2021-10-20 Eugene, OR

 Onwards with 2021 and Eugene night 2.

This setlist looks friggin ridiculous. A 20 minute Melt>EOS>Melt, a 30 minute Ruby, an opening Mr. Completely...

10/20/21 Eugene, OR

Set 1

Mr. Completely - 12 minute MC opener!!! Wow! Wonderful Type I playing throughout. Lots of great interplay between Page and Trey on this, resulting in a great bliss-rock exploration. Great stuff!!!! Things do get a tad "strange" in the final minute or so with some cool loops and stuff, but really, this is mostly type I.

Energy - Who saw this coming?! The #1 Trey song that Trey didn't write! Nearly 13 minutes on this sucker! Right away, the jam begins nice and chill, grooving like a mother. This jam is surprisingly on the dark side, late-night side of things. Poofy snythesizers and great bass FX while Trey does sweet melodic noodling. Around 7 minutes there is a subtle shift - Trey introduces a new melody line and Page moves over to the aquatic synths. Gordo keeps it funky and driving. Trey eventually moves on to this grindy kind of blissful type of playing and leads the band to a bliss-peak finale. This was super friggin' excellent!!! MUST HEAR!!!! THAT GRINDY PEAK WAS SICK!!!
And then it slowly dies with a soft fade out into....

>Timber - Oh yes. One of the best signs a show will be killer is Timber cropping up on the setlist! Great chill jamming on this one. Trey lets it rip on this one. This sucker builds into an absolute fury with the whole band just exploding. Holy crap that synth at 6:30 was PERFECTION!!! Then comes the final verse and they rage it to a close. This Timber was friggin' fantastic!!! MUST HEAR!!!

Casual Enlightenment - Yay, one of my least favorite Mike tunes....This sounds kinda awkward and tired and, well...boring. Yea. NEXT!

Divided Sky - Ah yes!!! Breathe that fresh life back into the set! Divided Sky is absolutely ridiculous tonight. A little sloppy in a few spots, but the back half is as full of x factor as a modern Divided Sky can possibly be. Holy crap, what a version.

Farmhouse - Holy crap this is the most DELICATE and beautiful version I've ever heard. Contender for GOAT Farmhouse. Seriously. Wow.

Split Open and Melt>End of Session>SOAM - Melt seems to have a hard time lifting off (well, breaking down). It gets stuck in a pleasant bliss area for a long time, complete with Divided Sky refrains. Very nice, but a tad middling and unsure at times. And then at the 10 minute mark Page comes in with these BLARING synths just bubbling up from the background. The jam stops cold and everyone seems confused on what to do, but quickly they get it together and use this as the prompt to go deeper. Love hearing Trey actively respond to the synths. It's as if Page said "Hey, guys, this is Melt. LETS DO SOMETHING WITH IT!". Finally, around the 12 minute mark, Page gives up on the synths and returns to piano. Oddly enough, the return to piano is finally what spurs on the rest of the guys and the jam begins to gather a head of steam. And then, just as the jam was finally reaching liftoff, they bring it back down again and go into only the 2nd ever End of Session! Wow! Then back out and into a clumsy outro for Melt...


All in all...wow what a set!! The entire thing was pretty much must hear. Just delete Casual Enlightenment, lol. Melt was not great in itself, but the weirdo x factor of it makes it a mandatory listen. This was possibly my favorite set of Fall 2021 so far (I have a feeling each show is getting better than the last!)

