Winter Bisco

Contributors:

Chuck Bimba cbimba@starpower.net
Christine Cuilwik biscogirl@hotmail.com
Jon Goldberg jgoldbe2@hotmail.com
Joe Valeri jmv@andrew.cmu.edu

[Note: This month's Roadtrip is about a week of shows, mostly with The Disco Biscuits, leading up to NYE. I went to all of these shows, but instead of me writing about them all, I worked with a group of friends to put together this article. One or more of the people listed above wrote about each aspect of the trip. The appropriate author is credited for each section they wrote below.

If you would like to contribute a collaborative article such as this for another band or group of bands, or if you would just like to write a Roadtrip of the Month on your own, please let me know before you take your trip, to give me time to get you on the schedule. Even if you just have questions about what is involved, feel free to email me at ira@jambands.com. And, I'd love any feedback on this or past Roadtrips! Thanks, Ira]

The Run of Shows:

December 26-31, 2000. Starting with a show at the Wetlands in NYC on the 26th, with Brother's Past, Loop Dreams, and Lake Trout. Then, a 5 show run of the Disco Biscuits, with 2 shows in Reading, PA; 2 more in Plainview (Long Island), NY, and New Year's Eve in Worcester MA.

The Writers:

Of the dozens of people who went to at least half of the shows in this run, I chose four of my friends to help paint a picture of this Holiday Tour. They are:

Chuck Bimba - Chuck is a fellow "old guy" on the scene, as he and I are among the small but growing contingent of over 30 Biscuit fans. A veteran jamband lover, Chuck made it up from his home in Washington D.C. for the Long Island and NYE shows. He wrote about each of the 3 shows that he saw.

Christine Cuilwik - I met Christine through friends in the Biscuit scene, but first got to know her at Phish shows over the summer. Then, She and I each saw a large chunk of fall Biscuit tour (in each case, at least a few shows more than we had planned on), as our obsession with Bisco grew to rival our longer standing Phish obsessions. For this article, Christine helped out by writing about the "warm up" to the 5 days of Bisco, which could also be thought of as a scouting mission to find future obsessions.

Jon Goldberg - Jon is one of the most avid collectors of recorded Biscuit shows, which qualifies him as one of the best people to pick out highlights from shows. Which is what he has done, picked out some of best moment from each night on the run.

Joe Valeri - Of the people involved in this article, I've known Joe the least amount of time. But after we both did the better part of Fall Tour, we finally met about three quarters of the way through it. By this Holiday Tour, we were sending lots of time hanging out, discussing theories about life and Bisco. Joe kept a personal tour journal throughout the fall, and by the end of the Fall he had begun using a mini-tape recorder as an audio aid to this journal. Due to technical difficulties (in the form of old batteries) his audio journal of the second half of this tour did not come out well, but using the parts that did come out he has written a fun description of the first two Biscuit shows. (As an aside, Joe recorded me guaranteeing a Mr. Don on the 30th, which eventually came in the form of the encore that night. While the recording did not come out, Joe will vouch for me... sorry to toot my own horn, but I almost never predict songs at shows, even when asked, but in this case I was inspired.)

The Shows:

December 26

Christine:

As I drove my car into NYC on Tues, Dec 26th I was absolutely psyched. Though my bags were packed for a 5-day mini-tour with the Disco Biscuits, tonight I was in for another treat-three of the most promising acts on the jamband/electronica scene (aside from the Biscuits themselves) were playing the Wetlands: Lake Trout, Brothers Past, and Loop Dreams. What I'd expected to be merely an appetizer to Biscuits tour, ended up being a much more satisfying musical spread.

Fortunately for these bands, more and more people are coming to enjoy the sounds which many believe to be the future of jamband music-and within seconds of entering I recognized many close friends and familiar faces from Biscuits tour. And the Wetlands is the perfect venue for this sort of thing--heady but not too heady, friendly staff, as comfortable as your own living room, and first bar in NY to officially serve the EuroFlaco (which, I've been told, is the official drink of Brothers Past themselves).

