2022-12-30 New York City, NY

 12 30 22 New York

Set 1

14 minute Disease to open the show. Great sign! Excellent version. It never goes type 2 but it positively rages and is super hot. Awesome.

12 minute Moma in slot 2. Same as Disease, it isnt truly essential but it is spectacularly great regardless. Absolutely compilation worthy.

A surprise Pebbles in slot 3. Awesome surprise and the song sounds great, raging hard.

The first true must hear of the show occurs next with a dang 15 minute Theme!! And its absolutely MIND BLOWING!! X FACTOR MAGIC REIGN SUPREME!!!!! The jam begins and they enter a very long, wah SOAKED funk section. Its fantastic and they groove it for a very long time. Eventually Trey lays off the wah and its back to melodic rocking. Fishman signals a quick beat change and the jam closes with an inredible couple minutes of outer space deconstruction. The jam gets incredibly HAZY and has a perfect wind down close with a massive, and anxiety inducing, burst of NOISE from Trey. Absolutely claustrophobic and incredible. This straight up sounds like a 1999 jam or something. This is unbelievable - certainly an all timer Theme right here. MAGIC! MAGIC! MAGIC!!!

And a solid segue out of the noise and into Reba! Really excellent Reba. Technically it sounds about 99% flawless to my ears! They nail it for sure. The solo is very long and slow building (by 2022 standards, at least). They are just relishing it hard, taking their time. Slowly it begins to boil over, getting more and more peaky. The peak section is just spectacular. Ok, this is must hear. This is absolutely an above average Reba. And that peak!! Lets freakin get it Trey!!! THIS REBA WAS SICK AS HELL!!!!!!! MUST HEAR!!

Out of Reba we get the single most BAD ASS song intro Ive ever heard in my damn life. That Howling intro was a straight up heavy metal drone! Open a show with The Howling, you cowards!! That would be insane! Terrific choice to keep the energy high. And I tell you what, like the song or not, it is so ridiculously FUN in person! This doesnt end up being "next level must hear" but its still a terrific, stomping, great time of a party. Love The Howling!

Hey, a rare Foam comes outta nowhere next! Alright!! Terrific version by modern standards. Page sounds absolutely insane throughout and Trey is playing with confidence and fluidity. There is no "shakiness" with this one. They nail it! Honestly? Imma call this sucker must hear. Its strong as F.

From there, this sick ass set closes with Antelope. And boy does this CRUSH. They build the solo at the perfect pace, Trey hitting all the perfect notes at the right times. This is tight as hell with nuclear bomb energy. Probably must hear - its about as good as a 2022 Antelope is gonna get.

All in all, this set was AWESOME!!!! Super high energy, inspired and tight playing. Great flow and song selection (for me). Not a single lowlight and even though only a few things are truly must hear, there isnt anything not worthy of a shoutout, imo.
Foam, Reba and Theme are must hear with shoutouts to Moma and Antelope.
Holy crapballz.... 

 

Set 2

21 minute No Men to open the set. Ok, lets friggin go! Vocally flubby, the first part of the jam is one of those way too lengthy sections of boringly average melodic "bliss rock". The part of the jam you wish they would just skip. Unfortunately the jam just dissolves from there going into an even more laid back and chilled out area. Look, I guess this is good stuff, but there is zero fire here and this jam is honestly just boring as hell. It just never goes anywhere or really does anything. Total Zzzzzzzz.....SKIP!

Yes, all jams are different. No, I did not enjoy that jam. Even the peak finale was underwhelming.

Speaking of underwhelming - we move into an 18 minute Golden Age. Yay, just the song I wanted, played sluggishly without any energy. Also, what happened at set break? Treys playing is way more "loose" in a bad way. No tightness to be found anymore.
The jam gets off to a real good start with Page leading them through a very nice "jazzy" kind of section. Unfortunately its all too brief and Trey reverts back to major key noodling as expected. And man, it just never recovers....Trey spends the next 4 or 5 minutes messing around with Leslie and tremolo sounds, ditching both quickly and playing literally almost nothing. He pretty much goes AWOL for a good minute or 2 there. The band tries to pick up the slack to no avail. Finally around 15 minutes some energy comes in and the jam has a pretty good peak finale equivalent to No Men, but its way too little way too late. This jam is a bust.

