6/16/12 Atlantic City, NJ
Set 1
Mike's Song - Awesome! A rare - and proper - Mike's Groove to kick off the show! Absolutely RAGES old school style. Wow!
>I Am Hydrogen - Like sweet auditory nectar to my ears....
>Weekapaug Groove - Raging, celebratory peak. Goes exactly as you want it to and it is terrific.
Gumbo - Very short but totally excellent all the way around.
Halley's Comet - Another terrifically performed version. Everyone is just on friggin' point tonight. Dang! Always wonderful to hear Halley! Some hot soloing from Trey that leads into a totally unexpected segue into....
>My Friend My Friend - See last two songs
All three were excellent, but at the risk of turning this into another
"every song highlighted" review, I'll really try to restrain myself
Wolfman's Brother - 11 minutes! When the jam begins they immediately
go for it hard, as expected. Cactus is just tearing it up. They funk it
super hard Type I style for a good long while. Around 8 minutes lots of
piano starts creeping in and things get much more spastic on the drums.
Sounds almost like we are going to head into a Possum or something!
Trey goes Machine Gun splatter for a while while the band seems to
teeter on the edge of "do we speed up or just rage at this tempo?". It's
incredibly hot, that I will say. By 9:30 it sounds like the guys are
going to wrap it up, but instead Page jumps on the organ and Trey just
continues to rip it up (how does he not break strings?!). We are in full
peak-land by now. As it turns out they ride this a bit further and
bring the song to a close around 11:30. That was some of the most raging
Type I awesomeness this sucker has ever heard! AWESOME!
Lawn Boy - Is LB. Is Fun.
Possum - Possum is always Possum, but this one feels like it
stands out from the pack. It's not the hottest ever but they do some
slightly interesting things in the jam. Worth a listen!
>Punch You In The Eye - WHO SAW THAT COMING?! NO YOU DIDNT, YOURE A LIAR! NOBODY EXPECTED THIS! YOU EXPECTED SET BREAK!
Ok, ok, enough, haha. I always welcome Punch (#favoritesong) and
getting it at this point in the set is like a special treat. They ride
the intro nice and long and get some good crowd participation going.
Feel that energy, yo! Trey has some minor trouble coming back after the
dance section but recovers quickly. At the end of the day it's not the
finest version ever but that set placement was kick in the pants
Ocelot - Huh. Kinda a head-scratcher in this position. It's like
they were gonna end the set then realized it was only an hour in so they
said "hey, we need to play more". This version is nicely ragged in a
very bluesy and laid-back way. I mean, even more than usual. The boys
are just taking their sweet time, milking the juice from the lemon, one
drop at a time. But eventually that goes out the window and we get the
guys bursting with that Wolfman's energy again, just absolutely
annihilating this poor animal! Fantastic!!
Suzy Greenberg - GET IT LEO! It's Suzy, it slays, you know what to expect. But its so dang hot that it's list worthy.
All in all, that was a great first set. Sure everything was
excellent basically, but there were notable standouts. Also cool that,
other than Ocelot, it was an entirely 1.0 setlist, not far off from
something outta 1995, no? Awesome fun. The set didn't floor me like I
expected, but that's ok. Still great, overall.
Set 2
Crosseyed and Painless - Yes! One of my favorites. I remember when they launched into it on 12/7/19 the whole building EXPLODED at once. I will never forget that and every time I hear the song now that's all I can remember. Extremely hot as expected. Absolutely freaking raging peak. Fantastic
gun-shot-in-the-air start to the set!!! Around 9 minutes the Type I
starts morphing into some chiller-yet-ultra-funky Type II stuff for
several minutes. Unfortunately they don't seem to know what to do and
the jam almost completely dies. Just as you think the end is nigh, they
go into full-on delay-pedal bliss ambience mode for a bit. Very awesome.
If this was 2020 they would jammed the hell out from here. Very
intersetingly though, they decide to morph, completely unexpectedly,
into....
Slave to the Traffic Light - Wow! In the 2nd slot?!?!?! That is
refreshing as hell, I gotta say, and the segue into it was awesome. All
hail Natural Segues! As for this version, there isn't much to say. It's
excellent through and through and delivers what you expect in the best
way. Still odd to have it in slot 2 though, as it makes you think the
show is almost over, haha.
>Light - Just when Slave is lulling us into submission by
going on too long, in comes a great Light to save the day! Right away
the jamming begins and we get a full-on, PROPER Manteca!!! YES! ALL HAIL
MANTECA! CRAB IN MY FRIGGIN SHOEMOUTH!!! And
then just as quickly as it appeared they leave it in the dust and move
to another section, haha. They never let up on the intensity, but the
guys end up going through several distinct "phases" of the jam, much
akin to what they would be doing so often in 2019. Microjam Bonanza.
Eventually we morph into a full on "still-waiting" Crosseyed reprisal
while Trey is singing the Light refrain above!!! THIS IS
ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! THIS LIGHT IS ONE OF THE MOST INSANE THINGS IVE
EVER HEARD! THIS IS TOP TIER 1.0 LEVEL JAMMING! YOU HAVE GOT TO HEAR
THIS MOTHER EFFER!!! HOLY FREAKING CRAP!!
Theme From the Bottom - Holy crap, this is the breather we needed. It's
great as always, but after the insanity of that opening trio, it's
merely a nice tuneful breeze flittering on by.
Golgi Apparatus - Haven't heard a Golgi in a good while it feels like.
Nice to hear and slightly unexpected to me in this spot. Very fine
version but Golgi is Golgi and not much else.
>Sand - Ah yes, Sand. It's 10 minutes of exactly what you
expect and it's terrific. Trey is really going for the high-notes on
this one all Alex Lifeson style. This as some extra sauce on it for
sure. Fantastic!
Backwards Down the Number Line - Yea, hate on the song etc. But it
almost works out of Sand tonight as a come-down after all the raging.
This one, as with Theme and Golgi, is very good as always but nothing
special.
Run Like an Antelope - See Theme and Golgi
Good Times, Bad Times - Always terrific to hear and this one is no exception. Sends us out on a big high.
All in all, as with set 1, nothing was poor, but there were clear
highlights. This show had a terrific setlist even if the flow was a
little jumbled at times. I'd say all in all the Light is MANDATORY "Jam
of Summer Candidate" territory, but outside of that this show is
excellent-but-non essential
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