From: Charlie Dirksen
10/25/94 Civic Center, Atlanta, GA (Rvwd 12/95) Voodoo Child tease from Trey.. then MikeS opens the set (and what a
great set this is!! damn! the encores are lame, but so what.. second set is HOT!). Thanks to JR Trimpe for this DAUD. The
opening to this MikeS is standard (well, kinda on the slow side). Tramps segment kicks in late, given the slowness, at about
2:45 or so. Typical Mike and Page groovin' in the opening of this jam. Trey comes in at 3:25, off-key sustaining. Quickly goes
into a little off-key dark groove with Mike. Nothing special. A truly ominous MikeS jam ... typical in this sense. Trey is
modestly active, as are the others -- not AS much sustain as could be. Again, though, nothing outrageous in here at all, outside
of a scream from Fish around 5:54 or so. At least I think that was Fish! The ending of the MikeS tramps jam comes in about
6:10, and Simple kicks right in after it at about 6:20. This Simple is much clearer and straightforward right from the start than
10/21. Sounds a lot like 10/8.. smoooooth. Harmonies are reasonable... not as good as 'ween on 10/31/94, but fine until the
skyballs verse (sounds lame.. yuk). Gets really quiet at the end.. everyone stops playin'... then Mango kicks in at 10:58 (crowd
erupts). I love this song. No jam segment, to be sure (which is unfortunate.. they should drag out the jam towards the end a lot
more, one of these days.. just as the jam in Contact should be three times as long as it is, imo). MAKE IT INTERESTING!
Mango and Contact have the potential to take off, but to my knowledge, the band has _never_ jammed either of these tunes
out. Oh well. Mango is typical. Weekapaug kicks in after Mango at 18:09. Mike's opening is fine.. not that impressive for Mike,
actually. Not even as excited as 10/21 by any stretch (and that was standard!). A great jam from Trey.. typically great. Some
sustain here, some climbing there.. nothing special so far. It sounds at 20:51 like they were going to into an 'On Broadway' jam..
they somewhat tease it without really going into it (it is in the background..). Oh here they go.. 21:22.. still sounding like they
may On Broadway jam. Nope. Oh well. Mike is really teasing it on the bass, though. Shit. Trey is jamming away, avoiding On
Broadway... Page and Fish are accompanying in a frenzy! Kinda messy here.. just chaotic jamming around 22:36. Still intense..
just not terribly coherent for a little bit... then the jam comes together again. There goes Mike teasing On Broadway again. Trey
won't bite. The jam at 23:30 is very cool.. Page is goin' nuts, as is Fish, Mike and Trey, but they are all clearly listening to each
other. Trey soon drops out, and it is just Mike Page and Fish. Mike drops a few bombs. Trey comes back in lightly wailing in
the upper reaches of the 'doc at 24:10... quietly. The jam starts getting spacey and psychotic at 24:45.. Fish is still going crazy,
just isn't as prominent. Some off-key distortion from Trey (he briefly speaks something that I can't make out). Harsh chords
from Page, notes from Mike, snare-rolls from Fish.. Kinda spacey in here. Still in this strange mode at 26:20, when Mike starts
into a groove, and Fish wakes up.. very repetitive groove.. starts building.. YES! "Oh"s or something voiced from Fish and
Trey.. Mike as well, at one point! This is weird! They just climb out of this spacey jam in a chaotic, spooky manner. They are
just making vocal noise as well as wailing away on their instruments. Never heard this in a Weekapaug, but it doesn't sound
"good" ... just different. Damn. They cut out the build, then launch into yet another jam at 28:15 or so. Fish is completely crazy..
pounding away. Wow! Weekapaug explodes back in at just after 29 minutes, with everyone goin' ballistic on their instruments
(Trey is firing away licks ultra-fast, ripping them out, as is Mike!!). Damn is this HOT! Christ. Cools off after twenty seconds or
so. The final Weekapaug lyrics segment comes in at 30:22... they jam around in its beginning, though. It ain't typical. Gosh, I'm
tired of reviewing this.. this is/was quite a @(*&@#$ Weekapaug.. Fish plays games with the rhythm in this ending.. Trey
sustains.. at 31:30 it segues magically into JCOG. No closing verse here, folks.. they just jammed it out. JCOG's opening
"vocals" come in at 32:16, after some enchanting sustain. I'm giving this whole MikeSGroove combo 31:30. Damn good
Weekapaug, but the rest of it was standard. B+/A- rating.. (fwiw, JCOG was only a verse or so.. very short, then Glide
segued nicely in..!) two spams charlie