Only having seen Philly's Brothers Past a handful of times before, I was pleased with their opener, "Who Really Runs the Planet", which debuted only 3 months earlier right here, an exciting tune with great potential. The musicians of Brothers Past (guitarist Tom Hamilton, bassist Clay Parnell, and keyboardist Tom McKee) blend the perfect amounts of rock and electronica to produce a unique sound, rooted in the present yet reaching into the future of jam rock. Other highlights of this set for me were the heavy groove-walkin' "Astphadel"; and of course the "Generals" encore-full of energy and highly addictive, wandering into a cerebral yet ambient jam, and back out with a rocking finish. The latter tune is where I believe guitarist Tom Hamilton shines most, leading some to say he is the next Jon "Barber" Gutwillig. I believe it is only time which separates this incredibly talented band from a large following of their own.

Not wanting to leave the Brothers Past set earlier, setbreak was the first chance I had to hear Loop Dreams in the downstairs lounge, and I was more than impressed. The room was packed and the energy level was high, and continued on for at least an hour after Lake Trout finished their encore. Loop Dreams, a 4-piece band from Boston, MA, combines elements of trance, jungle, and other electronica to produce a sound that's fun, hardcore, energetic, and highly dance-able.

Lake Trout began their set by jamming out of the setbreak music, and its interesting to watch the audience attention shift from itself to the hypnotic, spiritual vibe which is being created onstage. Although there are some hardcore drum-n-bass dancers in the crowd, this band seems to evoke more feeling than movement; a nice, chill-out mind trip, heavy with mad beats and unusually long sets taboot. From Baltimore, members Ed Harris (guitar), James Griffith (bass), Mike Lowry (drums), Woody Ranere (guitar/vocals), Matt Pierce (saxophone, flute, Rhodes, drum machine), and Chip Watkins (turntables) like to call their sound "organica".("dancefloor jazz with organic sensibilities"). But not too organic, since what these guys can do is put one into a trance.a trance in which the vocals are just coloring of sounds rather than the meaning of the actual words, the bass bends and dips to sedate satisfaction, and the lively flute and sax justify the mad beats Lowry drums out. Although Lake Trout does have setlists, I hear each show of theirs as an entirely separate entity, and although I do recognize certain jams from show to show, the melodic themes aren't as important as the way the entire set flows from start to finish. This night they played one semi-long set (about 1.5 hrs) followed by a long encore, in true Lake Trout style.

Overall, this was a perfect pre-Biscuits week show, in which the music was high-quality; and the jams were the perfect blend of dance and trance which psyched us up, yet let us save up some energy for the next five nights. And although this show was placed in the context of a Biscuits run, I would drive far to see each one of these bands playing their own shows.

Ira:

After a late night at the Wetlands, and in some cases a quick stop for New York City pizza while we had the opportunity, everyone went home, or to their friend's home, or to a hotel, to get some sleep. The next day, we had about a 3 hour drive to Reading, PA for the beginning of our 5 nights of Bisco...

December 27

Joe:

Inside the hotel, I called the desk and asked for my friend JJ. Turned out he was right next door to the kids I had driven up with! I headed over to his room, went inside for a bit, and before I knew it the hallways were filled with people I knew. I look out in the hall and there are heads popping out of all the doorways...and the heads are, well, they're heads...you know...just a hotel full of heads...perhaps the headiest scene ever...

There were all the amazing wonderful people I had met on tour, and all my best friends from school and Pittsburgh who I had always gone to shows with last year. Honestly there must have been fifty people here who were practically my best friend. Everyone, every single person, was just so much fun to hang out with. We all had the same agenda: have as much fun as possible!

