Portland, ME - 7/27

[Bill in CT]

I'm in for this show. I am hoping to check out the Bissell Brothers taproom the day of the show. Their beer is highly touted and I haven't tried it yet.

[Gaetzi]

Coastal Maine in July is about as nice as it gets.

[uncle rickey]

99% sure we're in for this one too.

[211poundsofpork]

Coastal Maine in July is about as nice as it gets.

I'll second that - been vacationing Down East for years and years. Oddly enough, the only concert(s) I have seen in this awesome state took place way way way up north near the end of Rt. 1 in Aroostook County when Phish held a couple of festivals there in the 90's.

[beantownbubba]

Their beer is highly touted and I haven't tried it yet.

It's all about the lobster, bill.

99% sure we're in for this one too.

I'm taking that as a yes and I really hate to be disappointed.

[tinnitus photography]

Their beer is highly touted and I haven't tried it yet.

It's all about the lobster, bill.

canadian lobster is the same as american lobster.

same can't be said about the beer.

[Gaetzi]

Maybe its common knowledge, maybe its a lesser known fact but lobsters that live in warm water don't have claws.

[uncle rickey]

99% sure we're in for this one too.

I'm taking that as a yes and I really hate to be disappointed.

Ok, we're 100% now! Tix purchased. This will be fun. There are so many good dining options in downtown Portland.

[beantownbubba]

Their beer is highly touted and I haven't tried it yet.

It's all about the lobster, bill.

canadian lobster is the same as american lobster.

same can't be said about the beer.

Is this a non sequitur or just over my head?

Ok, we're 100% now! Tix purchased. This will be fun. There are so many good dining options in downtown Portland.

There's the Uncle Rickey (and CG) that I know and love!

[PonyGirl]

[/quote]canadian lobster is the same as american lobster.

same can't be said about the beer.[/quote]

Is this a non sequitur or just over my head?[/quote]

Canadian lobsters would beg to differ and prefer not to be considered American, which is why they try to sport some kind of maple leaf motif whenever they travel and why they spell "flavour" and "colour" as demonstrated. They are also of the opinion that those who dismiss the beer of their land have probably not imbibed very much of it, particularly not the good stuff. As much as Canadian lobsters are fans of clean oceans and were hoping that their southern counterparts would continue to participate in the Paris Agreement, they will always feel a loyal kinship to their American relatives and have been known to be particularly supportive and protective of their clawless, Floridan cousins. They apologize for the boorish behaviour of their goose compatriots.

[cortez the killer]

Glorious & free

[PonyGirl]

So cute! God, I'd have to have like 30 lobotomies to be that sweet.

The best, freshest bourbon sour you will ever have is fresh lemon juice, Woodford, water, ice and yes, maple syrup. So it is true. We do drink maple syrup (The real stuff only). I'm less keen on the Molson products though.

Anyway, back to Maine. Spent some summers there. Jeesum Crow, love that place.

[tinnitus photography]

It's all about the lobster, bill.

canadian lobster is the same as american lobster.

same can't be said about the beer.

Is this a non sequitur or just over my head?

Try to tell the difference between a steamed lobster or lobster roll made with Canadian-sourced beasts vs American. You can't.

Now try to tell the difference between Bissell and Labatt's or Miller.

[tinnitus photography]

Also it's a giant pain in the ass to edit quotes on an iPad.

[beantownbubba]

canadian lobster is the same as american lobster.

same can't be said about the beer.

Is this a non sequitur or just over my head?

Try to tell the difference between a steamed lobster or lobster roll made with Canadian-sourced beasts vs American. You can't.

Now try to tell the difference between Bissell and Labatt's or Miller.

I'm not arguing the point, though I think a taste test is called for. I just don't follow bill's original post to my response to your response. He mentions a Maine beer. I mention lobster, implicitly Maine, but I don't even say that. Then you say there's a difference between Canadian and American beer but not Canadian and American lobster. Eh?

[PonyGirl]

I googled Canadian lobster vs Maine lobster and of course there is controversy, as well as many impassioned opinions, which I guess I should have expected. I do know, from personal experience, that Maine lobster has a soft shell in summer, so it is less of a pain in the ass to eat (due to temperature differences I learned, as they are the same species of lobster). Otherwise, I’m with Bubba; one or even multiple taste tests are in order as both areas of the Atlantic produce absolutely delicious lobster.

