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| 📷: discobiscuits.net |
The New Year's show opens with three above average standalones: Aceetobee, Spaga and Three Days. Aceetobee is a fiery opener, both exploratory and fast-paced enough that the long stretches of improv don't drag. Spaga is probably the strongest of the three, a patient dnb excursion that builds to an explosive conclusion. These first two standalones are, unfortunately, one of the high water marks for the show. It's not hard to fault the fans, after being treated to Jigsaw > Sound 1 > Jigsaw, the first inverted Shelby, Floes > Sound 1 > Floes, Triumph > King of the World > Pygmy > Ladies, for expecting a little more than a few excellent standalones. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the first and second sets is pretty pedestrian. Three Days is a solid version of what I believe to be a great cover, but it does not go as deep as either Aceetobee or Spaga. The Dribble jam starts off in swampy dub territory, and while I am more forgiving than some towards this style of play, it only becomes interesting to me when there is some kind of high-energy payoff. In this instance, the jam only plods along until it finds Hope. The Hope offers nothing at all—this is the first Senor Boombox style Hope, in which the formerly exploratory jam section was replaced with a simple vamp on the ending. A disappointing development for the song, and a disappointing conclusion to the first set.
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| Darth Vader and The Disco Biscuits |
The second set opens with a standard Plan B, which gives way to the New Year's Eve gimmick: a mashup of the theme music for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Superman, with the last of these three containing the countdown. After the John Williams montage, the band launches into the traditional Happy New Year Helicopters, with a twist. This was the first Helicopters to feature the composed jam section that would appear in every Helicopters through late 2003, and would come to be known in 2017 as "Bionic Helix." Its first performance here is inspired; it actually sounds like a new section to the song. After an excellent atmospheric rendition of this section, the band plays the Helicopters riff again to signal the drop into the jam proper. This second jam is nicely exploratory: it builds up to an early peak before breaking down for more exploration. The transition back into the peak is sudden, but this is only a reflection of the exploratory quality of the jam. Reactor finds its way into a weird dub style jam, and this style works a lot better for me here than it does in the Dribble, for a couple reasons. Dub jams are considerably rarer in Reactor than in Dribble, the jam covers more interesting territory here, and it resolves to a more interesting conclusion. Magner in particular crafts an excellent and catchy theme in the minutes before Brownie lays down a distinctly Crickets bass line. Shortly after this the jam picks up the pace and builds to one of the more energetic and organic post-1999 Vassillios intros. Vassillios is a little more standard, but eerie and sinister, building to a solid Reactor ending. The set closes with fan-favorite Jamillia.
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| Superman, Indiana Jones, Vader, and Barber |
Set three is probably the most consistent after the more uneven sets one and two, and probably the strongest overall, even if it doesn't have any music on par with the highlights of the past three nights. The final Boulevard ever builds with extreme patience from a lumbering bliss groove to a chaotic Dribble ending. The point in the jam when the tempo begins to rapidly pick up is excellent and masterfully executed. Barber holds on to the bliss riff from the beginning of the jam through all of the twists and turns, ebbs and flows of this jam, up to and through the Shimmy teases, giving context and continuity to this sprawling masterpiece. The Dribble ending is bombastic, an excellent conclusion to this multifaceted jam. The Dribble outro is excellent fare, moving from the traditional shuffle to a more relaxed blissful trance jam, with Magner simultaneously working those distinctly 02 trance synths with the ambient soundscape effects. The tempo picks up and builds to an inverted Confrontation. The jam out of Confrontation is short and strange as the band segues into the first of the modern, reworked Save the Robots. Robots still has a lot of work to go before it would become the heavy hitter it is today, and it is weird to hear what is essentially a jamless Robots. The jam into it is very solid though. After Robots comes an early Sister Judy's, which develops into a patient, old-school trance-fusion style jam that builds to a minor key Shimmy-esque crescendo before a gradual shift into a fantastic Basis ending. The encore is a drawn-out Aquatic Ape, dedicated to Max Dawson, and played with a by-then unconventional dub jam in the vein of the 1999 Aquatic Apes. It's not terribly interesting but it's a good piece of fan service to a dedicated fan.
12/31/01, in my final estimation, is an unfairly maligned show that has plenty of merit on its own. Sure, it isn't a front-to-back transcendental experience the way 12/30/01 was, nor does it contain anything on the level of the highlights of 12/28 or 12/29, but at the same time it isn't the most disappointing drop in quality for a New Year's show either. The gimmicks are fairly restrained, and although the band plays it a bit safer, that's true of nearly any New Year's Eve show. The highlights from sets one and two combined with the fairly nonstop set three is enough material for two sets worth of great music. It doesn't live up to the combined expectations of being the final show of 2001 and the show to follow 12/28 - 12/30, but could any show possibly meet these expectations?
Highlights: Reactor > Vassillios, Boulevard > Dribble, Judy's > Basis, Spaga, Dribble > Confro, Aceetobee, Helicopters, Confro > Bots
—Andy
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