Set 1: Pygmy > Inverted Waves > Sugar Plum Fairies, Sven > Hot Air Balloon > Ghali

"10:30 ATW"
[the quotes mean it is directly from my audio tour journal. I keep a mini-tape-recorder with me for setlists and random notes and stuff I don't want to forget. So random lines in quotes means it is directly from the tape]

more and more people coming to the show...too many at the Silo... "a continuous flow of people..." during Above the Waves...

It was a really nice place I thought, though. I liked the layout. Whenever you have a high enough balcony that isn't TOO crowded, it's okay. But the sound is always muffled back under the ceiling. They had a huge screen set up in the back upstairs, and a large dance area there too, but the speakers were not turned on. It would have been a great place to throw down, right in front of the life-size screen...

It seemed like each night, I would dilly dally a bit in the balcony, bounce back and forth between groups of people, then eventually find my way downstairs, a little earlier one night than the other. The great part about The Silo was the layout. But it would have been a truly phenomenal venue if only half as many people were there. Still, room to groove, and that's all that matters.

"we hear a few dribble teases pounding in there"
"munchkin teases"
"crickets teases"

This sort of raw power teasing will continue throughout the week. Basically, as far as teases go, you can hear whatever it is you want...you just have to make it happen. I mean, after all, Floes? That was entirely too huge! Absolutely Humongous. I mean for me at least. I began creating a huge Floes in Reading, pretty much stepping in line with the Ben K Arctic Theories...endless polar possibilities... No, check that, I began creating a personal huge Floes in DC at the 9:30 Club when I thought they were going into, but weren't. Ever since then, Floes is overly anticipated. Just like I'm always looking for Fiddler since that 10/13 show in San Fran. This run had Barber sprinkling teases everywhere. Helicopters was another one. Good God. I must have heard that little Heli intro lick 15 times.

"10:45"
"drop in to Sugar Plum Fairies"
"There are a million people I know standing all over the entire place hear at The Silo, it's amazing"

"clapping"

"Svenghali...or I guess some people would call it Splattums...either way."

When they started this I figured we would get something along the lines of Svenghali > Inverted Overture > Svenghali, for whatever reason, basically just because I thought it would be sick, but it didn't really turn out that way.

So then later I changed my guess to a possible inverted Ape, and whoever it was that I was standing with, perhaps Dige, said maybe Down to The Bottom, and I chimed in with, "Oh THAT's a good call, too." I think the audio tour journal is probably the most fun when I'm drunk. I have no problem flailing it around and saying all kinds of stupid shit when I'm drunk...

"Sammy is dropping the hardcore jungle beats..."
"Sammy is driving the beats home..."
"rapid fire...Sam Altman"

Shortly after that we came "bouncing out of the Svenghali jam. We had Sam Altman rapid fire machine gun breakbeat...into the pogo-stick progressive house...and now...[inaudible]"

"The first set wound up at about 11:30"

Unfortunately, as I sit here and collect my thoughts, the audio tour journal is having technical difficulties. I didn't realize the batteries were low when I was using it, so everything recorded at a slow speed. It's really hard to understand anything that I said into it. AAARGH.

I know I stood and talked to my friend Jazz for awhile at the set break...or maybe that was the second night. I don't know. What I really like about a two night run in one place is that the first night you can really scout out the environment you know, get a good feel for what the place is like, figure out where everything is located...

Set 2: Mulberry, Shimmy > Haleakala Crater, Unspoken > Run Like Hell > Shimmy > HAB
E: Barfly

audio clips:
"Barber wished happy holidays to everyone"
"Mulberry's opener..it was nice," spoken in a complacent voice.

Then there are random audio clips from Shimmy, with Barber and Brownie yelling.
"This is a little happy holiday jam..."

I didn't have much to say about Haleakala..never really heard it before...never really into it at all....but there was a major Run Like Hell tease before Haleakala, or at least I thought so at the time... But then later they really did go into it...

"We're going into Run Like Hell!!"
"Sounds like....WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO"
"Oh MY...OH MY..."

