2025-04-25 Hollywood, CA

 Finally moving on with the rest of spring 2025.

4 25 25 Hollywood

Set 1

46 Days opener tonight. An absolutely spectacular reading. This thing SOARS. Trey is just going for the damn jugular. Short but must hear for sure. What a bomb drop of an opener!

An average excellent (and terrifically placed) Rift follows. Nothing special but they basically nail it. Awesome 1-2 punch.

Then comes Moma. Jeez, let up on the nuclear assault, eh?! Even more annihilation than 46 Days, its absolutely must hear. My god.

And then....my god..... A 14 minute Chalkdust comes blazing up the rear. The song itself is good but nothing special. But the jam! THE JAM!!! HOLY MOTHER OF CAMDEN '99 2.0/PELHAM 21 CARINI!!!! The jam spends its time in this incredible blissful soundscape, slowly working higher and higher, spending the majority of the jam in the upper reaches of the stratosphere. This what ascension sounds like. X Factor out the ass - if this doesnt have your jaw on the floor then nothing will. An absolutely mind blowing rendition, it peaks and peaks and peaks some more. Welcome to Peaksville, population: Trey. That was one of the greatest things Ive ever heard. And that transition back into Dust was a 90s-tier rage fest supreme.

Holy mother of strawberry banana sandwich. Damn. Top 3 jam of the tour so far righ there. Maybe one of the overall best Chalkdusts of recent years. If you want to FLY, this is your plane ticket....

A nicely placed Evolve follows to let us cool down without losing momentum. And ya know what? Im calling this must hear as well. Pages soloing is just extra terrific and then Trey delivers one of the most perfect solos Ive ever heard. An absolutely smashing rendition on all fronts.

Into a 12 minute Stash next. A very nice version that is super "smooth". Blissful major key jam. Nothing special but great regardless.

A super funky Wolfman gets us going good again. The jam begins in high gear with Trey on the wah and Gordo on some nasty, growly bass FX. They are making this a thicc one. Extremely funky. This is a terrific Wolfman. It begins to peak, but Gordo takes charge and leads them back into a murky, rhythmic funk jam. The whole thing is pretty heavy and just downright nasty. Probably must hear, im 50/50 on that. It absolutely rages. KILLER.

Closing the set excellently is a rare first set Harry Hood. 12 minutes. Hood is played really, really excellently tonight, Trey nailing the "evil ascending lick" section for once. The buildup jam is ridiculously nice. Super smooth, they flit and float over here and over there before they settle upon the final section and Trey peaks it to oblivion. God this final section is just magical. This is an AWESOME Hood. Probably must hear - this is just MEGA!!!


All in all, this was an excellent set from start to finish without any low points. 46 Days, Moma and Evolve (and probably Wolf) were all must hear, A+ readings and that Chalkdust was just straight up MAGICAL in every way. Same for that incredible Hood. My goodness. A terrific set all around. No complaints here!!!  

 

Set 2

Maybe the shortest version yet of Mind opens the set, only going a bit over 6 minutes! Good stuff but nothing special.

The song ends and they IMMEDIATELY friggin launch into a 13 minute Carini like getting slapped in the face. Uptempo, this version is just vicious. The jam instsntly strikes gold, diving into a heavy rhythmic section before moving into a blissful and, again, soaring (word of the tour!) jam that sees everyone linking up. They jam this ascending motif and the whole things just elevates to the sky. Hot damn this is AWESOME. Evenually the jam moves into a more straightforward major key rocking area, everyone still in sync. Trey flirts with FX usage. They just dig in hard absolutely rock the living daylights out of it. AND THAT FINALE SECTION! LETS FRIGGIN GO!!!! This Carini stays firmly "in the box" but there is some definite X Factor going on. Its KILLER. They just crush this one!!! But wait!!! Thats a false ending!! The jam somehow shifts downwards and they go into a blissful watery jam to close it out for real.

Light rises from the ashes. A monster version reaching friggin 20 minutes!!! And holy crap what a MONSTER!!! Immediately the song morphs into a dark and heavy titan. It spends its time basically in "dark" mode, swerving and shifting seamlessly through a number of different kind of murky and swampy sections. Terrific full band interplay, this isnt a Trey solo fest. Kinda...sounscapey? I guess? A very "textural" jam all around. Absolutely full of X Factor abd theres no way to do it justice with a phone review.

Light spends its final section somehow moving into a really nice chilldown area, and they basically - very slowly! - "fade" the jam to its conclusion.

Immediately, as with Carini earlier, they then launch into a 15 minute Mercury. Hell yes!!! Trey has a few vocal stumbles but this is otherwise the strongest Mercury Ive heard since god knows when - Huntsville 2018, maybe?? Tight, punchy and obviously rehearsed. It even jams for a long time, going into a gooey, slightly psychedelic funkiness reminiscent of Light but not so dark. Another must hear, this is KILLER.

The jam kinda winds down and Trey leads us into a short 7 minute Piper. Despite its length, it completes the quadrilogy of must hear material, going absolutely next level, burning like a damn 1.0 version (no, really, this is ridiculous!). Unfortunately, right in the middle of the maelstrom it awkwardly just...ends and we get a pretty nice ALBTD to follow.

Nothing to say, its a good version but not amazing. The set closes with a face melting Ghost that im calling must hear. Only 10 minutes but this little sucker friggin annihilates even more than most destructive set closing versions. Gooey and fiery and just all kinds of face melting.

Encore of a good Possum into a.....standalone Tweeprize?! Huh. Thats new lol.

All in all, this set wasnt "perfect" but still had a ton of absolute insanity. Carini>Light>Mercury>Piper and thet Ghost are all must hear.

The 3.8 rating on .NET is low, imo. This was PROBABLY in the lower rung of the tour so far but is still an excellent show all around. Id personally rate it like a 4.1 or something.

Killer!!!!