I attended this show, and the previous nights show in New Haven. While both shows were good, my friend and I agree that this show was a little bit better. I get the feeling Mike really likes playing in western MA, both this show and the one I saw at Mass MOCA in 2014 were great. This show seemed to have a better flow than the previous night, and the sound seemed better also. The venue was a beautiful old theater, with a balcony, and cool artwork on the ceiling. The fire drill was strangely convenient, since they weren't letting people back in if the went out for a smoke or something. I still haven't gotten to hear "Soulfood Man", but I did get to hear "Spock's Brain" which was interesting. I did like the new drummer and keyboard player, they sounded really solid. I've noticed the group plays lots of songs from Overstep and Green Sparrow, yet very few from Moss or Inside In. I figured on hearing at last one tune from Moss over the span of two nights, but no. I did manage to get my copy of Moss signed by Mike after the show. I think it's cool that he comes out and autographs stuff for people. I really had a great couple nights, and I'm looking forward to seeing the band again in Burlinton, this September.

Allow me to preface this by saying I saw Al Di Meola and his fiery band on his Elegant Gypsy and More tour the night prior to this, so in the department of virtuosic musicianship, it was going to take quite a bit to impress me coming into this show.

This being said, I gave this show a 3/5 overall, but due to an outstanding second set alone it's more like a 3.5/5 or 4/5.

To elaborate, I thought the first set was far too heavy on spacy, electronic music (as opposed to funk or rock) for my tastes. Whilst "cute" or "fun", I also found the Father's Day gag to be corny. To stop such a funky jam the way they did for Mike and Tessa to sing "Papa Loves Mambo" was one of those things that was heartwarming or cute, but again, not something I would ideally be interested in hearing at a concert, regardless of the occasion.

When the fire alarm was pulled during intermission, my first thoughts were simply worry of perhaps a legitimate emergency, my immediate second thoughts were "I hope we get a second set because that first set was kind of a buzz kill for me", and then my mind rather quickly went to "some moron just pulled a fire alarm somewhere in the venue".

Thankfully, the fire department showed up promptly and we were all outside of the venue for no more than 15-20 minutes or so. Then, the second set not only brought the funk and rock but brought things up in intensity as well. "Burning Down the House" really set the tone for an incredible second set, so perhaps the moron actually helped matters. Who knows?

Overall, I enjoyed my first Mike Gordon Band experience more, but this was solid too. I must voice respect to John Kimock and Robert Walter for holding their own as replacement musicians in Mike's incredible touring band, too.

Stray notes:
*Sound was as always quite good but I could've done with more of Scotty in the mix and less of Robert
*The visual show has really been taken up a notch - though when last seeing Mike prior, I was right up on the "rail" so I didn't really get a sense of that anyways.
*Nice to hear "Only A Dream" and "Jones". I love tunes like that.
*John Kimock on drums left me wildly impressed
*Craig Myers doesn't do much for me as a percussionist. I was hoping he'd do some jamming on his kamale ngoni, but alas, that wasn't to be.