I was actually quite impressed with this show live. During the soundcheck, I was privileged to hear bits of the two songs listed in addition to hearing them playing the Harry Potter theme while I was behind the venue in perfect position to hear. It certainly got me pumped for the show to come.

I managed to score General Admission tickets, and when the show started, was just a few people from the stage, almost right in front of Mike. This put me in prime position to really get into the show.

I'm all right with KDF, but it wasn't too impressive. Just a fun tune. Sample in a Jar is one of my favorites of the songs played regularly, so I was pretty into it, but Ocelot is far from being my favorite, so it killed my groove a little bit. Paul and Silas was played as a request for some guy Trey met walking down the street (a guy near me actually claimed to be that guy), and it wasn't played amazingly well, but still brought the fun level way up from Ocelot. I'm glad I got to see Windy City, as they've not played it since. It wasn't a spectacular tune or anything, but it's nice to have seen the only performance. I will say that much for it. Not their worst by any stretch of the imagination.

After Windy City, the Chicago crowd was treated to a spectacular The Curtain With, which got everyone in my vicinity extremely pumped. That was definitely one of the high points of the first set. Train Song, Gumbo, and Heavy Things were all played well, making for a fun first set. Time Turns Elastic was one of the better played versions I've heard, but it was still pretty text book. I could have done with a better set one closer.

After set break, I was a little bit further back (8-10 people from the stage), but was closer to Trey than Mike this time. Backwards Down the Number Line played for 14+ minutes, and was a great set opener. I was loving it, and so was the rest of the crowd. When Carini started, the entire crowd as one started raging. It was a beautiful thing to see. Gotta Jibboo was fun, and Theme From the Bottom was pretty good. Wilson > 2001 was absolutely amazing. The lights in the arena, a soccer stadium, were mind-blowing. Chalk Dust Torture and Harry Hood were both absolutely superb, and Page shone beautifully in The Squirming Coil.

For the encore, Loving Cup is certainly one of my favorite encore songs, and I was still pumped and high on adrenaline following the show.

Set one could have afforded to be stronger, but Set Two was pretty ragin'. 7.5/10.0