I was loving that Run Like Hell. It was one of the best songs of the entire run, definitely the hugest of the night for me.

"Sounds like we're going back into Hot Air Balloon..."

And I have really been loving HAB lately. I have just realized how wonderful of a song it is. I mean, I always liked it, but it was never entirely distinct to me. And as more songs take an individual shape in my mind--especially after this tour--this one sits pleasantly near the top. So to begin it in the first set and then wrap up in the second set...splendid.

During Barfly I just sort of milled around the back...tired.

The rest of the night basically we just got wasted in the hotel, discussing theories about life and bisco...

[Note from Ira - now, as will be the case for each of the following shows also, we will conclude with Jon's Gems of the Night.]

Jon:

12/27: WTA - by far the best inverted atw ever, in my opinion. Marc told us later on that the show was supposed to start pygmy>wta>haleakala but haleakala got nixed and moved to the 2nd set. For me, getting 2 haleakalas was about as great as it gets. Here's a song that hasn't been played in about 14 months and BAM! we get it twice! I don't care if it wasn't played to perfection, the excitement and energy level in the Silo was so high that barber could have really botched all the vocals (not just the end) and I would have still loved it. Unspoken>rlh was pretty cool as well.

December 28

Joe:

"Noon...noonish Thursday morning....Av woke us up...we have Ghostbusters on TV, and we also have Bad News Bears...it's a tough call..."

On Thursday afternoon we woke up, went into downtown Reading, a heady little place, got a fantastic breakfast.... and saw "Dude, Where's My Car?" slightly entertaining...but not really funny...no one even puffs...only the dog.

So as my plans would have it, this night I was considering going huge...and apparently so were the Disco Biscuits. Before the run started, I sort of anticipated New Year's NOT being the best show. I mean, last year, Akira was an entity all of its own, but otherwise I thought 12/30 was a better show--perhaps the best I've been to. So I figured one of the nights in Reading and one of the nights in Long Island would be the best, I don't know why...and New Year's, well, New Year's would be New Year's...

According to the tape I commenced munching a snack at ten pm, right before the show started...good timing... "should prove to be delicious as we walk down the hall here of this ridiculously heady hotel...one long party..."

"20 after ten, we're about to get underway here at the Silo"

I really enjoyed the Overture that opened the set. I've been saying for awhile that it was one of my new favorites during Fall Tour (I seem to have a lot of new favorites), especially because of Sammy's power drumming--and the song's often invertedness, according to the Cheryl theory of inverted Overture--so I was pleased to have them open the show with it. They have so many good songs, enough big songs to fill the whole setlist for five nights.

I'll avoid an endless rant about how much I've been enjoying Fiddler since they played it in San Francisco way back when, and just say that this Fiddler was overwhelming evidence in support of my obsession for this song.

"ten of eleven, House Dawg, Party Favor"

I've never been a big fan of House Dawg, and this entire tour hasn't shown me anything to change that opinion. Not to mention the fact that I think they play it too often. The tour journal tape mentions something about an outer space style jam. I seem to remember much of the show up until the end of the first set being rather spacey and mellow. Well, not really mellow, but swirly maybe, spacey, not bouncy at all.

I remember wondering what was going on after House Dawg--I was standing up on the balcony...I asked a couple people and we were like, I don't know...hmmm... Later I thought it was some extra piece of House Dawg--I didn't know... I called it the holiday jam, which wasn't far off base...

Set 1: Overture, Fiddler, House Dawg > Beethoven's Ninth > B and C, Voices

After that I wandered back over to the other side of the balcony, and eventually, during Bernstein and Chasnoff the show really started to pick up some energy. Not that it was lacking energy before, but it was a different kind of energy...

"11:30 just finished Bernstein ...very fun...11:30 Voices Insane"
"Story of the World teases"
"ten of twelve end of the first set..."

