Posts made by Johnny Love

@jeenot that VBD > Hollywood > Eyes is other level shit right there

@603Brett thanks Brett! Wish fall tour was presenting more opportunities for us to cross paths. Soon enough my man!

Setlist, Attendance, and Recordings for: 2019-07-11 - Stone Pony - Asbury Park, NJ

When Summer Tour dates dropped and my eyes beheld the glory of a homestate show I shit precisely three gold bricks and snagged a ticket lickety split. Especially in light of the fact I missed 2018-01-24 for a family emergency, which was all good in the end but thanks for asking. When 7/11 heaven finally arrived I struggled to stay focused at work and watched the hours melt away with ever increasing glee.

Summer storm clouds opened up that afternoon, dumping wave after wave of desalinated ocean onto sprawling Mall-topia. I didn't even blink. Nor give two seconds pause when my phone started blowing up with flash flood emergency warnings every two minutes. Nah, no problem, I thought. Driving in the rain is like driving in the sun, just slower with more ping-pang-plip-plup sounds on the roof and hood and the thikk thukk thikk thukk metrinome of the wipers summoning Chuck Jonson-level lyrics and Vanilla Ice-worthy verses. *

These confident thoughts played out just fine for the first half-hour or so of driving. But at some point The Garden State Parkway turned into raging class IV rapids of virtually non-existent visibility and completely reckless and intellectually questionable NJ drivers slamming into each other left and right. I swear I must have passed 6-7 accidents in 60 miles. Lightning shook a sky evil as the eyes of Vigo the Carpathian. Blinding waterfalls exploded over the median from north-bound passings and cascaded down my windshield like I was sinking underwater. Confident thoughts quickly became less confident then bowed their heads in shame at the thought that I could miss yet another Asbury show, this time because I died driving in weather that even Noah would have said, "Shit, bro, park the Ark, we ain't goin' nowhere tonight boiiii!"

But who the fuck gives a shit about my rainy drive. Seriously, John, get to the motherfuckin' point. I rolled into The Stone Pony around 8:30 and drank a cold Heineken with all the joy of a man who just cheated wet death his slippery dues. I hung by the bar on the right hand side of the stage and let the music wash over me. I quickly recognize the vibes coming at me as Double Time and sure enough Brian jumps in with "DAY BREAKS!!!!!! ON THE OTHER SIDE!!!!!" I'm thinking for sure this is a second set opener but the homeboy at the bar next to me reassures me there were only 1 or 2 songs he can't remember before this. The verses are delivered with average energy then as the jam began to row away I let my mind be swept off by a slightly menacing undertow they put in this one. My soul claps its cloven feet in delight at catching my first Double Time.

Let's step back a sec. This review sucks because it's longer than a CVS receipt and just as useless and I wasn't even there to describe the first two fucking songs. So fucking sue me, you miserable pieces of... Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, yes. Some Spafford shit. So I missed an opening Windmill, which I would have liked to hear because it's really a spectacular song from the Prescott canon and I've never seen it before. But, oh well, and this one turns out to be just average so I'm not too pissed and just glad I didn't die on the Parkway with the other idiots.

The boys leave behind the effortlessly revolving turbines of Holland for the sweltering concrete jungles of Kingston. So, time-out again, if you didn't already hate me for writing a long-ass review about nothing and not even seeing the songs I was supposed to review, hold my beer. You're really about to hate my ass . I don't like the Exodus cover. Not just this one either. I mean, musically they can be alright, but it's asking a fucking lot. Let me splain myself to you, Lucy with a head full of lucy. First off, Red is a phenomenal singer and his voice has ranges, but singing the words of the Prophet is a tall order and it just don't come out right for me. Secondly, I'm no rassclot SJW no bumbaclot Babylon PC police man. But it's fucking Exodus. I mean, sure, the song could be any psycho-spiritual journey from darkness to light, but really this song is a historically grounded movement of enslaved human beings from chains to slums to awakening. It's hard for me to embrace the feeling of "We the generation tread through great tribulation" in the midst of, well... us. Sorry, not sorry. That said, listening to it on Nugs, this jams got some sweet spots and I'm sorry I missed it. I'm just an asshole who a) can't get to the show on time; and b) can't get to the point.

Lonely was up next. Another first grab for me. Damn, this Heineken tastes like Freyja juice. It wasn't as blistering as the best of the Cam.0 era but it's a long steady groove and some serious dancing cut loose in the Stone Pony. Not me. I'm still drinking Freyja juice in shock that I'm not dead. Gimme a minute, aight?

