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 Howdy folks! As the title says, welcome to my archive of live show reviews as I have posted on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums website! I pr...

Tuesday, December 6, 2022

2019-12-30 New York City, NY - SUPER TWEEZER

 Had no time most of the week to listen, so as I sit here this afternoon, why not continue onwards? :)

12/30/19 New York City, NY

Set 1

Wilson - Opener! That's a pretty rare thing! A pretty rocking and high energy version to kick off the show with a bang. Nothing you haven't heard a million times before, but certainly welcome.

The Final Hurrah - Great choice for second spot. Kinda like Moma 2.0 or something. What's with the keys/extended synths that sound out of key? Did somebody trigger a wrong patch or something?? Right before the first Faceplant Into Rokk section. Great energy on this though - gets slightly cookin' with some tastefully restrained playing from Trey and the rest of the guys (especially Mike) throwing in all kinds of tasty licks beneath him. Great little group effort!

46 Days - Right off the bat you can feel the heat. Straight from the get go! It's one of those "oh dang, this is gonna rock!" versions. :) As with TFH, Gordo is tearing it up - listen to him soloing under Trey. Awesome peak section in this sucker. Phenomenal 46 Days imo. Just grabs you by the face and rips your skin off. THIS IS INSANE!!! HOLY CRAP THIS IS HOTTER THAN THE SUN!!!

PAUSE - No, for real. Go back. Do not pass here without listening to that 46 Days.
Penance paid? Ok, you may proceed....


The Ballad of Curtis Loew - Who the hell saw this one coming?! :p Wow, unexpectedly great to hear! Trey is nailing the leads, Page is singing great, the crowd is lapping it up. Wonderful!

Blaze On - Still hate the song, but once can't deny a monster when you hear it!! 17 minutes. Really great and ULTRA funky! Hints of Plasma at times. The jam goes through several different phases. Gordo is still absolutely tearing it up. We go from typical raging funk phest to blissy kind of thoughtful jamming to some more abstract kinda stuff. This is terrific. For 17 minutes they sure give us our dang money's worth here! Absolute dance fest. Must-hear!!!

Corinna - The Taj Mahal classic. 3rd MSG run in a row its getting played! The crowd loves it from the start and the vibe is so choice. Just wonderfully chill and grooving. Vibetastic, yo. Oh lord, Page, your keys do something to me.... :p

Mike's Song - Oh yes, that energy, baby. Let's rock! This sucker is HOT like a 1.0 version!!!! Get it Trey!!!

Contact - Winter Wonderland segue out of MS into...Contact! Completely unexpected and freaking awesome. Freaking awesome funk jam in the middle.

Weekapaug Groove - Its WG. :)

About to Run - Killed it in Charleston. I don't think this one is as good as Charleston, but the effort is there and the rest of the guys are smashing it to pieces. A+ for effort!

More - Is More. What else did you think was gonna close the set?! :p This one feels like it has extra mustard sauce. Everyone is shredding it up and just killing it. Great way to close a terrific set.


All in all - WOW! What a freaking set!!! Almost the entire set is worth at least one listen. Rare song choices and placements, a 17 minute Blaze On bonanza, the hottest 46 Days this side of 2003 and more energy (for 2019, at least) than you can shake a coconut at! FANTASTIC FIRST SET!!!!

 
 
Set 2

Here we go!!!


