@camrend said:

@MikeHamad said: during the second set last night (after Carini) all the jams went right for that I-IV alternation (piano especially).

glad someone pointed this out. the I-IV plateau/stuck-point seems so beneath our boys yet they still get stuck in that for nights at a time. it's what distinguishes a show from a quick flick through of highlights and fast-forwards to minute 7 of anything in hopes of new territory but coming up empty handed (i.e. I-IV plateau shows) versus something i'll listen to again and again combing through for every morsel of delicious dissonance and syncopation, amazed every time (i.e. nights that avoid I-IV, I-V, etc. played out rock/adolescent changes).

Maybe they're getting something out of it that i'm not hearing, maybe it's the lights, maybe it's the crowd. Who knows?

To me it just sounds like they've become good enough/know what to play for a basic steady-state reaction, that even when they phone it in it's still 'pretty good.' It's pretty 'dad' of them, and there aint nothin' wrong with that. You feel lazy after mowing the lawn, you play a I-IV'er after traveling for a few months.

this comment thread is excellent! what a nice surprise.

@camrend, i think i hear what you're hearing, but i don't feel it's as big a problem as you seem to. the short version of the following might be, 'I-IV and I-V games are a feature of rock music, not a bug.' though hopefully i'll manage something more subtle than that...

the Dick's shows from *last* summer initially left me thinking much the same thing you're saying here. the band's been playing interesting games with harmonic movement these last three-ish years and i'm loving it, but the big marquee jams from Dick's 2012 all arrive at anthemic guitar-driven climaxes in a pared-down, kinda 'easy' harmonic environment, and i can't listen to more than one of those tracks at a time; my ears get tired.

that said, i don't think it's 'beneath' the band to get into such material -- and i'm reminded today that specific chord changes *aren't interesting (or 'adolescent') in themselves*. we don't punish musicians for playing a blues, do we? they're only chord changes. i'd say in general the band is admirably willing to dwell in tension and dissonance now, without making it into a parlor game; and because it's not a game, just a moment, they don't actually care how long it goes on. when i hear gargantuan 1994-95 tweezers with long antagonistic dissonant passages, i sometimes feel like the band is deliberately pushing the form not because it's beautiful but because it's Weirding Out the Norms. ok, but what do we gain by getting back into that practice? Stash is a means to an end; so's 46 Days...

i feel like there's lots left to say but i need to check out for a while. anyway: good thread.

best,
wa.