While the band tinkers and tunes in the gap after Lonely, Brian mentions that his Mom is in the house and she waves and jumps up and down from the back as Spaffnerds gazes in wonder at the woman who made little Bri-Bri who is about to play a fantastic cover of Take Your Mama dedicated to his mom. I like the way they've slowed down the opening lyrics. Nothing much to note here other than it was sweet and fun and Momma Moss got lots of high-fives as Nerds stumbled into set break.

Wandering around and saying hello to strange familiar faces. Is your hair real hair? How come nobody remembers what they opened with? You're peeing way too long, buddy- lay off the White Claw.

I sally up toward Red Side Bread Side for Set II. Lovesick Melody is the opener. I love how some Spafford songs hook you in the opening seconds. This song is one of many reasons why Jordan songs are the shit. When we get to the "Woah-oh-ohs" I'm reminded how Jordan's mouth unhinges like a boa constrictor when he sings. But that pales in comparison to when he gets to "TWOPLANETSWILLCOLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!" The drop into Soil, always smooth and sweet, is played extra softly by Brian. Back into the groove Brian hits some nice solos with great tones. Red and Nick get most of the credit for taking the rest of the jam to outerspace. Around 9 min Nick starts to work the kick and e drums and Red slowly builds into a nasty synth phrase that hits the peaks around 11. Standing Red side he is calmly in control but feeling the fire. Jordan quietly bangs away in time.

In The Eyes of Thieves comes next and they give the intro a nice little stretch. Then the Stone Pony becomes spun Soul Train in an instant as the funk takes off. Red and Nick continue to have so much fun playing off each other this becomes the Get A Room, Guys Jam. Nick lays some gentle syncopation in and Red picks it up and and the two go back and forth for minutes. Brian plays with his underwater tones and layers the melody up into a peak. They return to the song structure to seemingly bring it to a close but Red has different ideas around 14 minutes and goes for it. Brian drops back for a moment and lets Red, Jordan, and Nick serve up a soulful rhythm and blues. Red is really feeling second set; he's taking chances and not looking back. Seeing this chemistry igniting in Red is reason to believe in the glorious future. They groove for a while, peak once more, and wrap it up.

The opening bass and beat of My Road (My Road) lifts me higher for another first grab! I won't say that Spafford texted me what I wanted to hear and I texted MRMR wouldn't be bad and that's why they played it but I know it's what you're thinking and that's just fine. Red's voice sounds a little weaker than usual but maybe it's because his brain is still climbing down from the nonverbal frenzy he'd been cooking up for the last 40 minutes. The groove is excellent, everyone plays tight and with gusto. After the singing is left behind Jordan finds a perfect tone and steps up in the pocket. Seeing this chemistry igniting in Jordan is reason to believe in the glory glorious future.

Encore time. What other first grab could I possibly want to make my death-defying night any more behemoth? Dirtbath -- what a good idea, Spafford! Talk about songs that sell you in seconds. This song opens better than most songs ever progress to be, and it's 27 minute journey is just beginning. I don't have the stamina or vocabulary to describe it all in any real detail. So let's just play a game called, O, Dirtbath, O Dirtbath, what shall we call thee?

• Section 1: Running to the Bathroom Urgently/Ode to Joy (00:00)
• Section 2: The Spaffnational Anthem (05:20)
• Section 3: The Dirty Pink Panther Peeks through Tiny Keyholes/Viking Face Fucker (08:39)
• Section 4: Travolta's Raviolis (very different from Todd' Tots) (11:39)
• Section 5: Pink Floyd's Underwear ... Falling Away (22:46)
• Section 6: Return to the Bathroom Urgently/Mud Tub Outro (23:35)

Travolta's Raviolis went for a ride tonight, extending DB an extra few minutes beyond its normal length. Everybody's keyed in, but I just remember staring at Nick thinking that is as much dancing as a sitting person can do. He was putting his whole body into his craft and completely lost in the moment. There might as well have been no one in The Stone Pony but four friends, pouring it out there for the sheer fucking thrill of it.

Brian doesn't want to end Mud Tub Outro and keeps going and going and going like he thinks he's Tcachyk's high hat and we wish the boys could play forever the jam could jam forever but every storm ends.

Great review, homie. I think your take on the Be Strange intro is spot on

Well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

Dig the review, Ross! Thanks for sharing your adventure with us... what a big moment in Spaff history.. glad you got to soak it all in

Great review! I'm hoping to get a cleaner listen of the show.. sounds like a lot of exciting moments. Love the Impressions sammich. While Nick certainly reigns the Untz, I think his Jazz chops will be on more and more display down the road

Great review @Jeenot! You have a gift for describing the sonic, social, and cerebral vibes of this music. Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to listen to this IAB>Down Under opening sequence

I use a wet vac to gather it all up from the venue floor, then when I get home I re-listen to the show and reverse the flow on the wet vac to spray my face all over the Walls are coming down, they're crumbling!

