You Say You Want Some Evolution
For the second year in a row, Colorado's The String Cheese Incident played it's annual New Year's run of shows at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. Produced again by Peak Experience Productions, the OCC was turned into a virtual playground for children of all ages and featured roaming parades, musicians, clowns, balloon artists, faeries, magicians, jugglers, and a wide variety of other freaks. The OCC not only contained the mainstage, which featured six long sets of SCI over the three-day period, along with opening sets by Steel Pulse, Ozomatli, and Keller Williams, but a second stage, which featured acts such as the Yonder Mountain String Band, Vinyl, Dr. Didg, Lost at Last, and others. There was also the SCI Fidelity room which featured the world premiere of the first official SCI video release, Pura Vida, a compilation of the band's recent International
Incident in Costa Rica, and a 12/30 performance by SCI guitarist Bill
Nershi, wife Gillian Nershi, and Liza Oxnard. Then there was the chill room, the giant inflatable slide, the vending area, the massage therapists, the silent auction, the world record attempt at the largest group hug, etc.
This year's theme, Evolution, was weaved into the performances all three nights, with the first night representing water, the second night representing earth and tribalism, and the third night representing space. Each night there were tributes to the topic de jour, including each second set beginning with a poem by Chris "Lester" Ross, which was accompanied by a jam by SCI and a performance of some type by some modern dancers interpreting Lester's words. Many decided what to wear based on the theme of the night.
Musically, the first night opened with an energetic "Restless Wind" and featured a new Kang composition, "Inspiration," a stellar "Rhythm of the Road" (which included a verse from "Sesame Street"), and a 20-minute plus "Born on the Wrong Planet." The second set opened with the aforementioned Poem/jam/dance performance about water, which, quite naturally, segued into the best version of "Water" played to date. Water was truly washing over the crowd. The second set also featured guest appearances by David Hines of Steel Pulse on "Let Freedom Ring" and Bob Marley's "Get Up Stand Up." The set concluded with the crowd-pleaser and rocking, "On the Road," and the double encore consisted of the Nershi instrumental, "Drifting Away," followed by Peter Gabriel's "Shaking the Tree," which set the tone for the next night. After the show, many attended an aftershow performance by Vinyl at the Pine Theater.
Night two's earth/tribal themed night began with an ode to inclusivity, "Come As You Are," which featured some hot handed key playing by Kyle Hollingsworth. Set one also featured another new song entitled "Way Back Home," along with another guest performance -- members from Ozomatli joined the band on SCI's "MLT", which segued into "Revolution/Activate" and back into "MLT." The first set ended with the loving crowd-pleaser, "Search." Set two opened with another Lester Poem, SCI jam and more interpretative dancers, all of which focused on the earth/tribal theme. Musically, the second set featured awesome versions of "Black and White", "Round the Wheel," "Indian Creek," Keller Williams' "Howard," Bob Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb Blues," and the incendiary reggae/rave jam oriented tune, "SKORT" (a/k/a "Some Kind of Reggae Tune"). The encore was the inspirational Keith Mosely composition, "Joyful Sound," and featured Dr. Didg. After night two, many headed back over to the Pine Theater for an all-night rave with DJ Harry and Karl Denson's Tiny Universe (which didn't take the stage until 4:30 a.m. due to weather issues in NYC), who continued to play nearly non-stop until 7:30 a.m.
NYE began with a nice main stage, healthy helping of Keller Williams, whose set included the songs "Freek Girl," "Best Feeling," a stunning rendition of U2's "Beautiful Day", a twisted version of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" entitled "Fruity Pebbles," an ode to Bob Barker and The Price is Right, "Bob Rules", "Breathe," and David Bowie's "Golden Year's". Following K-Dub, SCI's performance opened with another Lester poem (this one about space), which segued into the Nershi favorite, "Outside Inside." The first set featured a beautifully stirring "Little Hands", a spectacularly hot, "Orange Blossom Special," a moving "Barstool" (which featured Gillian Nershi
and Liza Oxnard on backing vocals), and a fun and frolicking version of Weather Report's "Birdland" to end the set. Set two began close to midnight with an unbelievable and indescribable parade which, when combined with Lester's accompanying poem and SCI's jamming, told the story of evolution from single cells combining to form organisms, up to and including space travel and some alien partying. The parade featured a beautiful jellyfish and fish ballet to the tune of the "Blue Danube", a giant mushroom became a monolith (ala 2001: A Space Odessy), monkeys beat on skulls, birds and butterflies soared throughout the hall to a wonderful jam which gave way to the surprise cover of the night, Steve Miller's "Fly Like an Eagle." A horn led :"Also Sprach Zarathustra" followed, a spaceship full of aliens landed and released it's cargo into the crowd, a countdown ensued, the band broke into "Rollover" and thousands of silver balloons were dropped. This was easily the most elaborate NYE parade/celebration that this author has witnessed. The set continued with hot versions of "Mrs. Brown's Teahouse," "Jellyfish" (w/Keller Williams), and "Shine". The double encore was a full SCI/Keller version of "Kidney in a Cooler" and Bill Nershi's always touching "Smile."
SCI takes the next month off and kicks off their Winter Carnival 2001 at the Denver Fillmore with three shows starting on February 15. The Winter Carnival continues on to Vail, CO, WY, UT, NM, AZ, and concludes with seven shows in California (including three nights at the Warfield), a night in Eugene, Oregon, two nights in Seattle and three nights in British Columbia.
Marc Ross
Jambase "Cheezy" Correspondent
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