After the awesome-but-not-totally-awesome near-best of early summer tour that was Deer Creek, Alpine I fell a little flat for me. It's a neat show, with high energy that permeates the playing all the way through, but where song selection and good-though-not-great improv elevated a similar show a night before, neither of those things really come into play here, so the result is yet another solid summer 2009 show that really isn't worth a backward glance in 2013 unless "Ghost" > "The Lizards" puts a smile on your face (and it should).
We kick off the first set with an oddly fiery and well-played "PYITE" (I love this song to death, but how often is it played live nowadays minus a lot of stops and starts?). There's a "Jim" that's equally high-energy, but then a loooooong "Stash" that just features a lot of aimless Trey wanking (I mean that negatively, in case that isn't obvious) and sort of stunts the momentum the first two songs built up. I love "Ya Mar" next, and Mike serious works this version over, but then "Gin" falls victim to the same problem as "Stash": too much Trey, not enough exploration. Between these two songs, the first half of this set is burdened with 25 minutes of "jamming" that's more or less a lot of Type I noodling that never coalesces around anything. I like "Train Song," and finally we get a version of "Farmhouse" where everyone remembers the chords, but that's about all worth mentioning in the rest of this set.
The second set opens with a well-played, if uninteresting, "Waves" > "Sample" pair and then a "Maze" that features some interesting work from Page (but then again, what "Maze" doesn't?). The centerpiece of this show is, arguably, the mid-set "Ghost" > "The Lizards" pairing. I had high hopes for the "Ghost," considering the "Ghost"s of early summer 2009 past, and while this one doesn't necessarily reach the heights of the others, it's a decently engaging long jam, which is something we haven't seem from the band at this point in the run for quite some time. Sadly, we don't get another multi-movement improvisational masterpiece from this "Ghost," but it's well-played and not just a simple Trey-shred-fest...and it features a hell of a segue into "The Lizards."
I also appreciate the novelty of the brief "YEM," which suddenly and smoothly moves into "NICU" at the 12:00 mark (shortly after the trampolines). This works well not just as a gimmick, and it's nice to see something interesting done with the usually monolithic (though admittedly always-enjoyable) "YEM," much like the "YEM" > "Wilson" > "YEM" sandwich we saw a few shows ago. I wish the band would still mess with these compositional sacred cows nowadays, honestly.
"NICU" has a bass solo instead of the usual "Leo" solo, and Mike rips it in his typical fashion. That in and of itself makes this a version worth mentioning. The follow-up "Caspian" is oddly euphoric and energetic, with Trey going straight into the blissed-out high-fretboard stuff and not letting up. To me, this is sort of against the spirit of the song, so it rubbed me a bit the wrong way (I like darker, murkier "Caspian" jams), but hey, it's their song, not mine...
"Fire" and "Character Zero" pair up to close the show with some guitar pyrotechnics, but this late in the run, neither is anything we haven't already heard (though, technically speaking, I suppose this is the first "Fire" of 2009).
Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed by this show, but word on the street is the Alpine II tour closer is way better, so, I suppose I should go find out...
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