Greeting to everyone out there in Slip land. I hope your weekend was as good as mine, but then I got to see BAM go out there and show the Pac NW how it's done! This may go on a little longer than I had hoped, but please bear with me.
I headed up to Seattle on Friday evening with Gusto, and we met up with Busy, Toast, and a few more before heading to the show. Toast had seen them in Blaine at the Dakota Creek Roadhouse the previous night and had quite the stories to tell. They are his, not mine, but I'll just let you know that, due to the "local element" in the crowd, BAM threw down anb AD/DC cover after one of the fine, upstanding patrons drove his Harley INSIDE the Roadhouse. Getting to the I-Spy just after the opener left the stage, we got to get acquainted with the venue, a little hole in the wall, "Seattle Style." Solid first set opened with Landing>Fuji and the set was peppered with tons of tight jams. I'll leave the full review and accurate setlist up to Sam, but consider this a little primer. I haven't been keeping up with what the Slip's been up to in the past year nearly enough, but I'm really into these new songs. Some that they played that didn't make it onto the album were Before You Were Born, Dear Melina, and a tune inspired by Bill Frisell. The second set opened with Jumby, a first and favorite for me, and they played a few songs off Gecko at the request of a certain vociferous contingent in the audience. It was a tight show, and I think the highlight was hearing Brad stop and repeat one of those scathing lines in Tinderbox that people just NEEDED to hear one more time. Andrew was playing really well at this one. He had a huge beatbox breakdown during Yellow Medicine that just about blew me away. Marc was playing some new basses that I hadn't seen in a while, but Gusto knows those details a lot better than I. A little slow heading out of Seattle, Portland was looming large with HUGE potential to go off. First of all, I'd like to say that the Fez Ballroom is my favorite room in Portland. Downtown, this place has the ambiance of a sultan's greeting room. With pillars, arches, piles of pilllows, and thin curtains to watch the band from behind, the room itself is fit to inspire quite the performance. Secondly, as with a number of nights on the tour, the String Cheese Incident happened to be playing the same town on the same night. Unlike the other nights, Segue Productions came through and arranged for the Slip show to start late and end late to accomodate. As it worked out, the Fez was almost full for the entire first set, and when I walked in just before the Slip took the stage at midnight, the air was electric. The first set blew my socks off from the start with a tune I have never heard before. It was FUNKY and sooooo tight. I really don't know how to describe it, but it got the show going off the right foot to be sure. The whole first set was as energetic as I've heard the Slip, and Live pointed out to me that it largely comes out in their confidence and stage presence. For me this is particularly apparent with Brad, whose tone is getting streamlined and whose singing is improving soooo much. The first set ended with Spice Groove that was HOT! The first jam segment was straight hip hop. I don't know the song by name, but Marc was going off of it, and Andrew picked it up with the beatbox. The room was JUMPIN' at the close of the first set, which coincided with last call. But the night was far from over. The room emptied quite a bit at the break, but as the boys came back on it filled up again, and I'd say about 130 people stuck around for one of the most moving Slip sets I've seen yet. At about 3:00 am, Sometimes True to Nothing got the call as the opener, and from there it was just more and more and more.... They were agile, energetic, and SOOO tight!! I can't even recall most of the songs at this point, but I remember Brad directly calling out Bush in the midst of Beetle, and I can never forget a live Weight of Soloman. The room was SILENT for the slow, quiet Slip movements, and JUMPIN' when they took off. The set closed with Rhythm and Gold done to a tee, and words really can't do it justice. The rest I'll leave for others to discuss. Leaving this room at 4:30 or 5:00 in the Portland night with people who were just as touched as I was showed me just exactly why I love this band. They weren't perfect, but they were cretainly lightning rods, moving and being moved along with the audience. Last night in Eugene was a good show, but I was personally tired and retarded. The boys looked and sounded MUCH less affected by the previous night than I was. After the Ovulators opened, the Slip played one LONG set, and the following has a few hole in it that I'm sure will be filled in shortly. It started out with a new tune I don't know with Brad on sitar opened, which Sam told me it is called Driving Backwards With You. The ensuing Fuji was HOT, and Marc let us know he was NOT going to be fooling around tonight! They mixed it up a bit from the album, as well as the version they played in Seattle, and it got me going. The Wild Duck is such a boomy room, that I thought they really had to just go down and grab the funk and let it drop. That same Frissel-esque tune followed and then Love and Tears (Brad on the acoustic 12-string). Having not seen him play this guitar before this weekend, I was REALLY impressed. He went off on this calypso theme for a while and whipped out the slide towards the end. Really cool! The same tune that opened at the Fez broke it down once again following an extended jam featuring Marc and Andrew. It was the Nashua Rose and Jumby that got me going towards the end, though. Nashua is unbelievalble, and I don't know exaclty what Andrew plays at the beginning of this one, but it sound SOOO cool! Jumby rules. Point blank, I love this one. I get confused as to what Brad is playing and what Marc is playing, but in the end it doesn't really matter. The set closed with elements of Dogs on Bikes, but not the whole tune. We had been wanting to hear this one, so it was nice to get a bit of a taste. A good, long set and I'd have to say that Marc was definitely the man this night! He was playing around on his new instruments, and he smiled more than I've ever seen him smile onstage. So consider that a taste. I'm sure Gusto will shed further light on some of the details I glossed over, and hopefully Cocci come though with the tapes to confirm or deny much of what I just went off talking about. Great weekend, and thanks to BAM for the music, Busy for the great hospitality, Segue for making Oct. 19 a night to remember, and everyone else who made it such a great weekend. Do you think California is ready for these guys? Adam _________________________________________________________________ Get a speedy connection with MSN Broadband. 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