This 9/1 show is really really good. I’d put this up with 2025 MSG (and maybe better). One of the best I’ve ever heard. Maybe the best balance of songs of any live show I’ve seen. And thankfully no Media, which I could really do without at MSG.
Royal is just so joyous of an opener, and Yeti is the perfect party song. But then the band gets serious with Borne, which starts so airy and sweet, and then savenger gets serious again, a savory contemplation. It’s the salt you need after sugar. Peach then hits as a perfect palette cleanser for a transition to Jed Stone, a Workingman’s Dead homespun carnival ride that’s both fry bread and hot chocolate with a pork rind topper.
When it gets too moody they bring you back up. and when they get too loose and silly they hit you with some real soul.
I loved Frost, though I found the setlist a bit too much on the heavy emotional side—I could have used a dustin hoffman or iguana to offset the moodiness of the second set. Then the show in reno they were back to lighter more melodic stuff. I love my buttered rum (guilty pleasure) but with a healthy dose of sin. This show showcases both.
Even with 9/1’s Big Modern to start off set 2, which jam is not my fav (and kinda gets lost), the post place is so beautiful and precious it cures any meandering. Then a really upbeat so ready (not that slow ready nonsense) that flowers into an awesome Goontz, with a sublime and heavenly Arise, the amaretto after a lingering meal.
Factory Fiction to close (really a second encore) has that perfect ying and yang, the sweet and sour, of catchy beautiful melodies, moodiness, heart, and movement this show has in spades. I could swim around all day in this beautiful isolation.
A+ Goose here.
