Camden - June 13 & 14, 2014
By the time You Might Die Trying started Friday night, I feared that we were in for a "tale of two sets" type show. Five songs into Saturday's electric set it became clear that this would be a tale of two shows.
Friday's acoustic set at Camden was as close to perfect as I could have imagined. Nothing ignites a crowd like Two Step, and even the stripped down version set the tone for the next seven songs. The set was highlighted by Good Good Time, possibly the most welcomed surprise of the past few years, but each song was played with energy and precision. Getting to hear Recently and I'll Back You Up a multiple times this summer has also been a nice treat.
An extremely strong electric set followed, and while the one-two punch of Squirm and You Might Die Trying to start would not have been my first choices they framed this masterpiece of a set in a way that was made clear as the night progressed. Their slow building energy bled into a raucous So Much to Say > Anyone Seen the Bridge > Too Much combo, with so much gusto that it almost felt like a set closer. The band worked in a nice breather to follow in Proudest Monkey > Satellite, then immediately dialed things back up with The Song a That Jane Likes, Raven and Seven (the last of which I don't like at all but kept things moving). If Only again served as another much needed resting point leading into an unbelievable run of Nancies > Warehouse followed by Billies with the Nature intro. The electric set flew by, only to stay strong with a beautiful rendition of Some Devil, an unexpected Pig in the encore, and the predictable but solid Watchtower to close out what I would eventually score as the best set of the tour thus far.
Saturday's show got off to a rocky acoustic set. Compared to the prior night's gem, this portion was fairly lackluster. Slip Slidin' Away was very good, as was Pay For What You Get, but the followup run of Take Me To Tomorrow (another cover in an already limited set), So Damn Lucky and Stolen Away left much to be desired. The set closed strong with Minarets and Lie in Our Graves, which featured some very impressive work by Boyd, but the die had been cast as far as the type of show we were getting.
The first five songs of the electric set could not have been more of a downer. Spaceman did nothing to energize the crowd, though admittedly Corn Bread did achieve that goal a song too late. Any crowd momentum was instantly quashed by a poorly received Save Me, a completely mediocre Write a Song, and a vanilla Belly Belly Nice. The rest of the set, while much stronger, didn't come close to repairing the damage done by the wasted 30 minutes to start the show. #41 was great as always (the shorter versions are the best), as was Say Goodbye, and though I'm never thrilled about repeats knowing that GGT could disappear again at any time I was happy to hear it again. DIDO was excellent, but unfortunately what I thought was Drunken Soldier turned out to be an album-version Funny the Way It Is, followed by Jimi Thing (preceded by another "I don't care" comment from Dave). The quality rest of the show is hard to argue with - Granny closing the set for the first time in 11 years was awesome and shocking, Crash is an excellent E1 song, and another fine repeat in Two Step provided a rocking close to an otherwise subpar show.
During the encore, and again during Saturday's acoustic set, Dave made a point to comment that the band has always appreciated the love they get at Camden and really enjoy playing the venue. With that in mind, one might immediately wonder what the hell happened on Saturday. I honestly believe the answer is simpler than many of us want to believe - in Dave's mind, he did give us a special show tonight, mixing a few of his obvious favorites in with a few crowd pleasers and standard staples. Unfortunately I, and by the looks of things many in the crowd around me, did not share his enthusiasm.
While Friday night at Camden once again proved that DMB can still bring it when Dave puts his mind to it, Saturday provided a heavy counterweight. All in all it was a solid weekend with many great performances and songs played, but the incredibly uneven set Saturday night - in large part due to a pretty awful start - simply did not deliver in a memorable way whatsoever.
Last edited by DMBzilla; 06-15-2014 at 01:11 AM.
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