Friday 08-31-2018
Dick’s Sporting Goods Park
Commerce City, CO
SET 1: Free > Harry Hood, What’s the Use? > Blaze On, Ghost -> Crosseyed and Painless > Simple > Cavern
SET 2: No Men In No Man’s Land > Carini > Theme From the Bottom > Mercury > Light
ENCORE: Martian Monster > Julius
Before I say anything about the show, I want to say how great it was seeing so many Oh Kee Pa faces at these three shows. It was truly wonderful being able to party everyone for three nights.
What song opened your favorite show that you attended? If you asked me before 8.31.2018, I would have said Free. [url]http://forum.ohkeepa.com/t/08-04-nashville-tn/15796/1] If you asked me now, I would have to say Free. This Free meant business, as Trey invited everyone listening, in person or remotely, to join the party (dressed to kill).
The second song of the show had us all scratching our heads at the odd (but inspired) placement of Harry Hood. There was a while there in 1997 where it wasn’t uncommon to hear Hood in the first set, but here in 3.0 it has been 8 years since it last showed up in the first set.
What’s the Use was exactly What’s the Use, nothing more; nothing less, and Blaze On was a bit more than your typical first set Blaze On - clocking in at almost exactly 11 minutes.
Ghost (which is probably my favorite jam of the night) jumped right-the-fuck off the beaten path and featured some of the most melodic interplay of the tour, before it evolved into funk driven madness, with Mike playing a Talking Heads-esque bass-line. Speaking of Talking Heads… A first set Crosseyed and Painless? C&P does its usual thing, until Page pumped the breaks and the whole thing got (for want of a better word) moody. It flirted with the original tempo for a little while, as they lead you to believe the jam was resolving, only for it to metamorphose into a spaced-out outro jam.
Simple was played in the first set at Dick’s for the second consecutive year, and Cavern closed out the set.
No Men didn’t stray too far from the original structure, but it was embellished with some wonderful synth from Page. Carini headed straight to the “bliss jam” that is pretty much expected at this point, but rather than seguing into another song from the bliss, they go really effect heavy, and kind of intense, and resolve with a spaced-out segue into Theme From the Bottom. Who is going to complain when Theme is the “breather song?” Not me, and I’m kind of an asshole who likes to complain because it makes me feel smart.
For those keeping score at home, we had only seen two 3.0 songs until this point, and those were Blaze On, and NMINML - two of the most well received 3.0 songs, so why not launch into another very well received 3.0 song? Which they did with Mercury. Now, It wouldn’t be 3.0 if we didn’t get at least one very noticeable, awkward flub from Trey, and it shows up in Mercury, but in all honesty, this is just about as close to a perfect game as I have seen him pitch in a while. The jam out of Mercury is one of those slow build up jams than would normally lead to a nice peak, but instead lead to Trey teasing the ever-loving shit out of Young Lust.
The Light jam (another very well liked 3.0 song… see a theme?) started with the band taking it down a notch or two, almost Slave-esque, before progressing into a jam that would feel more appropriate coming out of Party Time, and ended with a build very similar to the Mercury jam, but instead of giving us heavy handed teases, it ended with a pretty satisfying peak.
There was also an encore, during which a very well liked 3.0 song was played.
I have been chasing this show (5 song set), and seeing it scratched an itch that had been plaguing me for years.
Great show - without any qualifiers. It should be in the “best of 2018” conversation.
That 1st set was fuckin fire…I was the only one in my section dancing to Whats the Use…1 of my favs ever…Show was crazy as hell… 