Man! That was one of the most disjointed, low energy, downright confused-sounding jams I can recall hearing. In no way can I recommend that Golden Age to anyone - that sucked. Plain and simple. Call me insane but I stand by my remarks. What a dumpster fire that was....

In a rare mid 2nd set placement we now get an 18 minute Sand to hopefully rectify the crap they've laid forth so far this set. After a good wah section, Trey drags us back down with a pretty lengthy and uninspired run through more bliss rock, except he is just not present at all. His playing is sticky and sloppy and just refuses to lift off. Around 9 minutes, the jam at least takes a shift towards the weird. Robo FX and strange sounds make their much welcome appearance, but unfortunately there is zero cohesion to any of this and it just ends up sounding like a bad Melt jam. Everyone just flailing around like they are drowning. Things kinda pick up after a minute or two and move into a heavier rock direction, but really, this is just a messy, yucky jam. Id probably recommend it as it's at least INTERESTING but is it particularly GOOD? Eh, probably? Some parts are awesome, other parts suck. They move out of the cool stuff after 30 seconds each time I swear. As soon as something awesome starts happenning Trey gives up and yanks them back. They get way the F out there with this Sand but its really, REALLY janky.

A++ for effort. B- for execution. They are TRYING but it just doesnt ever "gel" in that magical way you hope for. It's like they are "teasing" us with bits of this and bits of that throughout.

Wtf is going on with this set. THAT SAND IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE WHEN I FORGET TO TAKE MY ADDERALL! Functional but forced as hell. A TON of robo and wah craziness but its all super "sticky" and just...it feels like the band never "connects" until the sick ass finale section.

If I Could is a terrific cooldown choice. Good enough but Treys terribly screechy guitar tone just ruins any subtlety. Its really nice but I wouldnt call it essential.

The set concludes with the now "famous" 14 minute IAWITW. Right away, things get interesting with Trey layering down lots of rapid fire delays before jumping perfectly onto the robowah supreme. Outerspace robo rocking ensues. Yo, this is sick. If you like the wacky robo space odyssey of the Dicks 2019 Piper, grab this. This never goes type 2, but I cant imagine a type 1 reading of IAWITW being explored more excellently and thoroughly than this!! This is just ridiculous - absolutely annihilation. And eventually Trey starts building a peak and the jam begins an insane "Antelope from hell" nuclear bomb hose finale. Absolutely x factor magic supreme! THIS IS FRIGGIN INSANITY!! LETS GO!!! HOLY CRAP.

An absolutely ridiculous Chalkdust closes the show. Must hear at all costs, this thing spewd 1.0-level energy like a train running off the rails. Think along the lines of the maniacal SPAC 2023 version. THIS is what you hope for in a type 1 Chalkdust these days. Absolutely nuclear heat.


All in all ....im incredibly mixed on this show/set. Set 1 was terrific - id rank it like a 4.2ish level set. Maybe more.

Set 2 on the other hand....the first 40 minutes are a complete waste. Just skip No Men and Golden Age. Both are just a total waste of time. No Men way overstays its welcome and does F-all in its run time while Golden Age is just discombobulated, unrealized trash.

Sand im up in the air about. I REALL dont think it "held together". It doesn't flow at all and it feels extremely forced. That being said, it is incredibly kick ass and is pretty dang sick, but its so not....smooth. In any way, shape or form. Its weird.

Id say IAWITW and Dust are both incredible must hear readings and Sand - ask me tomorrow on that one. Im 50/50 on it.

The Golden Age and No Men though....what is that crap?