2025-04-20 Portland, OR

 25 04 20 Portland

Set 1

13 minute 46 Days opener. This shows gonna be a heater! This version is awesome!!! X Factor all over this bad boy. The jam immediately drops into a heavy zone with growly synths while Trey motifs away. After a while we get extended type 1 before they burn it down to close. Its way better than Im describing. Pretty fantastic.

An extremely average and unimpressive Moma leads into a short Cities which morphs into a 15 minute Plasma. Another must hear, this one takes a long time to do much but once they kick it into high gear it just EXPLODES for a long time delivering a phenomenal extended peak finale section. Just sick. Absolutely must hear!!! HOSE HOSE HOSE HOSE HOSE SPRAY THAT FRIGGIN HOSE OH MY GOD YES LETS GO FRIGGIN GET IT IT PEAK THE CRAP OUTTA THAT HOSE!!!!!!!!!

Oh my GOD that ending section!!!!!!

Bouncing next is a good breather but god does Treys guitar tone sucks so bad...

They make up for it with a god damn 22 minute Sigma Oasis. Christ! And what an absolute monster it is, full stop. It never goes robo, basically spending its time (I THINK! The mix is so ATROCIOUS that I struggled to hear Trey!!!) in a ridiculous melty dark fire kind of nuclear waste jam. Just pure annihilation. Around 12 minutes it sounds ready to wrap but they push through into a more typical blazing type 1 jam and melt the building to the friggin ground from there. I cant explain via phone how absolutely balls to the wall ridiculous this was (again, I THINK). It SEEMED, honestly, like a top 5 Sigma. It was unbelievable.

After a typically hot but short Antelope the set ends with a spectacularly blazing Santos, 20 times hotter than even the regular hot ones. Good enough for me to call must hear!!!

All in all, this wasnt my favorite "complete" set. Plenty of MONSTERS but anything that wasnt was pretty unspectacularly average. But, the MONSTERS fully outweight any of that so this is extreme nitpicking on my part.

46 Days, Plasma, Sigma and SANTOS were all must hear imo.

I wish I could rave more but THE SOUND IS SO EFFING TERRIBLE I STRUGGLE TO MAKE OUT THE INSTRUMENTS AT TIMES!!! YOU SHOULDNT BE UNABLE TO FRIGGIN HEAR TREY OF ALL PEOPLE.

THIS IS MADDENING!!!!  

 

Screw it lets go. First set killed and 2nd looks great anyways.

4 20 25 Portland

Set 2

18 minute Wave to open. Great choice! Best jam of the tour so far. Top 2 or 3 of the year so. An all timer reading, imo. An absolute X Factor buffet. The initial song just blazes. Fantastic synthy fire rock. Off the rip its apparent this will be special when Fishman begins playing with the drum patterns. This highly inspired initial jam goes so hard. Then, around 10 minutes, the jam shifts dark. Welcome to outer space!!! The next 8, gloriously strange, blazing, melty minutes see the boys on a trip through the cosmos at Ludicrous Speed. Synths and robo FX out the wazoo, complete organized chaos of th highest order. This is an unbelievable jam and maybe the most OUT THERE version of Wave ever played (I cant recall another like this!). This is an INSANE jam. Must hear at all costs. Pure magic.

Also, no clue what happenned, but the sound began lousy like set 1, then at a certain point you LITERALLY hear the faders shift and the mix becomes very good like Mexio again!!!!!

Into Twist, this is another X Factor must hesr reading. Strictly type 1, this might be the most explosive, lave like, machine gun nuclear friggin bomb version of all time. Seriously. This one is pure fire on top of fire on top of fire. Best Twist Ive heard since God knows when. Unbelievable reading, truly. I dont know whats in the water tonight but they need to keep drinking it!!!

And into a 16 minute Scents we go! The initial jam is extremely delicate, almost sounding like the middle of a Hood jam or something. Super nice and a great unexpected cooloff. Slowly it builds into some excellent midtempo melodic rocking. You dont even realize it - it flows so good. Around 8 minutes it begins to drift, Trey doing motif stuff. And the sound is back to dog crap, Trey lost in the wash...ugh. Around 9:15 they enter "spastic type 1" mode. And it just stays there. But its ok! Because they simply rage the loving crap out of it until its conclusion. Its far from my favorite reading, but I also can't deny it's awesome at the same time. Lesser than the other 2 jams but still must hear. Very much a "2023" version! Awesome stuff.

A short Everythings Right is next to give us a breather. Good stuff. Really nice funky little jam. Not a must hear version but definitely keeps the momentum going excellently. Best part, it somehow starts to go deep and they friggin morph the jam astoundingly perfectly into Reggae Woman!!

Reggae Woman isnt that good, but they once again morphy/blend out of the song and into 2001!!! How in the hell did they do that?!?!

2001 is pretty excellent if short. On the whole, none are must hear but you NEED to hear those segues!!! Good God those segues were MAGIC!!!

After ALBTD (really getting bored of this one no matter how great I think it is ..) the set proper concludes with a 15 minute Hood. How perfect for such a monstrous show! Hood itself is ok, kinda average overall. As usual though it builds to an absolutely glorious and LENGTHY climax tonight, just exploding like the 12/29/23 version or something. HUGE finale on this. Maybe not must hear but its awesome.

Beginning the encore with Wilson, the show reaches its conclusion with Slave. And, as with Hood, its genuinely excellent all around, delivering a strong reading, but falling just short of must hear.

All in all, this show was pretty nuts!! The Wave, Twist and to a lesser extend Scents were must hear and you REALLY need to hear those segues later on!!!!

I would say the 4.3 rating on .NET is accurate, imo. Plenty of boringly average/unimpressive versions, but also an excessive number of downright monstrous, beastly, next level jams as well. The jams in this show are HIGH quality!

Sound problems aside, I really enjoyed the crap outta this one