A few days ago I was looking through some Spring '94 shows to find a good rated/reviewed one to listen to. When I got to this one I was surprised to find a show I had never heard any praise for with a 4.7 rating, significantly higher than the majority of May '94 shows. A quick look into the reviews section yielded no further information, but the setlist and astonishing rating had peaked my interest. So off to the spreadsheet I went.

First, according to db.etree, this show only has one complete source, the same source that is on the spreadsheet. This source is decent/poor. Fishman's cymbals are crackly (I'm assuming from some peaking, but I'm no export on those types of things), the bass could be more present, and the general clarity is ok, but far from great. The quality fluctuates quite a few times throughout the show and there is a weird couple-second tape-splice of completely unrelated material toward the end of Axilla… But lets move onto the music.

They really had something special going on in Sping/Summer '94. They just had this incredible energy and tightness at this point in their career. As one would expect from the aforementioned characteristics of this era: the opening trio kills. High energy and their charisma is radiating. "The Divided Sky" in the 4th slot is really well played and the jam is one of the highest energy jams I've heard out of this song. Axilla has the weird stuff toward the end but is otherwise unremarkable. Although this "It's Ice" isn't jammed out like the 4.8.94 version, Page still tears it apart pretty hard and there is this seriously awesome Page-and-Fish-breakdown-in-PYITE-esq latin groove in there that only lasts for maybe 5 seconds before it dissipates and the normal "It's Ice" groove comes in. But that groove could've lasted for 5 minutes and I wouldn't have complained! This "Split" is a scorcher, but nothing too groundbreaking for the era. "If I Could" and "Cavern" are nice.

"Maze" to open set II is good. Love me some '94 "Maze"! The intro to "Wilson" is pretty funny. Instead of the chant, which hadn't fully caught on yet, the crowd just makes party noises; it gets pretty rambunctious before some folks who "knew" finally started to get the "Wilson" chant going the last couple of times. This "Reba" is decent, but doesn't compare to the Warfield and Laguna versions to happen just a couple weeks later. Julius is energetic and Scent Of A Mule is pretty sloppy. Aaaaand now we're at "Hood" (a personal favorite song of mine). With the exception of a somewhat humorous miscue out of the opening reggae section, the composed section is nailed. The beginning of the jam is super delicate and build to the peak is really nice. This isn't the best "Hood" ever, but a very solid version nonetheless. Ginseng Sullivan is missing from the recording. For some reason the crowd found "Dog Faced Boy" really funny. Maybe something was going on onstage. There are a couple funny audience quips before "Nellie Kane". This "David Bowie" goes to gnar-town, and it goes there hard. Super tension. Super release. Love it! Highlight of the night. "Coil" is nice and well played.

Highlights:

Set I: The Divided Sky, It's Ice

Set II: Hood, Bowie, Coil

All-in-all, a solid show. However, this show doesn't compare to other 4.6's-7's from the same era (i.e. Bomb Factory, 6.11, 6.17, 6.18).