"12:20 the band is coming back onstage, about to start the second set..."
"..nice to be down in front as opposed to back up on the balcony"

Set 2: Grass Is Green, Crickets, Triumph > Home > Beethoven's Ninth, Jigsaw Earth

The audio tour journal calls Grass is Green "raging," which is a word I use a lot. I thought I noticed a serious Helicopters tease in there, too, then I note that it may have been the best Grass is Green that I've ever heard--a great song, it's fun all around, and the jams in the entire second set I thought flowed into each other really well, especially in the stand alone songs. Usually I get more excited about segues, but I thought this was one of the best sets of the run. I think both nights at Reading were the best, but then again, that might only be because I'm writing this part now...

"it's about 12:35"
"Brownstein is inviting us all to come back tomorrow night..."
He was talking about gravitational pull theories...people returning to the same spot on the dance floor...

"Out of nowhere, Crickets!! Who would have thought? This is only going to get nasty!"

I was surprised to hear Crickets, but ready to rock at that point. Another aspect of this run that worked perfectly was my timing--everything happened at the right time--whatever that means, I don't really know... It just seemed like I was never waiting for anything else, I was always focused in the present, without any need to think about what already happened, no time or desire to revisit yesterday or even earlier that afternoon...the pace was so high...and I was constantly engaged in my environment, perpetually locked into whatever spark flared in my direction...

I thought the Crickets was really good. To me, it seemed like it came in several parts, and rather than any sort of build or climax or drop into a valley, it was more like a speed boat skipping along the water, chopping through the waves, a torpedo locked into a direct path to total annihilation! I thought the jams and layers of sound folded into each other like ribbons. On the tour journal tape we keep naming different segments of the jam:

"progressive techno..."
"Av dubs it the hypno-jam..."
"oh my"
"Magner's injecting a little evil into the show..."
"Barber is enjoying himself immensely on stage right now...the Disco Biscuits are having a great time..."
"It's about one o'clock..."
Screaming, yelling, clapping...
"Woooooooo....Wooooooooo"

Then I had no idea what song they were playing next...no clue...so I just sort of forgot about it and continued to rock. Sometimes I stand there thinking "what the hell is this," and I forget to listen. Later, though, after I found out, I was wondering why they don't play that more often! It was sick. And I'm just realizing that when I said "Happy Holiday Jam" into my tape recorder, it must have been when they were playing Beethoven's Ninth. That's great! It means I at least was making sense and not just mumbling random things. NICE! And it makes sense, too, because the tape says it once during the first set and then again during the second set, right at the two times that they played it!!

"...these guys really haven't missed a step tonight...these jams have been folding in and out of each other...very nicely..."
"Happy Holiday Jam"
"1:30 am...Jigsaw Earth"
"Wicked Witch TORNADO sounds!!"
"SONIC DUB"
"so many theories..."
"WOOOOOOO!!"

I also thought the Jigsaw was SICK. Tranced out Power-SONIC-Dub Explosions and massive, rippling sounds of glory...The Disco Biscuits were on FIRE.

"Back out for an encore...there's only about 10 minutes left...we'll see what it is..."

"The lights are on, but the band is on stage..."
[Brownie says they can play another one, but they have to keep it real, real, real short]
Then I say, "Real Real Real Real short, they have to keep it real short"
"Ok now there's a girl dancing onstage..."
"There are now FIVE...1, 2, 3, 4, 5 girls dancing onstage..."
"Now the big fat Silo staff is ... bringing them off the stage...trying to wind down the show here, make us all go home..."

