Fiddlesticks! As I write (or wrote, for those of you reading) this I am bedridden from a wasp bite on my ankle. My ankle is currently swollen and bruised and completely useless, so I figured I'd take this time to write this review I've been putting off.

This is definitely the best night of the 2013 BGCA run, but this run as a whole left me pretty underwhelmed. Of course, following Tahoe 2 is a tall order, but I don't even think there was much in these shows that surpassed the Gorge. It's not to be forgotten that all three of these shows have absolutely stellar first sets; all of which show us that "the boys" knew they needed to deliver something. And to that end they delivered inspired setlists filled with rarities and the sweetest of sounds. With the possible exception of MPP 2, I can't think of a first set this tour that beats any of these three.

However, everybody knows (lets not kid ourselves here) that the real money now-a-days is in the second set. Unfortunately, delivered fully the goods were not in these second sets (random Yoda appearance, deal with it). None of the second sets were particularly bad (though I am still scratching my head at the whole Caspian > Farmhouse pairing), but none of the second sets were particularly great either.

This night was closest to reaching greatness. The Jim jam wandered for a little bit, found a rocking groove for a bit, found a really nice ambient section for a bit, and then got promptly rip-chorded by Trey. Now, even though I personally would have loved five more minutes of ambient-town, I wouldn't care if we only got twenty more seconds in which Trey just let the ambience fade out and come to a conclusion before he started up Carini. Carini was odd to. The beggining sounded like they were on it! And then it just fell apart like dominoes. It was pretty weird. The Wedge appeared out the remnants of Carini and I proceeded to dance my little tush off.

Then Light! This is an interesting Light. First of all, the whole thing is much more mellow than normal. Second of all, the big build is actually all within the Light framework and Light proper is even reprised for a little bit afterword. Third of all, the build dissolves into a loop jam! Trey uses loops all the time, but I don't think he's actually used the loop in such a prominent role for a long time.

Here's how the loop jam played out: loop jam -> Trey creates a nice ostinato rhythm within the loop -> loop continues with nice new textures and things from Page and Cactus all while the nice ostinato is still going strong (this whole time Fish isn't doing anything, by the way) -> Trey gets antsy and ditches the rhythm just as Fish decides to come in -> so we get a Bowie hi-hat intro. The only thing I wish is that Fish had come back in with a little groovy groove under the loop jam. I love me some Bowie and I'm not too dissatisfied, but I felt gold was so close. All in all though, I really dug this Light!

Bowie = cookie-cutter. Silent, Meatstick, Quinn = cookie-cutter. But hey, nobody should be expecting a marque jam in the latter half of the set these days, it's just not the way it is. Next up? YEM-town! Fuck yeah! Dance partay! Gettin' down! I do find it odd, though, that both YEMs played at BGCA feature Trey throwing in the towel when it comes time for his solo. This one at least had a nice little plinko section, but I don't care how cookie-cutter it is, I want my blues-licks fueled Trey build/peak!

I realize I wrote quite a few not so positive things here. This is a good show, it's just nothing super great.

P.S. To my back: why'd you have to be aching the entire show? That's not cool man!

P.P.S To the people behind me during set two: you don't need to buy tickets to a concert if all you're going to do during the set is just talk about non-concert related things. I'm all for hoots and hollers and leaning over to a friend to exclaim how fucking awesome that jam was, but nobody around you wants to listen to you bitch about your job when a shows going on... Sheesh!