, attached to 2000-05-22

Review by Commander_Riker

Commander_Riker This was definitely a special occasion to be a part of if you were lucky enough to get tickets for it. Playing Radio City for the first time, you could tell the boys were excited to experience this famous hall. Although it appeared for both days there was a certain amount of nervousness in their playing. Having also just come from Letterman a few days prior on the heels of performing farmhouse, there was alot riding on the success of this album during this week.

My Soul was a great way to start this show, as there was this tangible old school groove in the air. Not my fav, but blues is always welcome in my opinion. It seemed that this show was both commercial and experimental at the same time. This was a time when Trey was getting into orchestrated feedback with his rig ala hand movements in the air. I was lucky enough to score backstage passes from the production manager at the hall, so I stood sidestage behind Trey for Sparkle, Horn and Gin. I gotta tell you all that you have no idea how great a job Paul L. does for us. Backstage is a wash. I could be wrong, because Trey was having issues with his rig for much of the first set, especially on Train, and I remained on his side of the stage for those songs. I felt like I was missing out, so I stayed FOH for the entire second set. All in all, a very lowkey first set, almost too mellow. But the integration of Radio City's house lights with the stage lights really set the tone for the mellow chilled-down vibe. Props to Trey for using his delay loop in reverse while the house lights were chaning from red to blue to green during SOAM. Gin was the highlight of the first set, even though all I heard from sidestage was Fish and Trey.

Second set was pretty much the same run of the mill jamming, with Mango as the stand out. But still very low key without much excitement whatsoever. Frankly the ferris wheel intro to Bowie made me queezy. Reminded me of them trying to make the riders at lemonwheel puke.

We waded through a sea of milling about on stage to finally get to a surreal and exploratory Ghost that rivals alot of the trippy ones that are spoken of and reviewed. Ghost during 2000 took on a life of its own. Almost swallowing up whole sets with disco funk that would just go on and on. This one is up there. I mean talk about night and day. Everything up to this point had nothing to do with this Ghost. It was almost like a completely different show. Page took centerstage for a good portion of the jam. Take a good listen after the last chorus up to 16min mark. Page is opening the doors of the hall out into dreamscape. Things get toned-down again until about 24 min when things start to throwback to the Cypress sound from NYE. Kind a mix between Midnite re-prise from NYE and Twist from Nassau 98. But it doesn't last long. So appreciate it for what it is.

RocknRoll was a welcome change from either mellowmood style or disco trippiness. The room needed a pick-me-up big time. I like Bug, but not for an encore. It tore down the energy that RocknRoll just gave us. I was ready to go to sleep at that point. Golgi is Golgi, and this is when Trey rolls out the feeback hands.

All in all I give the Ghost a 4.5, but the rest of the show gets a 3.0


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