17th show last night and back to where it all began for me in 2009, Hello Wisconsin! There were highs (nudge nudge wink wink...errr) and there were some lows. First, I didn't realize that this wasn't the RATM show, I read the calendar wrong (ba dum tsss).

I thought that they blasted out of the gate strong with Fuego, I was like, okay, this could be really exciting, off to a GREAT start, locked in and getting the crowd fired up (I'm here for two more nights, folks! Please tip your servers!). Then they immediately slowed it down with Clear Your Mind, and I said okay, I have no idea where this thing is headed. The interplay of CYM into Twist was great, the counterpoint singing was on point (see what I did there?) but I felt like they didn't commit to the silliness enough that can get that sweet, sweet cosmic mojo flowing. Let me note, based on my limited number of shows, I thought that technically they sounded great, they were very, very tight. But about at the point when they started up Halley's Comet, my wife (the true vet, Alpine '98) and I looked at each other and asked, are we going to get another paint-by-the-numbers show here?

We were fortunate enough to get to Deer Creek on the spring tour for three nights and have been listening to the rest of the shows this year on LP (I just have no idea how this band makes any money ????), so we are quite familiar with this tour's setlists. If you checked the gap chart for last night's show (you clever statisticians you), you'll see that the average was over 12, but that was only because of Destiny Unbound, which had been waiting in the wings since last October. Side note- We were also at the phenomenal Deer Creek run last year, and I'm referring to the Saturday night show in particular. If you look at the gap chart for that one, it was at about a 10 but the energy and jams were so good that they could have played the entire SO album start to finish and it wouldn't have mattered. So to travel the width of a circle, we are hoping that they go deeper and/or wider the rest of the weekend, as the comment about this summer tour has been "Reliable, but safe".

Moving on, there were some wonderful jams sprinkled (Sparkled? Nope, still chasing) throughout the night. We're listening back to the show now and the songs other people have referenced as being solid (Moma, David Bowie is a must-listen as well) are what we are hoping for the rest of the weekend. I would like to point out that the section of the hill we were dancing in was very chill, and other than the Alpinist skills required to get around (Could we get a ski-lift put in? Just asking) I LOVE this venue.

Ultimately, it was really fun and I can't wait to see what happens the next two nights. Oh and I'm calling a cover open tonight...hmm... acapella I Am The Walrus due to the multiple Beatles songs they've been doing lately.

See ya out there!