Mmmmm, Projectile Vomit

TWA Flight 556
somewhere over the Great Plains

Forgive the gruesome opening, but I felt I should share the following observation, which may hopefully serve to alleviate a lingering fear in some readers' minds: getting projectile vomited on sounds far, far worse than it actually is. "It was bound to happen sooner or later," Eel said, and I think he's right. It's an occupational hazard, I suppose. It happened during the beginning of the Helicopters jam at the front end of the second set at the Gothic Theater in Englewood, Colorado.

At first, it felt like somebody had accidentally spilled a cup of water on my back. The force of the liquid over such great a space on my back seemed a little much to have come from a spilled glass of water. I whipped around to discover an inebriated fellow holding his hands over his mouth with a kind of surprised look on his face as some fluid mysteriously shot through the cracks between his fingers like a terrible Saturday Night Live sketch. He'd managed to hit both myself and the guy standing next to me.

"Tell me that was water, tell me that was water..." the guy next to me began to lunge towards the vomiter, ready to grab him by his shirt if it wasn't already covered in stomach slime. "Please tell me that was water..." I tried to crane my neck around to see what was dripping down my back. It wasn't clear. I escaped to the lobby of the venue to purchase the tee-shirt I'd been meaning to buy all week.

The Gothic Theater is one of the most gorgeous small venues I've ever been in. It took me a while to realize it - until well after I'd left the show - but the Gothic is essentially what Radio City Music Hall would be like if one stripped it down from a grand movie palace into a classy nightclub -- it's definitely of the same origin. Layers of curved and arched balconies cascade symmetrically like perfectly formed waves. There are very few actual corners in the place: everything has a slightly rounded corner.

Like the Shimmy opener in Boulder the previous night, the Above The Waves presented a moderately concise version of the song (for the Biscuits' anyway), moving with dexterous alacrity to the crest of the tune. It also contained possibly the most directed jamming of the set. The elegant Three Wishes followed. M.E.M.P.H.I.S. acted as an axis around which the rest of the set rotated. While Waves delved deeply into electro-heady territory, the two songs which followed M.E.M.P.H.I.S. - Magellan and Home Again - instead focused on more traditional epic rock guitar peaks. M.E.M.P.H.I.S. existed somewhere in the middle, alternating between beautiful and dance-like.

The second set opened with two self-contained songs: Helicopters and the Triscuits' composed Unspoken Rhyme. While the Biscuits' certainly spend a lot of energy setting up segues and constructing sets, there is a certain elegance to a self-contained song. It can retain its own vibe for the duration, becoming a tightly coiled ball of energy that can explode with all efficiency into the ending. Since the Biscuits' segue so often, a stand-alone version of a song is usually just as much a surprise as a segued one. Unfortunately, it can also be a trap. The Chemical Warfare Brigade which followed did well to kill a lot of the momentum from the first part of the set.

The extended closing sequence of Jigsaw Earth > Basis For A Day > Jigsaw Earth > Basis For A Day > Jigsaw Earth was extremely lyrical, though contained periods of aimlessness in a way similar to the encore from the night before. Basis has become such a sacred song in the Biscuits' canon that it's still a shock to my system when they drop into it. The entrance last night, though, was almost casual.

The first jam followed pretty much the same pattern as the Great American Music Hall version from the week before -- a calypso dance romp led by Aron Magner. Perhaps because of that, the jam didn't feel surprising in any way -- though it might've if I hadn't been at the Great American. The second jam was much more sinister, and much more in line with the identity of Basis. From that point, the build back into Jigsaw became pretty obvious, despite some pretty heavy leanings towards a reprise of Unspoken Rhyme.

The jam out of the Basis ending into the final completion of Jigsaw was marked by interesting Barber-led jam in which the band essentially framed the Basis chord progression into the dub feel of Jigsaw before dropping into the final verse. The band has been much less aggressive this tour than they have been in the past. They're still hungry, but - for the most part - they've moved forward with much more space in the music. The only comparison I can think of is the way the reggae upbeats of the "rye rye rocco" section of Phish's Run Like An Antelope have gradually stretched out over the years, as if the band stepped back to chill for a moment before continuing.

Outside the Gothic after the show, a car pulled out of the lot without looking just as another was barreling down the street. There was a terrific crashing of metal and both cars pulled over to the side of the road. Heads moved some traffic dividers that'd been dormant on the sidewalk out into the right lane, closing it off. Everybody seemed to be okay. As we walked into the parking lot across the block my friend moved about a step in front of me. He stopped and vomited three or four times, thankfully managing to miss me entirely.

My week of Biscuits' tour is over now, my friend's act of vomiting its final death rattle. I'm hunched in an airplane seat right now, laptop too big for the tray table and pushing into my gut. In half an hour, we will land and I'll be back into the dream world of school. But tonight - tonight - it's off for one final excursion, off to see the Slip in Cleveland. The next few weeks should prove interesting, with the Biscuits' scurrying perilously close to the Ohio-land area without ever becoming close enough to make it convenient. We shall see.

Jesse Jarnow can be reached at jesse.jarnow@oberlin.edu or by his homepage. Previous tour journals are located here.