Widespread Panic | Oakland | Review | Pics
By Team JamBase Jul 15, 2011 • 1:44 pm PDT

Widespread Panic :: 07.09.11 :: Fox Theater :: Oakland, CA
Jump right to Josh’s killer pics here!
Listen to the show on PanicStream here!
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And ‘my experience’ is why I offer some background on the mindset I walked into The Fox with a week ago. I don’t know the song titles in many instances, I can’t compare versions of “Chilly Water” or any of the other signature tunes, and I’ve only got a handful of previous shows under my belt, though stretching back to 1992 and the inaugural H.O.R.D.E. tours and running up to the band’s High Sierra set last year. So, when I say I was categorically blown away by this band at this gig it perhaps carries a little extra weight. I have no agenda or nostalgia with Panic, and just based on the sheer force and execution of their music this night I can now see how they are THE band for some people.
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Panic are masters of the cover tune but not because they conjure up the original versions. They find things in other artist’s work they vibe off of and can use as a launching pad for their own “reflections.” However, one of the things I liked best about this particular show was the emphasis on their own material. While the encore take on Cat Stevens’ “Trouble” made a bunch of adults openly wistful, it seemed more appropriate for them to showcase what they’d wrought over the past 25 years. For someone like me curious about what makes this group tick, curious about what makes them such a joy trigger for others, this was a perfect concert. And again, while it’s the norm for music journalism to dissect and explain the ancestry of a band, spelling out the touchstones and placing a band in the popular hierarchy, I found myself stymied on this front even as I tried to push their square pegs into the round holes at The Fox. Oh, there’s a few obvious things – without the Allman Brothers there would be no Panic – but the sound they make right here, right now is utterly their own, a great distillation of American musical strains on par with originators like the Grateful Dead, Return To Forever and Frank Zappa.
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As usual, I was taken with John Bell’s voice, a cracked, perfectly human thing that reaches into one like Robert Johnson, Leon Russell or Tom Waits, a terrific, unique singer and not a vocalist in the popular American Idol sense. And it fits in so well with the overall sound – a rough and tumble mixture that would likely be cacophony in any other hands – blending with the many, many things going on simultaneously. For all their considerable skill as soloists, it is the voluptuous collective roar of Panic that stands out. It’s the reason there’s no space between the music and the listener when you stand in the same room with them. Their music seizes you, refusing distraction and distance, before permeating into one’s ground water, so to speak.
More flashes: “Tall Boy” is a glorious song to sing alongside a bunch of lit-up fanatics, and “Disco” may be the best song to use that title that owes nothing to the genre of its name. I also realized I could spend the whole show watching Dave Schools as a barometer of how well everything is going – and his bounce and slash were mighty in Oakland. While the focus is absolutely on the music with Widespread Panic, they’ve definitely upped their game in the light show department, and while they move around as much as The Cars onstage, they say a lot with their faces and the subtleties of their body language. The stories underneath the stories in the music are played out in their expressions, especially when they gravitate towards one another, communicating things with their instruments that reach far below skin deep.
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This band is a pleasure to behold.
Whether one knows the ins & outs of it all, whether one sings along to everything or nothing at all, Widespread Panic delivers in such a visceral, immediate way that it would take direct force against what they’re doing to not have a fine time. For all the idiotic turf wars in the jam scene – and like it or not, Panic are a cornerstone – in purely musical terms, this is a banquet for yo’ ears and dancing feet. Big anniversaries have a way of focusing a band, and based on this Oaktown visit I’d say Panic has a firm grip on their legacy, leaving folks, myself included, a bit wobbly legged and ragged in the best of ways as we made our way into the night
Well, I dream of Heaven
But I feel like Hell
The children in their church clothes
Sunday mornin’ bells
My head is spinnin’
They’re taking their toll
Fox Theater Setlist
Set 1: Angels on High, Rebirtha, Ribs And Whiskey, Dark Day Program, Visiting Day, Henry Parsons Died, The Take Out, Tall Boy > Arleen > Porch Song
Set 2: Disco > Pigeons > Easy Wind > Pigeons, All Time Low > Surprise Valley > Drums > Surprise Valley, Pilgrims, Radio Child > Travelin’ Light
E: Trouble, Up All Night > Junior
Continue reading for pictures of Friday’s Widespread Panic show at The Fox…
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Continue reading for more pics…
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Continue reading for pictures of Saturday’s Widespread Panic show at The Fox…
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