In a New York Minute...

Having been to previous shows on tour thus far, my personal expectations were rid of the "oh, my god, i hope they do..." pre first shows on tour hype. I was actually able to genuinely take in the walk up to the venue, listen to the sound check (Winterqueen, The Line and Undermind), listen to the conversations around me and just relax, apart from needing to get my hands on that damn Vinyl. Once the item was secured, it was down to business...sitting on a side hill with a great vantage point (City and Stage), and getting geared up for show time. (BTW, well done on the food and beer variety)

Set 1
Moma was stable and a nice way to get your feet wet. No need to embellish or make something out of nothing.

Kill Devil Falls pretty much a stable ascent in energy from Moma, to the point first set stuff.

Ya Mar, now we're talking. This was my first in 16 years so it holds a more personal value. It was really good. I'll validate that with the fact that it sounded clean, the band put the effort in for it, that nice side hill vantage point, and the fan next to me who was super excited to be hearing it too. Now the set is cooking.

Bathtub Gin i think will come back in hindsight to be something we talk about. This was a ripping version. Long, not to boiler plate, exploratory jamming (in the first set, yup) and they brought it back to a finish. This was a stellar version and a must hear.

555 brings us to the first Fuego tune of the night and its presence leads to good things, so the song eludes to and with the power of hindsight, did.

Rift is fun and I don't ever mind hearing it live. It keeps the pace set high.

Sample, Wedge and Waiting seemed standard issue. They filled out the set cleanly.

Stash brought a prelude to what was to come with closing out the first half. A nice version that was to code.

Set 2
Having witnessed the MSG Steam first hand, i immediately hoped but knew that the standard it set could not be touched. It was a nifty start to the set, a keeper in general.

DWD always delivers, in fact we discussed it earlier in the day to the detail that 12/31/93's jam out is one of my favorite things if all time. This jam dived in deep a la 1st set gin, and at nearly 19 minutes, the 2nd set now has attitude and we would soon find out, high quality.

GOLDEN AGE, to sum up the general attitude, people are now just really happy.

Limb by Limb brings a nice free flowing breather after the torrid start of the set.

FUEGO, its awesome. The smoldering set 2 fires got stoked for a raging end. Fuego didn't go off on its own this time but was used more to keep the set cooking and set up the end run...

DAVID BOWIE went inferno, when doesn't it? This version did not kid around and ran nicely out of the Fuego setup. The only thing was, would this be it for the set? I'm sure we are were guilty of clock watching, with this early curfew and all. Plus the set was so good now it had officially gone to "keep it going boys" level 5. IT'S NOT OVER!!!!

In a fitting end to a spectacular second set and in a tribute to the vinyl release earlier in the day, Cavern closed out what felt like a very purposeful and fast set.

Character Zero adequately stayed the course to close out night 1.

When the final bow took place at 10:50, i walked past a few mentioning there was 10 minutes to go! The adage, left us wanting more was totally in play. The night just flew by. We must have been having a lot of fun doing what we all love. The boys sizzled on night 1 and guess what, more to come...

PS - anyone catch the Billy Joel reference in the house music during the walk out? Giving a shout out for that rumor? Or building it up more with 2 days left to go... stay tuned