In terms of beer, comparing our mainstream, corporate, sports arena beer to your craft brew is pointless and unfair. Both countries have been brewing many different types of craft beer/micro brew for decades and it’s both easy and fun to find fantastic beer all over the place, irrespective of boarders.

[CooleyGirl]

Rock show tonight! Don't miss the Seratones!

[Crustyharp]

Rock show tonight! Don't miss the Seratones!

Aye! Crusty ... back from the dead!

[beantownbubba]

Rock show tonight! Don't miss the Seratones!

Aye! Crusty ... back from the dead!

Crusty!! Hope to meet you tonite.

[uncle rickey]

Ramon Casiano
Darkened Flags on the Cusp of Dawn
Uncle Frank
Goode's Field Road
Surrender Under Protest
Ronnie and Neil
Women Without Whiskey
Ever South
First Air of Autumn
My Sweet Annette
Marry Me
Sinkhole
3 Dimes Down
Tales Facing Up
Made Up English Oceans
Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife
A Ghost to Most
Filthy and Fried
The Righteous Path
Zip City
What It Means
Birthday Boy
Let There Be Rock
Shit Shots Count
Hell No, I Ain't Happy

[Crustyharp]

Crusty!! Hope to meet you tonite.

Hey, man - Just got home and saw this now on the 'puter (too wound to sleep just yet) ... I don't own an iAnything (still a flip phoner) so I'm not much for webbing on the road. If you saw a big, tall, white-haired guy with a big grin, that was me; wife and I were at one of the high tops right down by Jay's corner.

SPEAKING OF JAY:

Sweet Baby Jay Effing Swiss Army Knife Gonzalez is the hardest-working man in rawk, I swear.

And furthermore:

[*]What is more infectious: Matt's grin or his groove?
[*]Brad's ability to make you flinch from a distance before he hits that beat - that is some powerful stuff, right there.
[*]Cooley laying down a lead that was butter-smooth and breathy like a jazzbo sax player at 3AM ... then slamming the pedal flat to the floor for the next song, fishtailing that sumbitch sideways without ever touching the shoulder - cool as cool gets.
[*]Swear you could see steam rolling off Patterson ... I'd vote for him for anything as long as he kept making music.

Jesus ... what a night.

Got to sit in on soundcheck and say hey to the boys after (Cole Taylor is a wicked good soul) ...

Damn.

What a night.

[beantownbubba]

A very wise man once said "always go to the show." The Hartford/Portland shows are a perfect example. Same band, same instruments, same singers, what? 2/3 or more the same songs (i didn't actually count), 2 similarly sized venues and yet 2 very different, each great in their own way, rock shows. Too tired to do it justice right now so just a couple of quick thoughts/reactions:

The "encore portion" of the show, say from "Zip City" on, just smoked, like burned the house down smoked. In fact, they played "Burning Down the House" after the band left the stage The crowd was absolutely ecstatic by the end of the show.

It's been a while since I've paid proper respect to Cooley's incredible and unique phrasing and it's really a thing to behold. It also struck me tonite that "Righteous Path" is Patterson's most Cooley-like phrasing.

I love this band.

[beantownbubba]

Funny you should mention the groove, Crusty, because that's the best way I've come up with to describe the differences between the shows: Hartford rocked, Portland was more like an extended groove, until the point at it rocked the fuck out (see my description of the "encore" in my previous post).

I thought the first 3 songs got over on the strength of them being really good songs but the energy and that mystical thing known as "the rock" were somewhat absent. This was most notable to me on "Darkened Flags" which I think needs a lot of energy and rock to fulfill its promise.

But then came "Goode's Field Road" which in its "modern" incarnation is kind of a funk groove and that really lit a fire and established a groove under the band. The guys from Parliament/Funkadelic would no doubt do it differently but I doubt that they could do it any better. The rhythm section (which at times pretty much included all 5 guys) was outstanding and Patterson really drove it home. He said something along the lines of "when times are hard, when the economy sucks, it's personal not political and we all do the best we can and sometimes we just fuck up." I thought that was a pretty good one sentence summation of Patterson's last 20 yrs of songwriting. The personal/political line echoed his comments from the night before and he went in that direction again during "What It Means" (see below).

