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I got extremely anxious when I got word of Brothers Past headlining one of the coolest new venues around. The Conduit Music Club. The drive only took about 2 hours from Harrisburg, PA which was a definite plus in my book. We were a bit late to catch Electric Jellyfish's whole set but what we heard was a pleasant Scofield/Beanstalk kind of jamming. Very groovy stuff. I walked outside between bands to catch some of the beautiful weather we had that day.
When I started walking back towards the building I heard the opening chords to "Crutch" and it immediately brought a smile to my face (if I wasn't already smiling). The drummer, Rick Lowenburg kicked in the bass on the kick drum right away tonight. It always gets the crowd shakin' when he brings out the drum effects. The jam started smoothing out and I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a lot smoother than the 'Crutches' I've heard." Eventually I start to hear a little bit of a "Wandering Widow" bass line. "Utopiary Widow?" This segue caught me completely by surprise. It started to get really trancy during the Utopiary jam and carried the rest of the way through the first set. This jam kept escalating and they just tore up the segue back into "Crutch." It was like a train slamming the brakes with sparks flying everywhere but instead of the train stopping it was starting. Metal against metal. The energy flowing in the room was just insane for the first few songs in the first set. The segues were just perfect.
The next dish was a fresh serving of "Monsters Come Out At Night." "Monsters" is one of those songs that gets the whole room bouncin'. It's got a beat that drives even the casual sitters at shows to bob and weave with the ragers. It's great. I thought the band was going to blow up the speakers the whole way through this song. They were pushing their bodies and instruments, no holds barred. All I can say is to hope there is an AUD copy of this show because they tore "Monsters" to shreds. I even saw Tommy Hamilton push his guitar aside and pound on the e-drums a little bit on this song and hoped to hear another intense "drums" like that of 3-7-02. But not this time.
"Tired Sigh(t)" brought us all back down to ground level for a bit. When they started playing it, my first thought was, "I wish they would play 'The Ceiling' instead." The usual funkin' bass at the end of this song was oddly synthless. Something crazy was amidst. BACK INTO "UTOPIARY"!!! Very well done. The set closes with "Boy" which had some really cool intro sounds and a solid jam on it's tail. How can they play a hotter second set tonight?
Yes, yes. Ask and ye shall receive. They opened the second set with "The Ceiling" which I haven't heard for a while. I've been dying to hear this song. Tom McKee comes out of the woodwork during songs like this. "The Ceiling" has a great progression to it. It starts off really silky and romantic with beautiful keyboard work and just grows into this monster of a jam. A must hear for all fans.....new and old. It's still too new of a song for me to get detailed with.
"Shut Up>Gonzo>Shut Up" had some really wild sound effects going the whole way through. It was really trancy but a harder type of trance than the first set. It was dark, heavy stuff. This is when I realized Clay Parnell was hitting some unusually low notes. It was the first time I heard Clay on a five string and it brought yet another flavor to the sound of BP. This sandwich of songs was just incredible. It even got me dancing and I always say, "If I danced I'd probably fall over."
"National Anthem" was up next and it's one of the only cover songs BP plays pretty regularly. Rightfully so, due to the uncanny ability to mimic Thom's voice from Radiohead and the similarity in ambient jamming of the two bands. Another smoking jam led into the explosive ending of "Gonzo" which is always belted out so loudly, you can hear the band members losing their voices.
It was obvious why the sound tech, Richie Taliani, loves the Conduit from the very beginning of the show. The sound in that place was amazingly clear. It brought out the screaming solos from Tommy’s guitar without blocking out the delightful keyboard work of McKee. It allowed Rick to hit the bassy kick drum without blending Clay’s craziness out of the mix. I hope to see them there again and again. A great time was had by all.
Jason “Lemming” Bowers
JamBase | East Coast
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