1997-02-28 Berlin, GER

 2/28/97 Berlin

Carini is still in it's short and awkward phase, this time without the cool percussion outro. Paul and Silas is an inspired bluegrass pick tonight and keeps the momentum going nicely. Pedestrian song choice, but My Soul is hot as ever. After a nice Cars, we get Peaches. Good stuff. Great version - Trey is on point and his playing is smooth as butter.

Stash is a particularly spirited and gnarly version tonight. Nothing you haven't heard before, but it's totally excellent regardless. After a "nice" (can you really call it that?) Swept Away>Steep, we get a nice Ya Mar to pick things back up. Solid version, nothing special. A red hot, shredtastic C Zero closes the set.

All in all, set 1 was a success. Yea, no jams, but everything felt like it was played at a pretty excellent level. Nothing to write home about, but this was highly enjoyable "filler" in the best way.

 Set 2

A hot Taste opens the set. It doesn't top any you've heard elsewhere, but it's powerful in all the right spots and gets the job done splendidly. It's not perfect, but it does the job. Thankfully, the fun keeps going with a raucous and rare version of Drowned that nobody saw coming. Prince Caspian is next - at first it does nothing and you think it's going to be a waste of space, but then it gets going in the back half and turns into a highly spirited, and surprisingly heavy, tour de force. Great stuff. Page's piano outro is killer.

After a lukewarm Frankenstein, it's off into Bowie Land. Bowie has a slightly interesting intro with Gordo doing cool bass FX and the band "dropping out" before they LAUNCH right into the main riff. Bowie is rather unimpressive - it's totally enjoyable but does nothing you haven't heard in 100 other standard Bowies. After Bowie's demise, we get Love Me to bring the mood down. Good stuff, I actually like this cover for a change.

After Love Me, we get a nice Axilla to pick things back up. After that, Waste and Julius close the set before an A Day in the Life encore.


Strange show - highly enjoyable on a base level, but if I did a song-by-song breakdown, almost NOTHING would be "highlight worthy". This was NOT a bad show in any way, but it was stuck in the zone of "professionally competent" in the extreme. Everything was played great and there was nothing to complain about, but there was also NOTHING to blow you away or really make you sit up and take notice. This show was like the definition of "middle of the road" or something. Perfect background music. I can't recommend it, but I can't hate on it either!!!