AL83@delphi.com

June 29, 1995
Jones Beach Amphitheater - Wantagh, New York
 
nice mellow afternoon and evening... i had a great time despite one or two
lacking performances, a guy vomiting repeatedly 4 seats away from me, and a
hapless smiler landing on top of me followed by two or three members of the
staff security... got to the show nice and early again... easy gettin' in...
roamed Shakedown St. for an hour or so... bought two bumper stickers - a nice
Coca-Cola label Y.E.M. sticker which i have seen popping up all over this tour
as well as a Smell My Mule sticker... major props goes out to the maker of my
dinner: the two supernice people listening to NYE '93 and selling fluffernutter
sandwichs (marshmellow fluff and peanut butter - try it!) fog began to roll in
and it appeared that a rain storm was poised but it never materialized...
 
we made it to our seats and settled down... much better than last night..
tonight we were right next to the V.I.P. section in front of the board in the
second orchestra... good view... Jim opened... pretty standard version that went
on a few minutes too long... not very jammed or adventourous as others from this
tour... my first taste of Taste was next... my opinion: ok tune, needs work...
The Horse---> Silent In The A.M. followed... a quarter of the way through Silent
a large guy who, by my estimate, had just ingested considered unkind by the
authorities, came literally crashing down on my friend and me with a large beefy
security guy in tow... the smiler was giggling and running and several more
security people sat down on our laps before they were out of the way... kind of
a buzz kill... ruined Silent for me... Divided Sky was perfect for the
situation... as the band chanted to Icculus the clouds began to disperse and the
fog began to lift ("hey! the storm's gone!") 3 pretty standard versions of
pretty brief songs came next... Cavern and Rift were both nice... Simple was
too... though Trey fucked up his solo in the "we play be-bop" verse - well, i
guess he would have to play it to fuck it up... SOAMelt soon followed and got
really intense and - hey, whatta suprise - atonal... an accepella Carolina
closed the set... people just won't be quiet anymore... it bugs me... Trey
announced "we'll be back in exactly 15 minutes" - it was actually 29:48... i'm
getting too anal about these timings!
 
Set 2 opened with a nice Free... i was suprised to hear it especially knowing
that they played it Saratoga... it was welcome... the band played a spacey jam
afterwards in which Fish began playing the hi-hat intro to David Bowie and/or
Maze... the band kept alternating the speed of the jam so that we couldn't tell
which it would be (Bowie or Maze) eventully the band kicked into a spacey
Bowie... the jams were in the vein of the Stash and Tweezer jams the night
before with lots of Page clanging and Trey wah-wah rhythm stuff - sounded like a
Llama transisition... eventully they returned to the hammer-on solo to close out
Bowie... Page's Strange Desire was after that - i'm seriously begining to dig
this tune... Page has a beautiful voice - he should really sing lead more often
("awwwwww Page, sing!") i was equally suprised to hear Y.E.M. after one at
Saratoga... it was also very very intense... i simply cannot describe how
wonderful it was... after Trey took his guitar off for the vocal jam Mike played
a kicking bass solo... Page and Trey sort of just stood there in awe as Mike
soared into uncharted dimensions with his Languedoc his spaceship... Trey danced
a little during this... the vocal jam was also out of this world nutty...
Fishman was hitting some high notes unreachable by mortals... Trey was doing
neandrethal grunts towards the begining... my first Acoustic Army was next
(where's Henrietta!) -- it was intresting to note that Tubb's feet didn't touch
the ground... i like A.A. - nice tune... a wonderfully chaotic Day In The Life
closed out the set... the encore (now freed from a Beatles cover) was a well
jammed Feed From The Bottom (8 seconds short of 10 minutes)...
 
all in all - a great run at a venue i'm digging more and more... these shows
have me pumped for the Sugarbush shows... but that also means i'm probably gonna
miss Mike's Groove and Wilson at Great Woods which i'm kinda bummed about... o,
well... there's always next tour... see ya,
 
jesse :)