From tjwade@tconl.com Sat Sep 12 23:35:43 1998
Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 23:38:29 -0700
From: Tim Wade 
To: dan@netspace.org
Subject: RebaReview 28: 8-16-93 St. Louis

RebaReview #28
8-16-93 The American Theater
St. Louis, MO set I
Time: 16:39/ 18:36

Thanks go out to Sunil Shah for this set, and what a set it is...

Trey keeps some notes feeding back past the end of Horn, and as the
crowd begins to quiet down, Mike comes in with a beautiful little fill,
which Fishman tops off with a wonderful woodblock roll.  That's when
Reba shows up...nice intro!!

THE DIRECTIONS (0:00): Lyrics section is pretty standard, except for the
second verse where Fishman gets kooky on the woodblock again.  Not much
melted wax clapping...good directions... 

THE SIP (2:30): Pretty much standard and flawless, it seems...here comes
the build to the swallow...Page is doing something different, which Trey
picks up on...suddenly Fish gets it and throws in a stop...one more time
gets Mike in on it and all four of them stop on a dime, right before the
descending phrases that mark our entrance into

THE SWALLOW (4:53): No mistakes...Fishman almost sounds like he's gonna
lose it, but he hits the end of the swallow just fine, taking us into

THE CHILL (6:14): Mike and Fish lay it down as usual...Page comes in,
ascending with some familiar chords, but then starts slowly tinkling
downward with an eerie, melting effect...Trey is on top of this right
away, following Page's lead...there's a shift, and Trey repeats this,
starting a little lower this time...another shift finds Mike
disappearing, Fishman getting faint, and Page and Trey continuing to
melt and disperse...now Mike is doing it, too, and Fishman must resort
to random tings and dings.  Fish tries to return to the chill beat, but
Mike is now fully a part of the melting wax, and he follows Trey down to
the bottom, landing with a thud, where Page chords upward perfectly into
a shift at 7:03.

Trey now switches gears, chopping slowly and softly on a dark
chord...kinda scary, like you don't know what's around the corner...Page
locks up with this instantly...1, 2, 3, 4, 1234, 123 BAM!... the regular
chill is far behind...man, this is hard to describe, like a weird turn
inside a Tweezer that you're not sure if you hate or love.  It's basic
and yet chaotic...the tension is building and building when Mike throws
in an Arabic sounding lick...it grabs Page first, then Trey hammers into
a shift at 8:02.  Mike starts poking and various parts of the rhythm,
trying to work out a line...we're just gonna take this thing apart,
aren't we guys?  A steady ride cymbal from Fishman while Page swells. 
Trey breaks his hammering and also starts poking around.  It's still not
in synch, but begins to build up again...as the tension grows Trey
returns to the previous dark and scary chording.  Hey, what song is this
again?

But wait...Page and Mike get together and find the high end to
compliment what Trey is doing...and Fishman lays into the snare for a
sweet shift at 8:40...still not all together but now it sounds pretty
sweet!  Fish hangs with the swelling snare shots, while Trey, Page, and
Mike start to work with it.  Suddenly Trey finds the rhythm he wants,
and Page and Mike start to play off of it and...damn.  This is hardly
structured, but it's beautiful, and really hard to describe, other than
with the aforementioned "damn".  This all begins to fall apart, as you
almost know it must, but it does so with grace and beauty, and a final
snare roll from Fish...Page ascends, also gracefully, where he meets
Trey, somewhere around 9:45.  Someone cheers, and Mike and Fish gently
return to a much more Reba-like cadence.  Trey has a much more Reba-like
lick in mind, and Page continues to dance up and down, giving Trey
plenty of room to work.  Trey settles into the lick he wants around
10:06...it sounds like something you would hear in almost any Reba...and
he sticks with it...things start to grow...Mike really locks into
it...uh oh...yeah, Mike's really got it, and Trey is laying into the
groove now...here comes Page, and man, I think we're in for a big
hose...at 11:09 Trey pushes is up a level...boy man god shit, we are now
sharin' in the groove as Trey opens up the floodgates...he finally
releases into a shift at 11:50, and again, DAMN!  Trey is now combining
chopped chords with this soulful lick that sounds both insane and
triumphant.  He repeats this for a bit, letting the jam ride, and my
god, what a ride...then he lets his chords return to the original dark
and scary ones we began with...the soulful lick disappears, calm
returns, and slowly we melt down out of the sky, thanks to Page, who
descends to the point we came in at 12:57.  Wow.  Trey is not far behind
him, falling down, and in the calm here at the bottom, Fish, Page, and
Mike rediscover the Chill.