Memphis in the Meantime from the Culture Room 2/21/2019 is OUTSTANDING. Both Memphises from this tour are the HOT SHIT

"I loudly expressed my desire for something dark and dirty."

this would make the world's most bad-ass epitath.

great review, brother. love your ability to find the perfect adjectives for the energies and frequencies generated by these hombres

@jeenot said in Outstanding Versions of Spafford Songs, Best Performances, Recommended Versions of Songs, etc...:

2/16/19 x2 > MRMR > x2

This band is on fire.

@dontjudgedave that bar was dope ... check out the music that dude I was drinking with makes ... appropriately strange for a wonderfully strange night
www.greatfox.org

@Phish99 that would be cool. I’d also love to see them drop another full-length studio jam a la abaculus

@Philthy amazing review and sick photos taboot! What a two-night run you enjoyed

@damian if you're trying to butter me up before we visit later this month, well-played, sir. Well-played.

Don’t overlook at Memphis either ... ooooeeee the slow untz is nasty

@GeorgeBailey said in Outstanding Versions of Spafford Songs, Best Performances, Recommended Versions of Songs, etc...:

Don’t overlook that Hollywood while you’re dancing around your house to The Reprise!

Setlist, Attendance, and Recordings for: 2019-02-08 - Union Transfer - Philadelphia, PA

Your trip starts with a drive down the interminally long-feeling Turnpike with sunset in the direction of Philly toward which you cruise under high cirrostratus canvases splashed with quiet flames of exquisite light that must be either magical or chemical in nature. It is a homecoming of sorts to a place of vivid remembered experiences rather than a residence of past inhabitance. Long ago nights cruising into the lights and shadows of the colonial capital in chiaroscuro to visit friend (RIP) and ex-girlfriend (LIP), your side-panel speakers shaking with the hot hot music the hot music.

The bar around the corner according to @dontjudgedave is a proximal, commendable dive. You sit there and drink with Todd who sythesizes music as Great Fox - check out Roll Up A Tract for some funky apostasy. The fine folks from Trestle Inn flip egg whites in their sours, line whiskies along their mirrors, and dim lights for happy hours.

Roll out down dark block. Enter the chamber and Transfer into Union with other nerds for Out of the Beardspace. Seven pieces of awesome. Big prog-fusion sounds. Two drums, one percussion, two six-strings, bass, eighty-eight keys and then some. Check them out and their South Jersey Beardfest. Along the rail line up Cam side slam side with the NE Crew, NY crew to exchange tales of recent days and nights of flame from Spafford. Get warm to Headhunters as anticipation rides the crest of energy awakening in bodies. Here come four illustrious shapes onto the stage and a change in house music. Yesssss!

Spaff shall
Proceed
And continue
To rock the mic
…

My only show of winter tour, I was hoping for things I hadn’t heard and hard jams. Philly did not disappoint from the get-go.

My first live Memphis In the Meantime was a 20-minute slow cook. Jordan owns the Tennessee vocals. It was a strong even jam backed by Cam. Brian does some shredding, of course, but Jordan leads on bass most of the way allowing Brian and Red to play around him. 8-9 minutes on becomes one of the highlight sequences of the show with the boys digging into a deep groove. Cam wins MVP when he drops the tempo and then switches on the “SLOW UNNNNNNTZ” as @crappygeorge announces with his face all twisted up like he just smelled some filthy doodoo. Red starts to lick People (so to speak) with some six minutes to go before the fadeout is complete and it’s

People time! Red drops the vocals and everyone is dancing and looking around at their friends and feeling freaky good. I receive a wave of Nerd love from @603Brett then Red takes an early solo. When the band steps back in the Ben Factor is in full infrared effect as Brian hits the first peak before Spafford brings the song to its romping terminus.

With scarcely a second to catch your breath, the boys launch into Virtual Bean… oh, wait a minute, that’s not what actually happened. Up next is Fuel. While there is a precipitous drop in the room’s physical energy with the opening notes, Brian is greeted with enthusiastic cheers of love and appreciation from the crowd as he hits the first chorus of a clean, crisp, uplifting, three-minute palette cleanser. (Folks, you’re going to need to save some energy for later. Trust the Spafford.)

