@uctweezer Well done sir. It's definitely refreshing to get a new person's perspective on the 'official' blog section. Not that the usual suspects aren't doing a tremendous job, though, fwiw I think they've gone a lot deeper recently and really stepped up their game. So your review is right up there quality-wise.

There were certainly some uneven moments but I felt the highs greatly exceeded the lows, sometimes in the same song (-7). I wasn't exactly thrilled when Caspian and Farmhouse started up, yet these versions are given the attention that a second set placement deserves. Also, one of the patterns is medium-jam, couple of songs, then medium jam. So there was less anxiety about the whole song placement thing than previous years for me.

As to the 'woo' bit, at the risk of ad nauseum repetition (see forum), I simply don't see this staying around too much longer. The good: in the jam portions it a musical breather that blocks the ambient > new song that we are all so familiar with. So yea it's a bit of a crutch, but if it allows them a reset and then more refreshing jamming then it's not the worst thing ever. The bad: taking the band out of synch which you can clearly hear on multiple occasions. The ugly: I can't help but think absolutely inappropriate audience participation (clapping during Coil's outro coda) is encouraged by the 'wooing.'

I don't see it going on much longer unless it is explicitly encouraged by the band with stop/start jamming, and certainly not in the actual song portions of the show (composed section of Reba, e.g.) because the band has the power to play over the 'wooings' rather than succumbing to them. There are actually quite a lot of composed silences in the catalogue and I simply cannot imagine the woo taking over every single time. And let's face it a couple of shows worth of post-Tweezer afterglow isn't the end of the world.

Anyway, I thought your tone was exactly on-point: basking in the sublime moments and noting with objectivity some of the struggles. Excellent point on the show as a whole being more than specific merit of parts, as well. Thanks for the attention to detail and a helluva first go at it.