Tweezer - 36 minutes. We know the deal, lol. 4 minutes in and the jam begins. Trey holds back initially letting Gordo take the reigns (MVP tonight!) for a minute. But this is just the taster for the main course. After the next "Look who's in the freezer!" they do a cool little pause for a minute, dragging out the break for a few seconds. Very cool moment. But then the real jam proper begins about 5:30. The crowd is going absolutely nuts - can anyone elaborate what happenned then?? Right now the guys are biding their time, Trey taking it slow and easy, Page filling in his gaps with lovely piano. A "typical" Type I Tweezer rage fest ensues for a good few minutes after this. Around 8:30 there is a glimpse of change - Trey starts doing cool sustained note patterns that the other guys pick up on. It's a brief view around the corner to other stuff, a signal if you will.
By 9:30 Trey has turned on his dirty switch and his wah pedal and things start to get heavy. This is great stuff. By 10:30 Trey and the guys start kinda jamming off of the ascending Tweeprise motif, but quickly shelve it for brighter pastures. Only 30 seconds later and Page has moved to his organ and we are seeing inklings of bliss scattered throughout. Everyone is playing TOGETHER and building this thing minute by minute, moving from scene to scene like a fast-paced action movie. By 12 minutes in Fishman starts to break the mold doing some cool rhythmic action which the other guys pick up on and begin to jam off of. From here Page introduces his dance-party THX synthesizer while Trey is doing the delay-plinko thing. We are officially in Type II land.
This lasts a solid 90 seconds before Trey leads the band into "Went Gin Ascended Peak" territory. Everyone doing their best sustained notes, presumably holding their axes skyward in the process. Trey is doing his trills and guitar god stuff while the rest of the guys just lay down that beautiful foundation from upon which he will peak til the cows come home.
Come 15:45 and the mood abruptly shifts again! Trey switches on his delay, Gordo gets his robot-bass on, and Page is laying down those NASTY organ groans like gurgling death. Some great rhythmically-charged playing ensues with the guys still listening to and jumping off of each other. How they can play together like this so fluidly is just remarkable. I know I generally prefer the Phish 1.0 "build it all up very slowly" ideal, but you just can't ignore how damn GOOD they are at this stuff. Seriously. It's just crazy.
17:50 or so and the guys DROP into a dynamic and beautiful section as lovely as a whisper from your lover. How the hell did we just go from volcano explosion to intense beauty in a matter of seconds!? That's what I am talking about! Now it's rim-shots from Fishman, gorgeous melodic lines from Gordo and plinky string picking from Trey.
Around 19:30 and we are in 1999 Ambience Heaven. Things get even quiter, but Trey begins to slowly strangle his guitar - one long gnarly note after another - and the synths come back to haunt us. But we are still in gorgeous major key environment! This is incredibly cool - sounds like some Smashing Pumpkins circa 1993 stuff or something.
21:20 and the boys all sync up again on a new melody line, jamming this upwards and onwards. Ever so slowly the intensity builds with each repeat of this musical phrase. Page is on wacko synthesizer, Mike and Trey are holding down the fort, continuing the line they've established. 22:30 and Trey starts to play around with leads again while Page takes his spot in the ensemble section. They could totally separate this jam out for it's own "Siket Disc"-type of singularity. Name this something and start playing it, now! They really take their time with this though. It's wonderful to have them wade in it instead of jumping immediately to the next thing. This is what I'm talking about - they are BUILDING it and not just jumping in. It evolves slowly and steadily, each turn through introducing something else.
At 24:30 there is a distinct "end" to that jam section with Gordo now introducing a new pattern. Trey quickly latches on with Fish and Page following suit. The energy is now building back up to a more bluesy and rocky vibe. Bliss heaven is in the rearview mirror now. They milk it for a bit and it starts to sound like they could jump into Party Time or Undermind if they wanted to. Thankfully they do not though and we get another huge cheer around 26:30 (again, anyone know why?). This cool-ass jam is now approaching slightly-funky rock ville with Trey jumping on the wah pedal and Page on his 70's keys. Awesome stuff.
Freaking awesome Page around 28:30. Again, they guys latch onto yet another thing one of them is playing. I know I'm being redundant as hell, but they are all listening to each other so well!!! Page and Trey making this new rhythmic patter and jamming it out like it's part of a song they've played forever. Yea, it's simple, but the point is that they so quickly adapted to each other like it was nothing. That's fantastic.
By 30:00 roughly they have moved on to the next section. More of a party vibe going on, leaving the blues in the past. Yet another absolutely wonderful section where more stuff is introduced and the other guys just latch right onto it. Check out 31:45 if you love your Divided Sky extended held notes :D We are now slowly building towards more blissful and guitar-ragey peaks. This is outstandingly cohesive for a jam. Just fantastic. Trey is in the ZONE just laying down perfect leads left and right, the crowd going nuts and fueling him onwards. We are climbing that mountain, baby, heading for the peak!!!!! 33:30 and you can feel the room exploding with Trey just going for it. He hits that note and the whole place goes kaboom!!!
34:00 and the peaking subsides for some dirty Trey with lots of delay effects. The guys drop down to near silence, Fishman introducing a slow and plodding beat that the guys funkily jump behind. What is this?! How did we go to this?! I'm really stupid - can you guys tell me what they are quoting here?