At this point I didn't know what was going on really...everyone up in the balcony was looking down at the people in front of the stage and they were all looking up at the balcony...and everyone was laughing hysterically...and the lights were on, but the band was still playing...craziness all over the place... pure INSANITY

Later that night, I have no idea what we were talking about before I clicked on the tape recorder, but I think we were talking about measuring knowledge. We were trying to figure out how to use a Venn diagram to show how much each of us knew, or how well each of us knew one another. We talked for awhile before I turned the recorder on, but here's where the conversation picks up:

"there's no unit...you can't like, there's no unit"
"There's no like, gallon or anything."
"There's no unit."
"I just introduced it"
HAHA
"The GALLON of knowledge."
HAHAHAHA
"new Theory..."
"The Venn Diagram is now BUNK. You can no longer use a Venn diagram!"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

That night seemed to go on and on and on...We borrowed a CD player from Misty, but then she had to leave and take it with her...so then we found Dan with his and sat in the hallway... Completely overwhelmed by boredom by like 5 or 6 am, we were sitting in the hallway, when this guy leans out of a doorway three rooms down, and says, "Looking for something to do? Room 213 has everything to offer!" But it was totally sketchy...we were like, uhhhh.... totally shady....

finally went to sleep, listening to Mos Def...

And it wouldn't stop there...no it wouldn't stop for a loooong time...

Jon:

12/28: Overture was HUGE. They played Beethoven and Rich cried. The B+C was pretty good as well. Grass is green was brought to a totally new level. the crickets was good, but i knew the one on NYE would blow it away (which it did!), I loved the Triumph>Home, possibly one of my favorite parts of the show. But the Jigsaw had some moments of pure insanity. Also, the lights were GREAT in Reading. Best lights of the run. Especially the enlarging dots. Oh, and the smoothie encore was absolutely hilarious. The interaction between the stage, the people in front of the stage and the people in the balcony was really funny. Plus the night manager's daughter was on stage!!!! The hotel situation this run was also BEST EVER! Well, at least in Reading and Plainview. I seriously felt like i was living like a rock star for a few days....

Ira:

Two amazing days in Reading, and we still had 3 more shows to do. We closed out this first stop on the Bisco train with another late night of playing and partying. Then dragged ourselves out of bed the next day to make the drive to Long Island. Some people hit awful traffic, seemed like mostly those who lived along the way between the shows and made a stop at home. The car I was in had relatively smooth sailing, and even with a quick stop in NYC we made it in about 4 hours.

December 29

Chuck:

The Vanderbilt is a GREAT venue. . .full of mob disco swank and a great dance floor. A repeat visit should be in order. The hotel across the street was clutch, especially considering all the snow we got. I bet they just LOVED having us around!

First night LI MEMPHIS off the hook! IMAN. . .and hell. . .the entire second set blew me away. Props to Erica Lynn for the real nice vocal work, it really added nice color to the sound. I love Home Again and this night reminded me why, the song can combine that which is pretty with dance beats from outer space. Hilarious Nughuffer rap with Vassillios in the middle, that's just nuts, that just drilled my brain, I was a whipped puppy beast by that point in the show. The Wet, Stone>Waltz encore was useful as a gentle comedown after all that. Nicely done versions of elegant classics, (and Wet was fun too!) Did I just say gentle comedown? NOT!!! Sleep was impossible after that show. Dozens upon dozens of freaks freaking from room to room to room and watching the snow come down.

Jon

12/29: IMO, this show and NYE were the best of the run. This could push NYE out of the top spot, but NYE was special for so many reasons that I will not make a "best show" distinction. The show began with a killer version of Morph. Then Very Moon (the epitome of biscuits songs, imo) ripped the hell out of the Vanderbilt. It was about 35min before the familiar bassline from Hope was weaved in. Then the penultimate...the INVERTED MEMPHIS!!!! Attempted in San Fran and aborted (or rather messed up). They managed to pull it off in unbelievable fashion. This may be one of the best things I've ever heard the band do. And what do they do? Go into the end of Unspoken Rhyme, which i had totally forgotten about (they left it unfinished in Reading).