Set 2

AC/DC Bag -Excellent, raging Type I. Nothing that special but still totally excellent

Ruby Waves - 30 minute Ruby Waves! LETS GO!! The jam begins in a very nice and chill zone. Atmospheric background synthesizers behind Trey's melodic noodling. Around 9 minutes, the first major shift happens when Trey starts a new riff and the jam takes on a very aggressive nature. Still going at lightspeed, Page moves to the keys and away from the synths. By 13 minutes Trey has a new motif going and everyone is riffing off of it excellently. The X Factor is flowing. This is kick ass!!! GET IT!! ----Then all of a sudden at the 14 minute mark, the bottom falls out and the jam enters an interesting chill zone. Not bliss, it almost sounds like they could launch right into Number Line if they wanted to. In come the funky robo FX and loops. Page moves back to the synths while Trey quietly picks out a nice set of notes. This isn't a jam - it's a journey!
----This goes on for a long time and the jam starts to feel like something right out of summer 1999 or something. Everything is super quiet and mysterious. Around the 18 minute mark the guys begin to build themselves out of the hole they dug into. Trey back on melodic leads, Page on the keys, Fishman doing a great pulse kind of rhythm that Trey in turn plays off of. By 21 minutes the band is back on all cylinders and Trey is just tearing it up. This is one of the most organic sounding jams I've ever heard. Fantastic!
---Suddenly at the 22 minute mark, the rhythmic pulse keeps going, but the shredding comes to a close. Page introduces his THX synthesizer for a huge upwards "swell" and the jam completely changes on a dime!!! A brand new, ultra-funky robo groove develops, lead by Gordo's funky bass!!! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?! This transition was SO strange that you HAVE to hear it to understand what is going on!!! Suddenly we are in chill, late-night RoboFunk Land!! Outta nowhere!!! X FACTOR MAGIC! X FACTOR MAGIC! X FACTOR MAGIC!!!
---This goes for a long, glorious while. Interesting keyboard effects, Gordo thumping it up, Trey going NUTS with delay slashes and chords. This is so sick. Suddenly around 26:45 Trey introduces a new riff that almost sounds like he's teasing "Don't Doubt Me", but quickly Page comes in on some unique synths and the dark vibe gets a strange, yet uplifting quality to it. What is even going on anymore, this is incredible! Trey proceeds to do some nice melodic noodling atop Page's weirdo synths, but then the jam gets dark and fades to it's final conclusion....

WOW!!! That jam was INCREDIBLE! Absolutely a contender for one of the jams of the year, up there with the Deer Creek Simple and Blaze On or the Alpharetta Tweezer or Pelham Carini. Unbelievably fantastic. MUST HEAR YOU GUYS!!!!

>Lonely Trip - Lonely Trip is Lonely Trip but tonight it feels a bit special coming so perfectly out of THAT Ruby Waves. The perfect cooldown in the perfect spot.
Page's piano solo really hit me in the gut on this one and made me tear up, thinking about recently lost loved ones and the like...

>Golden Age - Normally I'm rough on GA, but this one is terrific. 16 minutes long, it gets a good jam treatment! The fun begins around the 8 minute mark when things take a decidedly more focused and slightly darker turn. This continues until the 12 minute mark when the drums completely stop. The whole band immediately sync up on a beat and groove TOGETHER. This is sick - THIS is what jamming is! The feel is now heading for bright and blissful. Around the 13 minute mark Page slowly introduces some synths and the jam starts to build back up. Trey doing a repeating chord motif while Page goes NUTS on the OUTER SPACE ROBO SYNTHS!!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE SYNTHS!!??!?? The jam is VERY chill and laid back, aside from those synthesizers going nuts!!! This is certainly UNIQUE!!!!! Wow, what a strange little Golden Age. Compare it to the Melt in set 1. Must hear! From there the jam fades out into...

>Backwards Down the Number Line - A surprisingly potent version full of energy and vigor from the get go!!! Nearly 11 friggin minutes long!!! Nothing absolutely must hear, but it rages hard (for a 2021 Number Line) and does not disappoint. Killer version!!! LONGEST HELD NOTE OF ALL TIME - NO JOKE, HE HOLDS THIS DAMN NOTE FOR ALMOST A MINUTE!!!!!

Wilson - First encore. Is Wilson.

SANTOS - Is SANTOS. Killer but not really must hear.


Ok, top to bottom, this was easily the best show of fall 2021 so far, imo. Almost the entire thing was highlight worthy. Melt and Golden Age were rather unique and Ruby Waves was a top 5 jam of the year contender for sure. An incredible show, easily better than night 1, imo. Wow!