Date:    Thu, 29 Jan 1998 22:47:50 GMT
From:    Rob 
Subject: 11/23/97 Winston-Salem Stash

This will be quite wordy, I apologize. I've never reviewed before, so this
might be a bit disjointed. My times are off too, it's tough to listen to a
jam, type and look at a clock all at once. :)


What an interesting night, this concert in Winston Salem.  My girlfriend
and I left from Tallahassee FL, somewhere around 2am Sunday, (or saturday
night if you prefer) and basically drove through..  We were practically
delerious from sleep deprivation, (26 hours by then) so for the 4 hours
before the show we went and wandered around the Wake Forest Campus. Very
chill day, and the temp was nice.

Ah concert time.    For the first set we were at about the 3rd row of
people.  This seemed great at the time, but the dancing freaks up front
couldn't keep to themselves, and kept falling into me, or pushing me out of
their way.
This concert was overfull, imnsfho, and it was unpleasant from about
Sparkle to the of the set.    ANYWAY...

Thanks Maestro Dirksen for the great tape! I now have on tape all 5 of the
shows I've been to!

Stash comes immediately after a wonderful Twist Around jam.   This is about
to be a very odd Stash, unbeknownst to the 15000 of us.

0:00-1:36
Opening is actually very good.. This is one of the few I've heard on tape
(well, the few I've heard at all) that you can hear ALL of Trey's licks.
Most of the time he flubs one or two, or the  notes don't come out in the
mix.  Nice.  One or two sour notes, but nothing to make you want to run and
hide...

vocal segment  1:37  "Pulling the pavement"
no big mistakes that my humble ears can perceive, all of the licks through
the key changes after the vocals seem ok, that is, the section of
transition between stash themes.   Nothing interesting, no mixing up
rhythms or anything ala 10/29/96 (Tallahasse, FL), but all the notes are
there, and nicely played, I might add.

Maybe so, maybe not at ~4:16!!  Here it comes.
Based on the nice BEK jam from earlier I would guess this jam is coming in
nice and smoooooooooth, no real crazy jumps into insanity... and sure
enough this is creamy, like a marshmallow.
some repetition between Trey and Page, around 5:45.

The Jam segment!
At 6:14 there is some nice dissonance, they have begun some great tension
and release
jamming, very laid back though, this whole show really flows nicely.
This is nice, right here at 7:18. they hit some nice changes, Mike really
added some nice lows...  Ohhh!  there it is, back into a normal key, the
first release at maybe 7:23 or around there..    Back into the Stash chord
progression until 8:05 when they flawlessly bring some tension, some
release!  Geez, it's hard to tell what is going on, all of this is very
nice.,.. building from 8:25 or so, up up up,   trills by Trey at 8:40!  The
audience goes wild!   This is getting nice and "out"  Tense!
Very very tense!  Mike up in the higher ovctaves, this is getting very
spacey.. It's no wonder the crowd is real quiet throughout, it's so tweaked
out!  Trey is big noodle boy throughout this section, up to 10:00, back
into something like Stash again,  these transitions are really beautiful.

Mike found a pedal tone, a nice low bass note to hang on to here at 10:10..
 the whole  jam is brought down at 10:50, a nice unison note, with some
crazy chords over the top, really quiet by Page on the piano... the crowd
thinks it is over here at 11:29, but it ain't. Nope. Not yet..
Ascending chords, Page trying to add some interest..   Try and Mike are
locked on a rhythmic note things, they refuse to budge here....
Page drops out at 12:05 for a second, to reconsider I guess....    Mike
knows what he wants.  He wants this note, and damn every one else!   Some
siren effects at 12:40, Trey has his wah going, really slow...  13:00  is
very spacey..   13:08  a nice over top theme by .. uh, well I think Trey,
it sounds like some octave guitar effect, he's soloing in a Stash mode
fashion, trying to get the others perhaps to join in the jam and go back
bring it up to a fantastic crescendo, and....!   But no.  Mike has fallen
in love.   or fallen over.    or maybe he fell out of space time.  He loves
this note.   It _did_ feel nice at the concert.   Trey  trying to bring it
up at 13:32...normal guitar sound..   Mike is in the zone.   He's not even
in North Carolina, Earth, this solar system?    Mike has found the
universal answer, it all lies in the one note.   It's very odd, it almost
seems like the others are ignoring Trey's guitar pleas to get back into a
melodic jam..    From around 13 minutes, it became mostly a textural jam,
where there is no real Trey or Page theme, Mike won't budge still, at
16:22, and Trey is .. well you can feel it.   He's getting ready to give
up. Here at 16:37 he tries an ascending lick, a l;ast ditch effort to bring
the band out of it.... but to no avail. He slams on the wah, agrees with
Mike's NoTE and begins to rock it back and forth reeally slowly...   this
is actually a nice sound.   Trey and NICU at 17:22.   I don't like this
segue, it doesn't qualify as a "->" for me, because although they are all
playing, this still feels like stash, and the opening chords to NICU are at
such odds with the rest of the band that this only gets a ">" in my book.

 For a textbook of segues, look no further than 8/16/97..   Went day 1.
Makisupa -> Harpua... NO dissonant or dischordant notes, a brilliant
transition.  How about Set II, same day?
Wolfman's ->  Simple -> My Soul (best My soul I've heard, fwiw).  and even
better still...     Halley's Comet -> Cities, to open set III.


18:07  NICU  they still have this lost feeling, from the jam.  even now at
the lyrics segment, Mike still has some remnants of lostness, even now, at
18:41... Mike was so far away in this universe, it takes the whole band a
full set of verses and a chorus to wake him completely out of this
dreamlike state.  I don't consider them out of Stash until the first chorus
at 19:33.   The end.

It's hard to quantify jams, but this was quite an original jam, and though
it wasn't a transcendental experience, it was very nice, and it never
seemed like anything was forced, up until Trey tried to bring it back at
the end.    Unfortunately, I hated the   segue > NICU, (I like NICU.. not
that segue tho.) so that takes off big points, plus they didn't give it
closure.     The Fluffhead later in the set makes up though.

Still, I'd give it a B+.  Great opening segment, lots of great listening,
TERRIBLE ending.

(although if you consider how I reviewed it, Stash could feasibly go until
the first chorus of NICU, and then I would call it a BRILLIANT segue.
Unfortunately, that's a big stretch.)

I will do an offer for B&P...  first 10 to email me get a DAUD3 of this show.
5 from RMP, and 5 from after the digest appears.

Share the grooves people.

-Rob      Music Theory, FSU


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