2022-08-07 Atlantic City, NJ

 8/7/22 Atlantic City

Set 1

A rare 11 minute Wolfman opener tonight. Heck yes. Terrific type 1 version that really stretched good without getting weird. Hot. Must hear, imo.

A 12 minute Tube is next. Really good version and big points for length. It never fully gets there jam wise but is still great overall, so ill call it excellent but not must hear.

Mountains is gorgeous, sounding like it could go into Terrapin if they wanted to.

An 11 minute Ocelot follows. Absolutely must hear!!! Total energy, Trey is ON and the jam is just COOKIN!!!! Spectacular Ocelot!!! Holy crap!!! No, seriously, this is next level. Killer....

And then into...a mid set Fluffhead?! Ok! Sure! Why not! Not must hear, but its an excellent reading, high in energy and played close to flawlessly. Killer.

Mercury is tight and sounds great but its only 7 minutes and completely lacking any jam. what the heck, dawg...

Gumbo is excellent too, but once again they just play straight through with no jamming whatsoever. Bummer.

Thankfully the set closes on an absolutely rodic note with Carini. 10 minutes but complete and utter X FACTOR MAGIC TO THE EXTREME!!! HOLY MOTHER OF ICCULUS THIS IS INCREDIBLE!! No, seriously, the entire thing is just EXPLODING with MAGIC! No other way to explain it!! Perfect FX usage, perfect length of the jam sections, umbelievable psycho space rock hose peakage.... All timer version. Put this in the pantheon of the greats.

All in all, this was definitely an excellent set. Everything was tight with good energy and good song selection. On the flipside, most of the versions seemed to have a hard time escaping "this is genuinely excellent but also nothing special" territory.

Carini is a big, fat, shining X Factor diamond. No clue where the hell that came from. Both are a step below, but id also call Ocelot and Wolfman as must hear. Others will love Tube, but for me it left me wanting.

Basically I have lots of small nitpicks. This is a great first set anyone would be stoked to get!! 

 

Set 2

Ooh, a Mike's Groove to set us off! Solid version. Paug develops good heat but overall nothing special and lacking a bit of "oomph".

A 19 minute Wave picks us right up and delivers a spectacular reading. High energy, it gets stuck in some semi-aimless type 1 until 12 minutes. The X Factor kicks in and the jam spends its remainder crafting a killer, kick ass, aquatic robo rage factory. Dark and light, lots of hard grooving and weirdness. Just KILLER!!! MUST HEAR! Doesn't top Hartford but its worthy competition!

Then out of nowhere and into a 24 minute YEM! And boy oh boy is this YEM a doozy!!! The song itself sounds pretty decent. High energy from the outset. Rages hard and hot until around the 14 minute they reach an extraordinary peak explosion. Unbelievable. Really. X Factor for days. For the next 2 minutes os the vocal jam before Fishman kicks us back into the jam at 16 minutes. The final 7+ minutes see the jam going type 2, exploring a killer kind of bouncy and uptempo funk/rock jam. Absolute magic. THIS YEM IS FRIGGIN INCREDIBLE!!! There have been several "holy freaking crap" YEMs this year and I think this one just topped them all. My god.

Solid Suzy to close before Velvet Sea and First Tube close the encore.

All in all, not a perfect show but generally high quality all around. The 2nd set feels a little short but who can complain with the spectacular Wave and incredible YEM.

For this show, grab Wolfman, Ocelot, Carini, Wave and YEM, imo.

I think I liked night 2 better personally, but this is still a killer show. Id rank it like a 4.2 or something.