2025-12-28 New York City, NY

 12 28 25 New York

First review in about a month! This last month has been extremely non-listening friendly, ugh....

Set 1

A Burie Alive opener seems to be becoming a more common thing in recent years. And as usual it often is a sign of good things to come. Unfort, Buried and the following Bag, wow neither do anything wrong and do get us up and moving, also both fail to ignite much fire either. The energy is there but aside from a brief peak in Bag, both of these versions can be safely skipped without concern

Thankfully this was NOT a sign of things to come!! From here the first set skyrockets upwards in quality!! Roggae is yet another magnificent version, the first in a string of must here readings in this set. It starts slowly and develops a decent head of steam but isn't really doing much and you think oh it's just an average version nothing special. But then in the final few minutes it clicks and they break through the glass ceiling and the song absolutely explodes. I got chills on my arm, this is a must hear reading all day. Period. POWERFUL!

Picking the energy back up we get a lightning bolt reading of Rift. Terrific set placement and what a terrific version as well. Maybe not must hear, but it's about 99% absolutely flawless. The ONLY hiccup is a few seconds in the fast ascending shreddy part by Trey. And of course that's where you would expect a hiccup to be so it's not even a big deal and he doesn't butcher it either. A+

The next monster comes in the form of a nearly 14 minute Wolfman. Super tight and extra funky sounding tonight, the energy is great and the jam takes off right away. After a bit Page throws in some of his synths and the jam actually goes type 2 for several glorious minutes. The jam dives into this really cool kind of tense area - not exactly dark but definitely not sunshiny. Trey is going ham on his wah pedal with the Leslie kicked on at the same time for a fantastic watery funk effect, just tearing up the lower register of his fretboard . Slowly they work their way back out of this and into a typical rock and roll finale section. Definite X Factor, this version is SICK!!!! HOLY CRAP THIS IS AWESOME!

Not missing a beat, they end the jam, but Trey keeps the rhythm going and they launchly perfectly into an 11 minute Punch!! The jam is not the most exploratory or adventurous version of the jams in this song from this year, but is still a typically enjoyable space funk exploration. The song itself, as with Rift, is played absolutely flawlessly and at the perfect tempo. Playing wise, this actually might be the best version of the whole year in my opinion. I mean it's flawless!!

This set is just crushing, yo!

Unfortunately, just as I say that, the set reaches a major bump with maybe the worst version of Sigma Oasis I've heard since God knows when. The song itself is played fine, but Treys voice is SHOT. The song is only 7 minutes total and Trey sounds completely checked out, straight up doing nothing for most of the jam until a weak attempt at peak conclusion. Dude, trash this one. Wtf. Hey, they cant all be winners, right? Bummer!

Cutting their losses, Trey leads them - EXCELLENTLY, I must add - into Taste. Heck yes. Taste is a mixed bag. Fishman is beating the living CRAP outta his drums. The energy is HIGH, and everyone nails their parts. But surprisingly, both Trey AND Page deliver uninspired and well below average solos. Very weird. Cant recommend this one as must hear. Trey is just butchering the end peakage at times, but at least the energy is explosive. Huh.
Its weird - its excellent except for the solos, basically.

Following that, we get a massive bust out - the first reading of Sleep since Fall 2019!!! Trey busts out the acoustic and it sounds great. I must say though that I dont think it really works tonight - it feels excessively "random" and totally kills the flow. But thats just me. Great to either way.

Thankfully the set concludes on a very high note. A massively NUCLEAR Antelope and the proceedings. Treys voice is still shot and he fumbles the intro section, but the rest of it is pure top-tier type 1 2025 Antelope. Great stuff.

A bit of an odd set. A lot of AVERAGE stuff, despite tight playing and energy throughout. 1 massive bustout. Then a big 45 minute CHUNK of must hear awesomeness.

Mixed bag of a set but I still enjoyed it a lot despite the flaws. Great flow, too (aside from that shoehorned-in Sleep).
Definitely grab Wolfman and Roggae, and Rift and Punch are worth your time as well. 

