Subject: 10/27/96 North Charleston, S.C. Review
From: Daniel Ritchey 

This is my first attempt at reviewing a show, so I hope it makes sense.

The setlist, as I copied it down:

10/27/96 North Charleston Coliseum, South Carolina

I: Runaway Jim, Punch You In The Eye, AC/DC Bag, Fee, Scent of a Mule >
   Catapult > Page Theremin Catapult > Scent of a Mule, Split Open and
   Melt, Talk, Taste, Suzie

II: Chalk Dust Torture, Bathtub Gin, Rift, Prince Caspian, Ya Mar,
    Tweezer, Fluffhead, Life on Mars, Tweezer Reprise

E: Possum
   Carolina


The night before this show(10/26 Charlotte), the band seemed kinda blah
for the first set, but the second set they turned it on and really blew
me away.  I have seen reviews of earlier shows where people said that Mike
really stood out, and he did during this show as well as 10/27.

On to 10/27,

Sometime near the beginning of the first set, Trey said that they were
happy to be there, and that Page had a lot of family and friends in the
area that were in the audience.  Unless I heard him wrong, he invited
the whole crowd to dinner after the show, and said that "we are all
family, right?" Page really outdid himself during the whole show, and
the intensity that the band built up the second set the night before
carried over right into the first set of this one.

Runaway Jim:  Good, solid version.  You could tell the band was still
clicking and were in a good mood.

Punch You In The Eye:  When Trey started that funny muted string thing
he does before this song, I thought "Tube, Punch, or Sample" and since
Tube was Friday and Sample was Saturday, sure enough it was Punch.  Page
was already cooking early in the song, really stood out during the
Landlady jams. Good solid version of this song.

AC/DC Bag:  This was pretty much like other Bags from recent shows.

Fee:  Fee was Fee, although Trey didn't flub the lyrics, and he also
didn't use the megaphone (first time I have seen the song without it).

Scent of a Mule:  Right from the start this song was intense, and Mike
was a little off key.  Standard, but pretty fast, up to the duel.  Page
played his part for a long time, and it seemed like Trey was trying to
get him to bring it to a close where Trey could play his part.  Then
Trey played his part for a long time.  I don't remember exactly how
thing went right here, but I think this is right:  I noticed Mike had
disappeared during the beginning of the duel, and Trey had starting
doing this weird noise with some sort of electronic pad I guess that was
up with his percussion kit.  On the last accented beat of every little
cycle, he would hit this thing with his stick and it would make this
electronic kind of booming sound.  I have never heard that before.  Next
thing I know, Mike is standing up at the front of the stage, and he has
taken his bass off and is holding the microphone like singers who don't
play instruments do.  He starts singing Catapult, and kind of looking at
different places in the crowd, but this didn't seem very natural to him,
and I was reminded of Mickey Hart singing at the Further Festival this
summer.  Same kind of non-fluid delivery.  Trey and Fishman are both
keeping a steady beat on their kits, and we noticed this roadie setting
up what appeared to be Page's Theremin.  Page gets up and goes to it, the
rest of the band stops, and Page, right on the beat, "feels" out the
distnictive notes to Catapult.  It was so slick, he did it perfectly,
much more skilled at it that when I saw it this summer at Deer Creek.
Then they finished Scent of a Mule.

Split Open and Melt:  Pretty normal version, except it seemed like
during the jam part, Trey played rhythm licks for a long time before
switching over to more lead style parts.  He kept playing this series of
chords that reminded me of that very distinctive riff that gets repeated
over and over after Halley's and before NICU on Binghampton 12/14/95.  He
also threw in a very obvious In A Gadda Da Vida tease.  Seemed like he
also played some sort of famous series of notes from a classical music
piece, but I can't place it.

Talk:  Same old Talk.

Taste:  Pretty good jam at the end, Trey was real into it.

Suzie:  Stellar version of this, Page completely got down and grooved.
They had the whole place rocking hard with this.

Set II

Chalk Dust:  Good version, nothing different.

Bathtub Gin:  Finally. I have missed this one by one show many times,
and it was a great one, I thought.  Page's chops at the beginning of the
song were completely cool.  The jam seemed almost to fall apart at
times, but they always held it together.

Rift:  Normal Rift.

Prince Caspian:  Trey was into this one as well.  Played that refrain
over and over and over.  Also, played that little piece that is stuck on
the end of the song on the CD.  I know they didn't do that at Deer
Creek, but I don't know about earlier in this tour.

Ya Mar:  Normal Ya Mar.

Tweezer:  Excellent Tweezer.  The jam was tight and very good.  The
lights were also great during this song.  The jam was just the right
length for me, it was pretty long, but it ended right when it should
have.

Fluffhead:  Very good, solid Fluffhead.  I really enjoyed this one, and
it was very well played.

Life On Mars:  Page got into this one pretty well.  It was a good
version.

Tweezer Reprise:  Glad they did it, and it was as good as the Tweezer
itself was, perfect ending to an incredible set.

E: Possum:  No language signals, although I thought that Trey wanted to.
Holly (who I went to the shows with) said she thought he didn't do it
because everyone was clapping so loud during the little part before
Possum where he sometimes does.  Maybe he just wasn't going to anyway,
though.  Pretty nice version.

Carolina:  Mike and Fishman started to leave the stage after Possum,
but Trey motioned them back and led over by Page.  Obviously, it
would be Carolina.  I have never heard that before, and I was very
annoyed because a large portion of the crowd started CLAPPING
while they sang it, completely drowning them out.  This happened a
lot the night before and this night, where people would clap during
quiet parts, and yell a lot during the quiet stuff.  The people going
"shhhhh!" did not do much good at these shows.


Overall, this show was very good.  I'd give it an 7.0 or so on the scale
everyone uses.  A lot of cops around before the show (very restrictive),
but suprisingly, no security search on the way in.  Pretty strict about
not smoking, most people in my section didn't get away with it at all,
due to this dragon queen usher woman.


Daniel Ritchey
http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~dritche1

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