into Simple. BOO! Look, that was real good DWD but that just sucked.

>Simple - Gorgeous version, goes to some good Type II areas before finishing off. Unfortunately its only 8 minutes, but I'd say its worth listening to!

Backwards Down the Number Line - An excellent and high energy version with Trey just ripping it up. I've returned to just audio listening at this point but I'm sure Trey was grinning like a freak throughout

>Death Don't Hurt Very Long - Like that WACTOOB "transition" on 7/3, we only get a short little version of DDHVL. Come on guys, just give 'er the full monty already! What is here is excellent though. Dark and nasty and funky!!! If only this was longer than 3 flippin' minutes. What.

46 Days - Yup, that wasn't a segue! They played DDHVL for 3 minutes and then stopped BUT, I guess because of the key of the song and the tempo or whatever, 46 Days starting right up feels just exactly PERFECT. "Set Placement Exam: A+"

>What's the Use - 46 Days is just 46 Days - Hot, short and to the point. But they somehow manage to segue expertly into ambient land! Very unexpected and pretty darn cool. Again, not list-worthy either as it doesn't go anyhwere, but A for effort!

Mexican Cousin - I think they finally realised tonight wasn't meant to be Jam Fest Of The Year and killed WTU before it could try anything. That is fine when you get rare and wonderfully played MC. Such a stupid song that feels oh so good.

>2001 - OOH THAT SEGUE WAS SMOOTH!!!!! I wasn't looking at the setlist and that took me totally by surprise. That was awesome. Also, this version of 2001 is downright excellent for a shorter latter-day rendition. Trey nails the composed sections (lol) and everyone is FUNKIN IT UP BIG TIME!!!!! AWESOME!!!

>Split Open and Melt - The song portion is pretty good, but Trey loses it in the jam. He sounds totally at a loss for what to do. Tech issues perhaps? He's just floundering kind of playing but not really. He kind of gets his stuff together, but he's just messing around aimlessly with some dark "glub glub glub" sounds. I had to switch back to watching the show just to see what was going on. Yea, he's playing around with pedals and stuff just taking his sweetass time... Kinda funny actually. For like a minute and a half he's just "hold on guys, let me find a sound, hold on, just keep going, don't mind me". So basically they are taking this thing dark and deep, foreshadowing the Charleston Melt perhaps (which blew me away in person!). Unfortunately (there's that word again!), Trey is pretty much AWOL for this jam doing god-knows-what. He really doesn't play much at all!!! However, I would definitely listen to this to check out what the other guyts were doing, because they steal the jam, imo. I don't know what to think of this Melt. It just...is Ok, towards the end of it he actually gets going with some REALLY cool delay effects. Watching him play with the knobs on his Languedoc and maneuver the soundscapes. There's a strong minute or 2 of Deep Space coolness. All in all this was more a confusing mess than anything, but it had strong moments here and there. A+ FOR EFFORT

Suzy Greenberg - Is Suzy Greenberg. It rocks. Its fun. Nothing special.

Rise/Come Together - Too short for its own good, its over before it begins. What's here is very nice though.

Wilson - Hot Wilson to close!


Overall, a pretty good show, though very up-and-down. I'd give it a 3.7 or 3.8, something like that. There were great highs, but a lot of mixed-bag moments as well.