2024-02-24 Riviera Maya, MX

 Onwards to night 4 of Mexico 2024!

2/24/24 Riviera Maya, MX

Set 1

Simple - Ooh!! A friggin' 18 minute Simple to open?! Goes as expected until 5:45. Gordo starts a new bass motif that the others latch onto and the jam begins to slowly expand a bit, if you will. This blissful, transitional sound continues all the way until 9:40. Suddenly the jam gets much more rhythmic. Synths start to creep in and a vaguely funky sound begins to emerge. The funkiness never fully develops, instead turning into a blissful, red-hot rock and roll style. By the 14 minute mark, this incredibly fluid jam is well on it's way to rock and roll peakville, ala any good 2023 jam! Wow!! This is sick! Somewhere around 16 minutes, it peaks and Trey follows up with a great section led by delay playing and Page's piano. From here the jam slowly fades to a close. Fantastic. The jam starts to go into a funkier area briefly, but instead, they see their chance and do the world's most perfect segue ever into...

>Sanity - THAT FRIGGIN SEGUE! NOBODY SAW THAT COMING! HOLY HELL!! Sanity is Sanity. Great and rare as ever. "That's what happens when you don't have a setlist!"

Chalkdust Torture Reprise - First since Charleston 2019, 2nd since 2000, lol. Not much to say. It's hilarious. "HERE COMES ANOTHER 40 MINUTE CHALKDUST TORTURE!!!"

Wolfman's Brother - And into a 15 minute Wolfman! Wolfman is excessively funky, but also excessively hazy tonight as well. Major 1999 vibes on this one! It just glides along like a cloud, all airy and listless in the best way. It rages the type 1 hard until about the 11 minute mark. From there, a more upbeat vibe appears and they work together towards a peak section. Around 13:30 this culminates into a massive peak section lasting pretty much until the end of the song. There wasn't much to say about this Wolfman because it mostly stayed in one lane, but gosh darn was that lane fantastic! And that peak section at the end was incredible!!! Wow!

Mercy - Is Mercy. Third time ever played? Just excellent. I love this song and it fit perfectly in this spot. It doesn't really need to be highlighted, but just know that it's great.

Rift - Very nicely placed! Seriously, that worked perfectly as the pick-me-up out of Mercy. They end up turning in a VERY good version of the song! If it's not the best modern rendition out there, it'll certainly do until that one arrives!!! Fantastic!

Bathtub Gin - And into a 21 minute Gin we go!!! Buckle up!!! This is a RIP ROARING version! It just gets hotter and hotter and hotter as each minute passes!!! HOW HOT CAN IT GET?! SOMEONE GET THE FIRE HOSE!!!! Finally, around the 9 minute mark, the insane rock and roll heat starts to morph into a swirling vortex of funky noise and confusion. Great little "1-2", stop-start motif happenning between Trey and Fishman. By 10:30 we are firmly into deep space. Hold on to your spacesuits! They stay in this dark vortex for a long time, all the way until the 13 minute mark or so. Around then, Page starts to steer the band to brighter waters, but only subtly so. APPROACH THE WORMHOLE! THE OUTER SPACE PEAK HAS ARRIVED. HOLY MOTHER OF CRAP THIS IS THE MOST PSYCHEDELIC GIN IVE EVER HEARD!!!! By 16 minutes, we are still firmly in outer space, but the jam has fully ascended into heavenly bliss of the alien kind. My head is in my hands. This is the most insane jam I've ever heard - even more than that Chalkdust. Yes, I just said that. The final few minutes see the band explore a very 1999 Camden Chalkdust type of ethereal area before Trey reintroduces the Gin theme and they close out the song proper.


Guys, that Gin is absolutely in league with the Wave and Chalkdust from nights 2 and 3. That Gin was....I honestly have never heard another like it (recommend me some!). Sweet baby Jesus that was a full blown outer space adventure!

Cavern - Is Cavern. Ends the set.


All in all....Guys, that Gin is absolutely in league with the Wave and Chalkdust from nights 2 and 3. That Gin was....I honestly have never heard another like it (recommend me some!). Sweet baby Jesus that was a full blown outer space adventure! The whole set kicked major tale from start to finish and was as good as the first sets from night 2 and 3, easily.

 

Set 2

The Howling - 9 minutes of outer space hyper funk. Fantastic.

No Men In No Man's Land - Basically, see The Howling above, except for 13 minutes instead. Massive peaking on this sucker.

Ruby Waves - Up next is a raging, 17 minute RW. The jam starts to take flight around the 6:30 mark. Trey is playing with the vibrato effect and Fishman amps up the drumming. By 10 minutes, we shift again slightly, into darker waters, so to speak. Still hurtling at 500mph through outer space, Trey starts playing with robo FX and delays. Fishman is absolutely obliterating the kit. At 11:30, bleep-bloop loopers in full effect, the jam dies right down and gets very quiet. Starry night sky Ruby Waves. Like bubbling water or something. Dude. They stay here for several glorious, ethereal minutes. All soaring whammy FX, strange textural synthesizers and just a strange calm that you wouldn't expect despite the robotic outer space vibes of the proceedings. This is certainly unique! Holy crap! TWO WORDS: OUTER SPACE.

>Golden Age - And just like that, out of the dreamy, intergalactic stylings of that X Factor Magic Ruby Waves comes Golden Age to get us up and moving again before we get TOO introspective....14 minutes on this one. Not much to say about this - it does EXACTLY what you expect to the highest order. A++++++++++++++++++++

>Ruby Waves reprise - About a minute of RW out of Golden Age to close the circle. Good stuff.

Ether Edge - Is Ether Edge. Good stuff. Now where is Pillow Jets at?!

Twist - Goes as expected until things take an unexpected dark turn at the 4 minute point!!! Yes! They are actually gonna do something interesting with Twist! For a while they stay in this darker zone and very slowly Trey just keeps building up the heat. More and more, one click at a time, until eventually he is absolutely EXPLODING!!!! This Twist is the definition of a face melter! Holy mother of crap!!!! MUST HEAR!!!

A Life Beyond the Dream - I always love this song, but this is the rare version that isn't just excellent, it's downright friggin' transcendent. An absolutely emotional rollercoaster of a performance. 10/10, this might be the greatest version ever played. I'm serious.

Possum - Is Possum

More - Is More

>2001 - Yup, that's a segue! Stellar version, about 10 minutes long. Not much to say. Killer 2001 is killer 2001!

Slave to the Traffic Light - Perfection


All in all, I think set 2 was definitely "weaker" than set 1, but the Ruby Waves>Golden Age and the muscular power-Twist are all must hear. If this was a mid-tour show, it would be absolutely raved about. As it is, as a complete show, it's likely better OVERALL than 2/23, but definitely not stronger than 2/22. A killer show that anyone would be happy to get!