08-06-97 Riverport Amphitheater, Maryland Heights, MO
1: NICU, Stash, Beauty of My Dreams, Twist-> Also Sprach Zarathustra-> AC/DC Bag, Ya Mar, You Enjoy Myself
2: Runaway Jim-> My Soul, Ghost, Prince Caspian, Cars Trucks Buses, Sample in a Jar, Run Like an Antelope-> Makisupa Policeman*-> Run Like an Antelope
E: Julius
*Instrumental, with Page on Theremin and Mike on mini-drum kit.
Man this show is fucking SICK! I used to have only the second set on tape back in teh day so I never knew that the first set is possibly even better than the second. The Stash after the NICU opener gets nice and weird for a few minutes until Trey shreds the ending. Then the Twist->2001->AC/DC Bag combo is fucking unreal. The Twist jam grooves for quite a while before getting spacey and melting into the 2001. The jam at the end of AC/DC Bag is more of a hard groove that they crank out for a few minutes and doesn’t really go anywhere, but it works as the end of this trio of tunes in the middle of the first set. The Ya Mar next is quite fun and then this might be my favorite YEM of this summer tour. Sooooooo fucking good.
The Runaway Jim to open the second set has a lot of energy, though there is a section in the middle of the jam where I feel like they’re not completely hooked up and it feels kind of stagnant. But they round off the jam with a scorching blues jam that turns right into My Soul. It’s such a great tune to use as a segue destination in a jam that I wonder why they don’t play it that way more often. But anyway another monster summer 97 Ghost follows with a very cool jam that has a nice crisp ‘stop-on-a-dime’ ending. A couple simple tunes and then a really fucking awesome Antelope->Makisupa Jam->Antelope that features everything from funk, reggae, psychedelia, rock, and dissonance. Very cool work there in that jam.