, attached to 1994-06-19

Review by lpenoza

lpenoza Oh Mighty Icculus! Not one review of this show yet!
Understandably overlooked due to the shining supernovae of 6-18-94 UIC the night before, and the stunning Quasar 6-22-94 after (Not forgetting the 6-21 fire alarm show either!), it's time this one gets it's due here on PHiSH.net.

Start a show in Kalamazoo Michigan with a moan of feedback into Suzy Greenberg and what happens? People get excited. And by people I mean college kids from Ann Arbor, South Bend, Chicago, Champaign, NY PA and VT... let's just say I can hear Ellis Dee in the audience. The recording I pulled from the "spreadsheet" is a FINE A plus AUD by Jeff Jordan (Dankseed Certification received 2002-03-11), and has fidelity down to the PA subs thanks to his AKG 460b ck61>AKG B-18 Phantom Power>Sony D-10 Pro II setup.

Suzy gives way to a SMOKING early Julius. The song had been in rotation for a month and a half, and it already is punching holes in the walls of the venue. 2 songs in and I'm getting winded. A nice relaxing yet inspired Lizards is needed before the Axilla II starts doing the Mike Tyson thing again. A heavier Axilla there ain't.

The Curtain gives everyone another chance to chill and contemplate the band's finesse and compositional complexity. Everything here is tight, precise, and almost eerily perfect. This Spring->Summer '94 run was great from the start, but from 6-11 Red Rocks on, something almost stupid good went down with this outfit. Listen to ANY June '94 show, find a YouTube video (6-21 DWD for ex.) and you can hear and see something has a grip on the band - especially Trey A - who seems to be just tripping about the level of performance they have attained, and audience acceptance of his dreams and fantasies.

Fast Enough For You. The early jaded vets said "pop song sellout" but before I heard then I fell in love with this song. I love Trey ballads. And I LOVE the outro guitar part of FEFY. This one from Kalamazoo is my FAVORITE. The raw, immediate intensity of this recoding brings a deep multi-dimensional quality to these songs. Follow up the ballad with Gordon's whacked masterpiece Scent Of A Mule so nobody gets too comfortable. This Mule smells flawless. The Mule Duel is a hoot, as they had yet to play it out of their systems. Trey conveys amusement and playfulness without any overacting as the duel begins. The level of play all through this show is electrifying.

Stash is just typically kickass here, with a dense jam that's not particularly long or extreme, but it has a slick transition back to the MSMN ending as most Stash's from this era do. Golgi closes set 1.

Set II begins with Faht (what?) No, FAHT. By Greesy Fizeek. Something I prefer to let be mysterious and indescribable, thankyaverymuch.

But THEN - then comes my favorite part of this concert; Run Like A *$#&@! Antelope. The raw, in-your-face sound of the recording puts me in the room with these people who are making whoops and screams of acid mayhem as the Antelope intro bounces and gallops along. When the full band hits, I get gooseflesh. Fish pounds frantically, Trey grinds and stirs an ascending series of riffs, Page hammers out insane comping, and all four members are playing lead simultaneously as this builds to a place where Trey can surf to the top and wait for this mother to break. There are more upshifts than a semi-truck here before the quadruple-time insanity of this wave hits the Rye-Rye-Rocco beach. My head is spinning and I was not even AT this show. This is fuck-me-silly PHiSH and I love it.

At this point, I'll say that there is a FINE Reba after the If I Could cool-down that follows Antelope. Listen for the "Ooooooohhhh Yeeeeeaaahhh" from a guy in the audience as The Reba Chill gets underway and you may get a sense of the psychedelic soaking I hear in the audience.
Makisupa, Coil, and an unamped MSO with a nice audience sing-along leave us with Highway to Hell to end the set. The encore cheers lead to people yelling FREE BIRD! so I assume there was a single mic stand set up. And that's what they got: Acapella Free Bird. Start with Suzy and end with Skynyrd. Not your typical Sunday night in Kalamazoo.


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