Ac2b opened set II. About 20min of tight funk. Definitely one of the better versions I heard this year. Then surprise! Erica Lynn is on stage! Wahooo!!! Spaga was the best it has been this year. As was home again. Erica killed the end "i wanna go home" lyrics!... Iman was also really nice. then the point in the show where Down Town Murphy Brown lost it [Note from Ira - also the point in the entire run where I personally lost it, in the best of ways!]....nug>Vassillios>huffer. Magner makes some noises in there that should be illegal. He lets the rats out and there is total nastiness. You want dance party? Listen to this again. this is all about hardcore. IMO, the encore was unnecessary. Stone>Waltz was just poor placement, although it served as a nice cool down of sorts.

December 30

Chuck:

Second night! Slightly fewer people present on account of the snow. I was sort of expecting this to be an off night (for me personally) since I did not manage to sleep and was feeling like a crack baby by showtime. Somehow I went in expecting to have a night of drunken belligerence, unable to do more than get drunk and stagger around (I'm good at that!) I even promised Evan Leon I was gonna get all southern on everyone that night! But as it turned out I got the mother of all second winds and wound up throwing down the hardest this night! (Watching me dance is a painful thing I'm sure. . .an uncertain style morphing awkwardly between old deadhead and wannabe raver!)

But SOTW and Basis are tunes that can apparently awaken the dead, which is about the effect they had on me! The CWB set II was WONDERFUL, all of it SO WELL played, just infectious! And I love Mr. Don at any point in a show. . .as an encore seemed almost more than we deserved. I cannot wait to hear this show, it was a gem all around I thought. Then it was back to the hotel, a QUICK round of meet, greet imbibe. . .now BEAT IT HIPPIES! Old man Bimba needs his sleep.

Jon:

12/30: I knew the CWB was coming, the question was, will it be on NYE? Or the 30th? We hadn't had any cwb songs yet and it was becoming very obvious. So when Madigan came running back from the venue to give us a heads up in the form of a "playball", i knew we were in for a hell of a night. The energy was about as high as I can ever recall it being at a show, almost as crazy as Natick. But, once they started the show Story, Bazaar, I was feeling down. I'm not a big fan of either, even thought the jam in story was good.

Then basis. I knew it was basis immediately. And although the intro was good, it just didn't do it for me. Length does not equal greatness. When basis gets to be 38min long, the energy cannot be kept up all the time. So i found the first 15 minutes to be really nice and the jam out of the bass solo was good, but the rest was just standard fare. This doesn't touch 10/27 or 11/22. Then NFN. So not much doing it for me in set I.

But the CWB was great. The bert was great. I was bouncing all over the place. Its such a feel good song. The Ladies Were The Rest Of The Night = best jam of the night!!! Maybe it was because I hadn't heard it since the Troc over the summer, or that it was the only song that I was not totally familiar with. But the jam just kills everything else from 12/30. Nice solid dance jam. Then floodlights>shelby rose!!! Great segue. I didn't even notice it happening it was so smooth, and I had the playball right in front of me!!!

Ira:

And finally, we had but one show in front of us, New Years Eve. There was one concern, however: the snow. Throughout the 30th, we had received about a foot of snow, and travel did not look like it would be easy. The band packed up and headed to Worcester as soon as the show ended, and a few fans decided the best bet was to follow them. But since the snow fall seemed to be pretty much over, and few of us were in the condition, much less the mood, to drive, we opted for another late night of partying followed by a few hours sleep. And as it turned out, the drive the following day was as smooth as could be. The snow was cleared from the roads, yet most people were staying off of them, leaving us a wide open drive.

December 31

Chuck:

The Palladium was a pretty venue, but seemed a little over packed. Amazingly enough I managed to go almost the whole show without a cigarette, what's amazing is it did not bother me nearly as much as I expected it to. Security was a little rough, but I guess that's understandable given that they had recently had a fire.