From "Goode's Field" right up to somewhere around "Righteous Path" or "Zip City" the band had that groove thing going as I've tried to describe above. It was great, and it was different from the night before which made it a little more interesting for those of us who attended both shows (well, at least for me, I didn't discuss this aspect w/ anyone else). There were enough of the same songs to establish continuity and provide small differences if you were looking for them and enough different songs to keep everything fresh, provide some nice surprises and feed the momentum. They kept the "Surrender"/"Ronnie & Neil" and "Annette"/"Marry Me" pairings together which I thought was as great this time as it was the night before

All the different songs (compared to Hartford) really hit the spot: "Tales" for rarity, "Ghost" because I hadn't heard it in a while, "Righteous" because I love that song and it was a damn righteous version (sorry, had to say that), and the final four which were both surprising ("Birthday" and "Shit Shots") and flat out great (all of them, maybe "Hell No" even a little more than the others). As we got towards the 2 hour mark I was wondering how they were going to squeeze in "KKK" and it turned out that they didn't, understandable w/ the time constraints and as always it would be hard to pick any of the others to leave out, but I felt a little disappointed for those who haven't heard it yet because I really enjoyed it on Wednesday. Patterson has really figured out "Righteous Path" and as I wrote last nite, it struck me that his phrasing moves a little in Cooley's direction for that one and I like that idea (so hopefully it's real and not my imagination).

Before "What It Means" Patterson fleshed out and explained his previous comments on "it's personal, not political" and I thought he did a very good job getting across the idea that we all have the opportunity to be a good or decent person and affect lives that way. Patterson and the band then proceeded to kick ass on the song.

The final part of the set reminded me of some previous shows from back in the day when the band apparently said "fuck the slow ones tonite" and just roared for 2.5 hours. They just kept ratcheting it up and like i said last nite the crowd was transported (other than some assholes in the back who were annoying all night long - that's what I get for getting there at 9:14 for a 9:15 show). On the whole, the band, especially Patterson and the audience continued the mutual love affair that has always characterized Portland shows.

I mentioned that Jay barely played guitar during the first half of Wednesday's show so of course he played a ton of guitar from the start of this one LOL (I'm not suggesting cause & effect, just noting the irony or coincidence). As always, great contributions from him including a couple of nice keyboard solos in addition to the guitar slinging plus a big contribution to that groove thing, mostly on organ but also on guitar. I guess it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing (after all, where does the groove come from if not the rhythm section?) but I thought Matt and Brad were even more than usually spectacular on Thursday. In response to Crusty's observation, after Wednesday's show I had been thinking that there was less of "Matt being Matt" than I'm used to, but it was all there on Thursday including that 2 step shuffle thing he does As I mentioned on Wednesday, Patterson is playing more lead guitar but what I forgot to mention on Wednesday is that a lot of it is on Cooley's songs which brought back memories of an earlier DBT era when there was a lot of that format.

Sound & lights were both excellent again, especially the lighting which I thought communicated and accented or highlighted what was happening on stage.

[Crustyharp]

Funny you should mention the groove, Crusty, because that's the best way I've come up with to describe the differences between the shows: Hartford rocked, Portland was more like an extended groove, until the point at it rocked the fuck out (see my description of the "encore" in my previous post).

I thought the first 3 songs got over on the strength of them being really good songs but the energy and that mystical thing known as "the rock" were somewhat absent. This was most notable to me on "Darkened Flags" which I think needs a lot of energy and rock to fulfill its promise.

.....

I mentioned that Jay barely played guitar during the first half of Wednesday's show so of course he played a ton of guitar from the start of this one LOL (I'm not suggesting cause & effect, just noting the irony or coincidence). As always, great contributions from him including a couple of nice keyboard solos in addition to the guitar slinging plus a big contribution to that groove thing, mostly on organ but also on guitar. I guess it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing (after all, where does the groove come from if not the rhythm section?) but I thought Matt and Brad were even more than usually spectacular on Thursday. In response to Crusty's observation, after Wednesday's show I had been thinking that there was less of "Matt being Matt" than I'm used to, but it was all there on Thursday including that 2 step shuffle thing he does As I mentioned on Wednesday, Patterson is playing more lead guitar but what I forgot to mention on Wednesday is that a lot of it is on Cooley's songs which brought back memories of an earlier DBT era when there was a lot of that format.

Sound & lights were both excellent again, especially the lighting which I thought communicated and accented or highlighted what was happening on stage.

Beautifully done, Bubba - you nailed it.

I'll only add to my earlier comment about Jay: what makes him so amazing to watch is the whole that he's going from amazing guitar heroics (perfect balance of blister and taste) to fathoms-deep layers of keys and back (and forth ... and back ... and forth ... and ...), he's looking like he’s sitting on a bench, waiting for the bus. They all played their asses off last night, but I gotta give Jay the MVP.