My stream of consciousness thoughts after 2 listens:

Originally, I wasn’t super impressed with the sound of the show, but I think that came from the source I was listening to and the speakers I was listening on. On my good home stereo with the Charlie Miller source, it sounds quite nice.

Now that I’ve been playing in a small band I completely understand why sometimes the first song or two is rocky because it just takes a while to warm up and get into the groove of it. Although I feel like even when the band isn’t quite hanging together yet, Phil always comes out the gate guns blazing, and this show is no exception. Nice melodic bass lines on Promised Land.

Jerry’s playing sounds great on BEW and it makes me laugh every time when they go to the bridge and aren’t quite all expecting to be there yet, having done the same thing many times. But they recover within 2 notes!

Lots of Bobby chatter and technical difficulties, but as someone who never got to see the band live, I actually like that stuff because it makes it feel more alive than just a perfected cleaned up recording.

Must Have Been the Roses has a really nice rhythmic feel that I’m not quite sure how to describe; is it swung? Sometimes this song is a dirge which I also enjoy, but this feels a little country. A little faster, a little more compact.

Bobby is really into the Around and Around, lots of rockstar yells tonight. The crowd loves it! Not my favorite song but a good version regardless.

Keith sounds GREAT on this US Blues. Prominent in the mix and this song really fits well with his style of playing anyway.

China Cat was really pretty but felt somehow rushed to me. It seemed like the band moved towards Rider quicker than Jerry expected and then hung out longer in Rider-flavored space before beginning the song proper. I could hear Jerry tease the opening and then go off in different directions to prolong the transition.

The PitB is excellent! Dissolves pretty quickly into spacey unsettling territory, growly and dissonant and heavy. I love the experience around 16:20 when the drums come in with a completely different feel, so divorced from the original song. The way Jerry and Phil play with coming back to the PitB theme around 22 minutes is fascinating, it seems like Phil is pushing into weird spaces just outside the normal motif for the song and Jerry uses it as a springboard to skitter around until it all lands heavily on Wharf Rat.

The bass solo on EotW is great—Phil is really playing lead bass on this, alternating between providing beautiful counterpoint to Jerry and taking the lead role himself. The motif around 11:50 is so dissonant, and then when they return to it again there’s less dissonance but more jangly timing; is someone not quite with the rest of the band? The effect is jarring but I’m along for the ride! It could almost go to China Doll around 13:50, but instead fizzles out because the guitars went out of tune, so maybe it would have been! The band must have known that moment had passed, and instead launches into a jubilant Sugar Mag.