Gotta love New England, they know how to move snow around, the drive to Worcester was MUCH easier than I figured it was gonna be. Old man Bimba got his z's and was FEELING FINE. Went into the show, all the usual suspects were dressed to the hilt and ready to go. A little more crowded than I woulda liked, hard to really get your dance on with that many people. But a cool looking venue for sure.

Kameole Sands was new to my ears, so it was nice to sip a jack and ginger and take in the song, get into the spirit of things. Nice song, I need it on tape to really digest it, but it was pleasing to these ears. A HDPF finish tucked in there, that I almost have no memory of, I'm sure it was good. MINDLESS DRIBBLE!!! What in hell was going on with that one? Again, I cannot talk clearly about it, since I was dancing as hard as space permitted, but was it as HUGE as I think I remember it was? I sweated buckets on that one, always the sign of a good Dribble. Frog Legs! Complete surprise to me, and gave me a musical hook that is still popping into my head to this day! JACKPOT. . .yadda yadda yadda, (or at least that's how it goes in my head). LOVED the bogus countdown, ever watch 1000 people simultaneously look at their watches? [Note from Ira - the band integrated a fake countdown into the Froglegs, that later someone told me was exactly at 10 PM. So I guess it was in honor of the New Year somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. :)] RLH ending was short but sweet, they could play this almost every show and I would not complain.

Thank you for bringing back Haleakala Crater, (and thanks to Andy Myatt for telling me how to pronounce it!) its such a beautiful songs and has nice euphoric spaces to jam out the end. That and Frog Legs were the two happy surprises. As for the rest of set II, get the tapes and play it loud and dance like nobody is watching. A soaring Magellan, dance party favorites Crickets and Munchkin are starting to really come into their own. And of course the classic workhorse song Helicopters. A happy blur the entire set. I do wanna hear the tapes to see how it really was in terms of pure musical execution, but when you are there, on NYE the whole thing takes on a flavor of its own.

Very short set break, which was totally cool, 'cause it kept the momentum way up there. Shem Rah to open the third set, could anything have been better placed than that?!? Just a dancing love fest for all. Dance/hug/dance repeat with EVERYONE for the next hour. In fact, for me, Floes>Poob>Floes was sort of lost in all the excitement. I mean I had fun, danced, loved it, but for all I know it may not have been any good, I'm confident it was but it sort of did not matter at that point.

We could have gone on like that all night, but things seemed to end earlier than I was expecting. The all knowing wise and wonderful Joe V. mentioned he heard a 3:00 am curfew, but I think it ended more like around 2:15 or so, and we were kinda hustled out of there. [Note from Ira - it actually ended at about a quarter of 2, and we were out by around 2. But that still means the security guy at my hotel lied when he told me he had already come up once because of a noise complaint resulting from the party in my room, since he claims that happened at 1:30, when everyone making the noise was still enjoying Floes. Oh well, no big deal, we still had plenty of fun. :)]

Unlike the inn next to the Vanderbilt, places like Hampton Inn and Crown Plaza were waaay to concerned about who was who, I mean hey its New Years, relax! So that was too bad, I think we all could have used a place to hang together for a few undisturbed hours after the show, but that turned out hard to accomplish. But that was not nearly enough to kill the good mood the night put me in. What a wonderful time. No real epic surprises came out of the NYE show, but it was wonderful all the same.

Jon:

12/31: Too much to say about it. Basically, I thought the 2nd set was the best thing I've ever heard. The Munchkin was fantastic. The Crickets was great, but it really didn't matter. How could they not play Munchkin and Crickets in this set? Just listen to fall tour. These are the 2 songs that the tour was all about. Those are the future of the biscuits. If you're complaining about repeats, you obviously aren't listening to what's been going on for the past 3 months. To me it was a culmination of everything that has been great.

The music was every bit as great as i hoped it would be. Plus, I was with a group of truly inspiring fantastic people who I've become very close with over the past year. I really don't think i could have had a better time if I scripted the entire thing myself. For me, I'm soooo thankful for the way everything turned out.

Ira: