This is a nice, average, almost end of tour show from the fall of 2000. Pretty good playing overall, but nothing really stood out to my ears as being significantly better than average.

First set opens with a nice Chalk Dust, good, but not great. Guyute was good though it had some off parts from Mike. Wolfman’s was good and had a nice transition jam into a Sally, which was a little rusty sounding. Limb was good and maybe the highlight of the set? This was the second and last performance of the Go Downtown song and it sounded like Page and Mike were not ready for Trey to jump into this one. I guess Trey tried to make it up to them by giving them both solos in a reasonably solid Beauty of my Dreams. Axilla, Horn and Possum round out a good, solid first set, and were all well played, but just average performances at best.

Mike gets the call to open the second set with a good rendition of Drowned. Then Trey leads them through a nice transition into NICU, but his timing is kind of off in the first verse and it just kind of came out weak over all. It was a bummer for me to hear because it’s one of my favorite songs. Bowie also started off kind of weak to me, but the jam is pretty good and makes up for the first part. Halley’s, Walk Away and Piper were all well played, but just average for this time period and tour, nothing too special to my ears. Zero followed suit in being average and included an awkward ending with the FEFY refrain lyrics? Not sure what that was all about, and it made for a very strange ending to an average or below second set.

Guitar Gently Weeps was also pretty average to my ears and sounded a little tired, but they were approaching the end of the tour, and the end of an era in their careers. And most likely… they were very tired. This is pure speculation on my part, of course.

Anyways, not a bad show, just not five star material in my book. I’ll go with three stars, as it seemed purely average for this tour. If second set had more “X-factor” it could easily have been a four star show.

What will show 2 in the final run give us? Some surprisingly good segues and an atypical Zero?

Chalk Dust opens the show with a fun little Walk This Way tease. Guyute is well played and is a fine choice for the 2nd song. Wolfman's gets into some cool funk rock and has a super slick turn-on-a-dime segue into Sneakin' Sally. Good stuff. But beyond that, the set doesn't have much else to offer. LxL through Possum is played very standard with nothing to distinguish from other versions of these songs on this tour alone.

Drowned starts up the 2nd set and I'm immediately expecting another 9/14. Of course while it's not stretched out to those epic proportions, it does offer an interesting jam. It starts off with a standard type 1 jam but slowly begins to morph into something like a 2.0 jam. Fish and Trey are totally in sync. The tempo begins to pick up as the intensity increases and all I'm feeling is 2.0. The jam stays in a pretty solid groove for a few minutes before a surprising and well executed segue to NICU. This NICU is played well.

Bowie up next gets a spacey intro without Fish’s regular drumbeat. The jam proper starts off standard fare but eventually works its way to a cool major mode section that rocks for a bit before returning home. Definitely worth a listen. Halley’s gets a short outro as Trey starts up the Walk Away riff for a ’00 segue favorite. I’m a little sour on this Piper. It’s really felling like they have run out of ideas for this in the same way as Sand. I guess it’s a well played jam but it’s territory I’ve heard time and time again on this tour already. Zero seems like it would be a standard set closer with Trey starting off a typical blistering solo (with a 2.0 sounding guitar tone). But Trey is dragging. Every few bars he pulls the tempo back a little more. He pulls it down to super slow sludginess and starts singing FEFY lyrics. It’s weird but not in a good way. WMGGW brings the show to a close.

Stick around for the segues and Drowned through Bowie. The rest of the show had me bored.

A pretty solid show, until....which I'll get to in a second.

Really nice opening sequence of Chalk Dust through Limb by Limb. Also, maybe I'm just projecting because of the show's location, but was Trey playing some surf rock guitar in Possum? Like some Beach Boys/Dick Dale power chords? Maybe that's just me.

Very good Drowned to open second set, and I think the Bowie is the highlight of the show. There are legit SERENE moments in here, very soft parts that I really enjoy. And finishes like Bowie should be finished.

So, the rest of the story. Piper>Character Zero. It feels like they just don't know where to go with this Piper. It's has the makings of many other 2000 versions, with some frenetic stuff, some groove in other parts, but it's pretty messy to me, the band just does not feel hooked up. Maybe Trey recognized this disconnect, maybe not, but then he calls for Character Zero, and ok, the set's gotta end sometime, but this thing just bottoms out, and then the Fast Enough for You quotes? It's not fair for the last 20 minutes of a show to color your entire opinion of two and a half hours of music, but that was just ODD, and left me with a strange kind of feeling.

Guitar Gently Weeps is played pretty passionately and helps to redeem the show for the most part, but yeah, that ending was jarring, to me anyway. (Check out the Bowie.) On to Shoreline, two to go.

Pre-show – Had an awesome time in the lot. No hassles, plenty of cool folks to chat up. Was feeling fine by the time I hit the line to get in.

SET 1: Chalk Dust Torture: Always a fan of this in the opening slot.

Guyute: Nice, pregnant, evil pause with dark loops before “I’m bouncing like a newborn elf”. At this point, this has already bested 10.4.00’s first set, and they are two songs in. I am only half kidding.

Wolfman's Brother: This is sick, has old school funk, Mike is snapping and popping, old school 97 effects at 6:05 and continuing for 20 seconds or so and they slide right into ->

Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley: First time played this tour, last time played 6.30.00 in Hartford. This one is extremely short though.

Limb By Limb: The quiet, subtle groove they land in around 6 minutes is sublime. They don’t linger there too long, less than 30 seconds. The whole band sounds great in this jam, each an equal part, a four headed monster if you will. Trey trills it up at 7:48. By 9:00, they are bringing it on home. Good jam.

Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown: Second and last time they ever played this tune, fine with me given the implications it carries with it >

Beauty of My Dreams > Axilla, Horn > Possum: This segment was standard stuff.

First set summary: This first set is just night and day from the night before.

SET 2: Drowned: Smokes through 10.5 minutes and then quiets down for about a minute and then ramps right back up and then gets quiet again at 12:48 but once again that doesn’t’ last for long as about 20 seconds later they are ramped right back up. At about 14:20 Trey changes the whole feeling of the jam, and it seems bound for a transition into the next song -> NICU: That was an incredible segue and belongs on the all-time segue list – that was amazing. >

David Bowie: For a brief moment at 8:48 there is a major chord jam but then it settles back into typical Bowie territory. At about 9:50 Trey starts bending some notes – this sounds really cool in here – this is very brief, and the jam gets quite sparse and ambient up until about 11:10 when things start to perk up once again. This is the four headed monster we all know and love – no one person is leading this jam instead it is a collective effort – very 2000. More note bending by Red at 12:10 and they are doing a wonderful job of creating tension at this point. At 12:42 Trey is back in the lead and the intention is clear that they are going to start heading for the traditional Bowie climax. Big old loops at 14:45 creating more tension. That peak we’ve all been waiting for at 15:10. That was a very solid version – nothing really stands out and grabs your attention and demands too much praise – just a workmen like version of David Bowie.

Halley's Comet: Everybody is pumped to hear the opening notes of this one! This seems to be played at a slower tempo than most. Not much of a jam to this one but they do crush what little jam there is. ->

Walk Away: Trey decided to rip cord the Halley’s into Walk Away which takes Fishman by surprise – not much to write home about here in this Walk Away.

Piper: No patience with this intro, ants in the band’s pants and straight for the rock and roll. When trey ramps this up at 3:04 you can hear that signature 99 sound that he employed so frequently in fall and winter 99. Fishman is like animal from the Muppets at 4:30 to drive the band to play this as fast and intense as possible. By the 9-minute mark they begin to back off that breakneck pace as Trey is opting for some effects and by 11 minutes, they are definitely in that groove-based jamming that is so prevalent in 2000. Fishman is doing what he can to drive a more engaging jam but the other three are not buying what he is selling. Eventually this gets very quiet and segues in the back door into >

Character Zero: Early on in the jam Trey employs that sludgy, muddy tone. Fish flips the script at 5:18 and things are really dark and dirty. At 5:55 is sounds like Mike is going for DwD. Next thing you know Trey is sing Fast Enough For You over the top? This is awkward but brief and over in 20 seconds as is the entire song. Trey starts rambling about how thankful they are to be able to play in your town in LA and then goes on to say they are the fourth best band behind Tenacious D, Van Halen and Frank Zappa and that they had a great time playing here tonight and no kidding we hope to come back soon. Come back soon? But they are going on hiatus? Good, old rambling Trey.

ENCORE: While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Trey has some really nice sustain around 5:10 and then moving forward makes that ‘doc weep.

Second set summary: So, attendance bias might have something to do with it, but I fell a little more compelled to grade this higher than the 3.5 that is on .net. Drowned, Bowie and Piper all have replay value. None of them are amazing but they are solid jams. I had a ton of fun pre-show in the lot and inside the show and would grade this as a 3.75 out of 5.