From: Victor Szalvay
Subject: Antelope in Review Pt.19 5/25/88
Greetings Friends, Today I am finally getting around to the next Antelope on my list of review candidates! Yay! Well, this show definitely has some merits like a nice Harpua, LaGrange, Whipping Post, and Alumni Blues. Not to mention, the third set contains the first Ya Mar with an appearance from Jah Roy. Antelope closes out the third and final set, note that this is another instance of Antelope in the closing spot. 5/25/88 Nectar’s- Burlington, VT Harpua-- precedes the Antelope, pretty average, but I will leave it to Yance, the Harpua master! Antelope -- Intro: Trey kicks it off as usual. No teases or anything in the into and not much else to say. Opening theme: (2:16) Kind of frizzy... nothing too concrete and I can’t get into that powerless clean tone Trey is using here. Trill!: (2:48) Weak and feeble! Trey’s lack of distortion really inhibits the effects of this lick, oh well. Key Change to Em: (2:53) Nice transition, pretty powerful as the whole band comes down on that one note very hard! Trey momentarily switches to the distortion for power, but as soon as the soloing starts, he is back to clean. An admirable move, attempting to jam with clean tone a la Jerry, but for this one, a rocker and intense ride, you just NEED the fuzz! Well, Page is quite busy in this version as well; coloring Trey’s solos with those beautifully charming melodies that really make the song interesting. Trey kicks in the distortion for a nice power chord, but the desired effect was other than a gearshift... more of a change of mood. He is reaching out into uncharted jam-space and is really moving in several directions. Page is creating the back drop and they are all preparing for the intensity hike.... Trey meanwhile has chosen a nice road to climb and is proceeding through some dark Allmanesque lines. Beautiful accompaniment from Page as the dual solo evolves for a couple of lines. Fish and Mike kick in a double time beat that adds to the intensity, but still no noticeable gearshifts. Trey continues his ascent after the brief hiatus with Page. Up and up we go and now Page kicks in an intense chording a la modern Antelopes that really sets the mood. Trey screeching out of control off the road and off the cliff and then peters out into a strange triplet of notes that Page joins him in... as if he is falling farther and farther away with each triplet... down down down. Page picks up on a theme and jams out a little... so nice to hear, considering Page work has been scarce till now. They enter another round together as Mike and Fish continue the groove... Trey revs up the engine and continues on!!! Trey is really getting into some spacey feed for a while and then Mike and Fish decided to jump into the PMG> Pre-Marco-Groove: (12:30) Pretty solid, but Trey’s licks sound fairly lame with his cheesy tone. I guess the sound is a bit wacky tonight... Ry, Ry, Rocco!! (no pause - in the melody of RLAA) MARCO ESQUANDOLAS: (again in the melody of RLAA chorus!) ‘Been to have any spike, man? (melody still) High Gear Theme: the transition is weak, unfortunately. They seem to be hurrying to get this one over with and that doesn’t change for the rest of the tune. Trey:- Set the Gear shift: (without much conviction.) End: (16:00) Rolls around and I think they are kind of glad. The overall song was not that bad. They had some great jamming in the Em theme, but Mike and Fish forced the PMG without Trey’s consent and that really botched the version. From then on out, no one was really happy with it. Another problem was that there were absolutely NO gearshifts. That’s pretty strange considering we have seen quite a bit previous to this. Oh well! So grade wise I will give it a: 4.5 on the Victor scale! To check the distribution go to the AIR web site: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~vlaszlo/AIR/AIR.html Peace y’all!