 

Set 2 opens with a 12 minute Oblivion. A good version overall, but unfortunately it immediately dissolves, disgustingly predictably, into a major key bliss fest. YUCK! Look, im sorry, but anytime this dark song defaults to light (which is most of the time pretty much ) it honestly just irritates the crap out of me. This one ends up being pretty decent with a nice finale section but definitely nothing must be or anything that I need to hear ever again

At least they keep the momentum going with a 15 minute Disease. The song starts very badly with a straight up dropout/false start, proceeding to deliver a bit of a draggy rendition of the tune itself. The jam lazily drifts into rhythmic chordal jamming. Thankfully it actually ends up being really enjoyable - the band is locked in tight and are grooving hard. Fishman has an almost "beachy" feel, turning to jazziness. The jam gets down quiet, into a melodic, late night, note-picking zone. Not blissful but not diving dark either. Very bland though, no FX and Trey laying back way too much for my taste. Slowly the jam regains power and drifts into Robo-Manteca Land before, unfortunately, going Boring Bliss Rock on us. Trey sounds hesitant in his playing, just doing slow note picking and melodic lines of boring quality. There are several times when you could swear they are about to take it deep at last and then immediately go back into boring melodic jamming. Very frustrating. The and sees it start to go into watery robozone for a brief moment before leading into a dark rhythm pattern. Unfortunately it just dissolves and the jam ends very disappointingly. Ugh. Trey picks up on the death of this jam and leads them perfectly into a 12 minute Simple.All in all, this was an ok jam. Certainly NOT bad but definitely nothing must hear either. The guys were totally connected but it was just super bland/undercooked. Huh.

So Simple is a bit of a "they had me in the first half not going to lie" affair tonight. The song itself sounds fine aside from Trey totally dropping out at one point, I'm guessing because of tech issues? The gym takes a long time to get going, tricking you into thinking this is going to be another ho-hum, do nothing affair. Trey sounds very unsure of what to play and downright bored at points. At one point about halfway through the gym he magically wakes up and everything clicks into place!! Some X Factor strikes and the energy proceeds to jump about 10 levels. They spend a couple minutes absolutely tearing this Simple a new one, just melting our faces. I'd say the gym goes type 2, into this heavy rock, melty kind of zone. Fishman starts doing this unique triplet kind of pattern on the kick drum. It sounds like they are squaring up to segue into Roses. Its not to be and they go into Jibboo instead. I'd give this a light must hear. The final few minutes are what redeems it and are the best music played so far since probably the Punch in set 1. Definitely grab this!

Jibbo is nothing special tonight. It's actually really good, but it's 100% a strictly in the box type 1 reading. It's not particularly incredible but it is just really good overall. Good stuff, nothing more nothing less.

Just as we are starting to think this set will wind up as a enjoyable but mediocre miss, X Factor magic rears it's beautiful head and we go into a rare 2nd set Theme. And oh yea, its 24 frickin gosh darn minutes!!!!! Wtf!!! The song itself is very uninspired and definitely not a great version. Trey struggles mightily with his composed parts and his soloing is just straight up lousy. Around 8 minutes, thinks take a MAJOR turn for the better. Page jumps on the keys and the whole thing dives headfirst into a heavy funk groove. Around 10 minutes it gets dark and minimalistic. Around the 11 minute mark Trey jumps on the robo wah at last!! Yep this is type 2! Trey sets a loop of the robo law and then proceeds to do chordal funk jamming on top of it for a bit. This is so freaking sick holy hell. Even better, he then kicks on the backwards delay and sets a loop of that on top!!! DOUBLE LOOP!!! LETS FREAKING GO!!!! After a bit he returns to regular sounds but leave the loops going and the jam picks up more rock and roll energy but keeps the late night funk feel. Around 15 minutes, the goopy psychedelic layers are stripped away. Some octave effect comes out for a bit, but other than that, the next 5 minutes see them returning to high energy funky type 1 rocking. Right at the 20-minute mark, the jam shifts again. They spend a few minutes ascending into 1999-style bliss haze. Very cool, like floating through the clouds... After a couple glorious minutes, it gets back to rocking proper and they execute one of the best segways ever into a Simple reprise. And then its all over ....

HOT DAMN THAT WAS AWESOME!!! X Factor all over that sucker, definitely not the gym of the year but if somebody wanted to put it in the top 10 I definitely wouldn't argue. Holy moly that was AWESOME! The 8-15 minute mark is. freaking sick...

The set proper concludes with a 10 minute type 1 Everythings Right. Complete with MEOW!!!!dulator action at the start. LOL. Okay version nothing special whatsoever.

The encore, after seemingly no break, is a standard "lets get this over with" mediocre Slave. Oi vey.

All in all, in no way shape or form is this a 4.2 show as per the current ratings. No ratings don't matter blah blah blah. This show was an extremely mixed bag with much more excessively average or flat out not great material then good.

Trey was definitely having a very off night tonight in a big way. Set 1 was much better than set two in my opinion, but still you can happily hear Simple, Theme, Roggae and Wolf and forget the rest of the show exists.

Not a horrible nightmare of a show or anything but it's just not a great one. In a big way.

If it wasnt for Theme, this show is like a 3.6 or 3.7