Anyways, that's the unfortunately stunted end to an otherwise masterful jam. Wow.

This jam didn't blow my mind like I expected. I absolutely loved and enjoyed it, but the most exciting part of it was how they were playing so well together as if they were glued together. It wasn't completely "oh my god world destroying" or anything - It was just really, really, REALLY, well done!!! Does that make sense?

Anywho, I loved it and it will definitely get another listen or two. It felt very "heard this before" for the most part, but again, it was done so damn well!!!! Can't complain!!!  

Set 2

Ok, since Tweezer was big enough, I'll just continue on from here :p

Pan Story - I don't know what the hell this is about. Is it real or fake (anyone know anything, lol?). But it's a weird enough curio moment that has to be heard, lol

Ruby Waves - Great choice to pick us up off the floor :) This version is 13 minutes and all kinds of beautiful and strange. Straight into Type II, we get some aquatic-sounding, synth-laden jamming with Trey using his volume pedal. Very, very cool rendition. This kinda sounds like something a Piper could evolve into, ya know? Pretty intense! Around 8 minutes the guys lighten up a bit. Fish keeping that steady high-speed rhythm, the other guys play plinko with Gordo getting fancy with his effects. Everyone is playing together with noone particularly taking the spotlight. Great to hear - the four guys playing as one. 10 minutes in and Guitar Strangulation begins :) Trey takes the center and lays it down. Sometimes tastefully, sometimes just bursting out at us, wailing! He even gets a pinch harmonic in there at one point, lol. Very cool delay effects from Trey. The intensity keeps building - is this a Crosseyed or something?! By 11:30 the guys are ON FIRE! Quick! Get the hose! I'm burning up here!!! But then 12:30 rolls around and we QUICKLY quiet back down, heading for ambience. I still can't believe how smoothly they are able to do that.

That Ruby Waves was one of the absolute best "concise" Type II jams of the year. Forget that Tweezer and grab this sucker - this RULED!

>Steam -
Perfect song choice out of that smoldering pile of ash and rubble Ruby Waves left us with!!! Absolutely RIPPING Type I beast!!! Fantastic Steam!!! 6:02 but dang do they make use of it, holy hell

>Tweezer Jam - :D GET IT BOYS!!!

>Ruby Waves - They segue PERFECTLY back into the RW theme! THIS IS MAGICAL! X FACTOR ALERT! This little jam fades out into dark ambience quickly. For a solid and DARK 9o seconds or so, we are in Scary Movie land. What the F is this?! It comes to a whisper of a close into....

>Slave to the Traffic Light - Holy freaking hell, talk about perfect set placement again. That RW jam into Slave was SO perfect!!!! That was some 1.0 magic right there!!! DANG!!! Not much to say on this - It's Slave and it's fantastic. You know what you are getting. Just magical :)

Rock and Roll - ITS God-dang ROCK AND ROLL WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?! IT KICKS TAIL! TALK ABOUT A PERFECT SHOW CLOSER!!!


All in all, yea, this show definitely approaches 4.5 territory on .NET if you ask me (I think 4.7 or whatever is a tad over doing it, lol). This is easily in the top 3 or so shows of 2019 so far. Ho-lee-free-king-krap. Forget the Tweezer for a minute - the rest of the show was incredible. Think of that Tweezer just as a bonus! The REAL highlight of the show for me was the Ruby Waves>Steam>Traffic Light section. That whole section of the show was gnar bars!

Yea, this show will rightfully be remembered in years to come, I am sure of it!

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