first off, oddly enough last night i was reminiscing about last summer's release of "The Horseshoe Curve", trey's half-studio/half-live space-funk mind madness rollercoaster, and how it just dropped out of the blue on the world one day without any fanfare. so i was saying to myself: "self, wouldn't it be cool if the same thing happened this summer?" after all, trey hasn't been on stage much in the last year, probably as a result if his rehab program and all. so he must be doing SOMETHING involving music.
well, coincidentally, the pre-order newsletter for the new trey CD dropped into my email-box this morning. it was like i willed it into existence. a slight disappointment - it's not new material. it's a live album. but in an even more coincidental twist (though not more coincidental than richard and i's ounce-matching the other day), the live album is being taken from the very NYE 2006 run i've been showcasing the last few days.
i'm pumped about this, but it also begs the question (does it really?): why not just release the whole run on livephish.com? the way i understand this, it's nine tracks, compiled from the 12.30 and 12.31 shows, released on one CD or on livephish.com for 9 bucks. livephish.com regularly has entire three-disc shows available for 9 bucks...so why not release AT LEAST the 12.31 show in its entirety instead of just picking a few tracks (and judging by the tracklist, pretty run-of-the-mill tracks at that)? you get the same amount of money, the fans get three times more music, and with (i assume) paul languedoc mixing the soundboard recordings in the first place, there's probably not a lot of extra mastering work going into production.
anyway, of course i'm going to pre-order the disc. i'm just confused. actually, looking at the tracklist again, i might just skip this altogether and buy "plasma" (which i've wanted for years and years) instead.
anyway, to the review. the 12.30 show is even better than all the others. the band is totally on pretty much the entire time, and there's no evidence of the rust from the previous shows (maybe the reason those entire shows aren't being released?).
setlist (trey.com):
Set One
* Push on Til the Day
* Stash
* Night Speaks to a Woman
* Mozambique
* Dark & Down
* Shine
* Dragonfly
* Spin
* Sand
Set Two
* 46 Days
* Will It go Round In Circles>
* The Way I Feel
* Alive Again
* Wherever You Find It
* Ether Sunday
* Mud City
Encore
* Alumni Blues>
* Tuesday
the show opens with a serviceable "push on", but then the surprise "stash", which goes from rock to salsa to almost swing and then back blows it out of the water. "night speaks" and "mozambique" are interesting fast and slow versions, respectively. "dark and down" is one of my favorite trey songs, and he totally shreds it here. the "shine" > "dragonfly" > "spin" run doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's very tight and sets the stage for the "sand" set closer.
"46 days" (video below) opens the second set blazing and the band never looks back. "will it go round in circles" and "the way i feel", both covers, showcase a bunch of different angles of the band throughout their combined 20 minutes, and then it's back to trey shredding on "alive again". "whereever you find it" is sort of a snoozer in my book. trey's afternoon-special guitar solo is good, but this song just bores me pretty much always. "ether sunday" is good, but as a followup to "where ever you find it", it's just sort of boring. fortunately, "mud city" is the absolute most incendiary version i've ever heard in my millenia-old existence.
from there, the encore is a really exploratory, horn-y "alumni blues" followed directly by the always-fun "tuesday".
a well-executed show with a really interesting setlist. on to the last and final night of the odyssey. what's really scary is to look at these five nights and realize that had i chose to listen to the big cypress concert instead, it would have been just as long, but took place OVER ONE NIGHT INSTEAD OF FIVE. that just amazes me everytime i listen to it. i can't imagine listening to a band for that long, let alone playing an instrument for that long.
here's a video of the end of "46 days" from the 12.30 show. the jam gets crazy around the 3:00 mark when trey starts warping scales on his guitar, and then jeff sipe loses it on the drums around 3:15. then the poor dude's camera explodes from awesomeness around 3:45...
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