Photo Credit: Ron Adelberg

The opening keys of thieves begin to jingle. The room responds to Red in kind and gets ready to rock. The band brings a tight In the Eyes of Thieves jam, as usual, and Jordan and Cam (more cowbell!) really start to pick it up about 7 minutes in. Brian responds the only way he knows how by slowly steadily building tensions upon tensions on his fret board like the world is about to end. Then the boys settle back into the song for a bit and follow Jordan into another jam before a sweet little untz-lite ending.

I am thrilled to hear the opening notes of the third-ever Settled In. I love this Radiohead-esque song that blossoms from a breathtakingly beautiful love poem into a nasty hellfire jam with a guitar peak that would make David Gilmour weep. If this song was a tattoo I would get it on my face in an impulse move right now. Big ups to Chris Imburgia for taping this show and capturing the berserk hornmad crowd at the end.

Pretty awesome first set. Perfect time for a little break.

With masterful set-list wizardry, Spafford opens set deux with The Reprise, completing the legendary second-set-opening America from the last time they were in Philly some 18 moons ago. This long-awaited fin delivers mightily. I occasionally look over my shoulder from Cam side slam side to watch the entire hall of nerds go crazy. Let me put on my Captain Obvious pants for just a moment here and say that all these tapes and soundboards are amazing, but there is just no comparison to the boys turned up to 11. Brian is wearing a Dead Skull shirt and the first 20 minutes of this jam have that kind of a feel to me. Red wins MVP for the last eight minutes or so as he colors over Cam riding the high-hat hard. Then the jam slows and fades into...

Photo Credit: Ron Adelberg

Hard Way. Debuted just a few days prior, this song has easy-swaying reggae and lyrical verses punctuated by heavy latin-flecked instrumental breaks. I liked it more in person than I did listening to the debut recording. Everybody sounded good on it. Feels, perhaps, a bit unfinished at this point but plenty of potential.

Spafford is King of the Cover, IMHO, and I was thrilled to catch the second-ever Dirty Laundry. When they take a break from jamming (as earlier with Fuel) to play a song cleanly, I am struck by their poise and virtuosity. This song kicks ass and even when he fumbled the lyrics for a measure, Red unified the party with his brilliant vocals on this one.

Already 45 minutes into the set, I had no idea there was another 45 minutes ahead before the boys’ first bow.

Leave The Light On was up next. While this was a song I had burned out on a little bit, Jordan has brought some incredible new energy to it and his early bass solos the last two performances have been insane. Out of that solo Red brings a big Feeling into the room and the first jam soars to great heights. Jam #2 after the happy doot-doots follows its normal wavelengths and caps off in a blistering Brian solo and final chorus with the entire crowd leaping 10 feet in the air and singing along.

Photo Credit: Ron Adelberg

I love when I hear that opening train beat and know I’m heading to Hollywood. This song is another prime example of Spafford’s uncanny ability to write catchy, deeply moving songs, hitch an audience up, and take everyone to unknown jammy places. Probably my jam of the night, this one flowers euphorically for a while before lacing across the sky like electrical current and whipping up a frenzied storm as Brian and Cam egg each other on. At some point I’m pretty sure I caught Brian mouth to Cam “faster” and Cam rages the jam right into the segue of the night >

Ain’t That Wrong. Cam explodes us into the song, which is fitting because I remember thinking during his first few months in the line-up that this was his go-to song. Between the 4-5min mark Brian starts playing with an effect that I’ve been hearing more of during this run… another time I recall is during Buffalo Tots (around the 11min mark.) I wish he had explored the theme a little longer here because it is a cool-ass sound, but no complaints as Cam and Jordan speed it up and turn the place into a full-on dance party to ride the rest of the set out.

The crowd is all growls and applause and the attempt to articulate the preceding 90minutes to one’s show neighbors is nigh impossible.

OOOOoooooooeeeeeeEEEEEE! For encore, I witness my first-ever Spafford debut with a 6-minute Comfortable. This feel-good song is the opposite of Numb with Red warmly delivering the keys and vocals as the boys lay rim shots and rhythm guitar and a gripping bass hook to keep it moving along the whole time.

Many of us were waiting and calling for more debuts and more varied setlists... we must have been good little Nerds in 2018 cuz we've hit pay dirt so far in 2019. Thank you Spafford. Thank you Nerds. See you soon.

Photo Credit: Ron Adelberg

+1 for that VBD

@jeenot said

+1 for 2/2/19 People, but VBW seems like the star of the show to me. Euphoric as god-damn.

@Philthy awesome man, love to have you review DC! I’ll email you the deetz