Trey comes back in at 13:26 with one of the sweetest licks I've ever
heard come out of his ^�doc.  The groove begins to solidify, and Trey
continues to shoot out licks with passion every eight beats.  The tempo
increases, and they shift full on back into the chill at 13:45.  

Trey goes right at mid-level Reba supported by Page Piano.  Trey quickly
follows this into a shift, seemingly not wasting any time going for the
Rebasphere.  Beautiful licks from Trey...he starts sustaining here and
there, getting Fishman all riled up...Trey drops down as Fish gets hands
and feet a-kickin', and it builds to another shift at 14:38.  Trey is
really getting up there, wailing and sustaining, hammering and just
flying!  Another shift at 14:58 finds Trey hitting that classic Reba
wail, and I'm starting to expect some toms...no, instead Trey is headed
back down again...a _whole lotta_ tension brewing...he dwells and
thrashes, hammers some more...Page is hanging in there like a
champ...Trey begins to push it back up again...raise your hands for the
shift at 15:39!  Trey's screaming that classic Reba lick again, another
chance for Fish to close it up...he starts on a descending
phrase...no?!?  He's gonna go for it again?!?  Trey hangs down for a
second, but quickly charges up and up...woah!!  Trey has gone bloody
ballistic!!  DAMN!!!!  Fish hooks up with him for just a second, I think
to make sure Trey doesn't go flying out of the theater.  Trey finally
breaks loose with a final wail, drops down, begins to build, and charges
off into the wild blue yonder while the toms bring us back to earth at
16:39.

THE WET WHISTLE (17:08): A little pause while the audience cheers
for whatever it was that just hit ^�em.  Whistle is flawless...and it's
not 
standard either.  Nothing crazy but...well, you'll have to hear that for 
yourself, I won't try to describe it.  Final blap at 18:36.

* * *

OK, so this Reba jam basically has three distinct parts.  We begin with
the standard Chill groove, but that melting effect from Page and Trey
quickly sends us...well, somewhere else.  They spend a while
deconstructing, and to that extent I can see why some people may not be
as fond of this Reba as I am.  But while the jam becomes fragmented for
a while, as well as a little ominous sounding, I personally don't think
it sounds dissonant.  In any case, it's nothing like a standard Reba,
and IMHO it has some moments of sheer beauty.

After this initial section falls apart, they move on to something much
more akin to what you might recognize as Reba, but there is an _instant_
groove there, which they ride and ride and take to absolutely glorious
heights, resulting in what may be my favorite Reba moment so far when
Trey releases.

Then, on top of all this, you get almost three more minutes of more
"standard" Reba jamming, and several more incredible releases from
Trey.  The ending just blows my mind, after everything that comes before
it.

This is the longest Reba I've reviewed yet, and, I'll have to confess,
my favorite.  By this time I've heard some of the more crazy things that
Reba can do, and this still stands apart for me.  But, as always, don't
take my word for it.  All that I can say is that if you like Reba, you
really need to hear this, love it or hate it.  And if you think I'm
gonna be ignorant enough to slap a grade on something like this, you're
crazier than Reba is.

Finest in the Nation?  Dunno, it's not from this nation.

N/R


------

From cdirksen@earthlink.net Sat Oct 24 16:24:49 1998
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 15:25:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Charles Dirksen 
To: dan@netspace.org
Subject: 8/16/93 Reba review

This is definitely the longest version of Reba that I know of.. it is
around 18 minutes with the whistling ending.  The jam segment is ten
minutes long, and contains three segments, of sorts.  The 5/16/95 Reba is
around 16 minutes, as is the 10/31/94 Reba, if I recall correctly.

The opening segment is straightforward.. I won't comment on that.  But as
I said, the Jam Segment (all ten minutes of it) is in 3 sections/segments
itself, believe it or not.

The first segment is total crap, and sounds very, very similar to an
Eagles song (the name of which I have totally repressed..oh wait..
"There's gonna be some heart-ache tonight.. some heartache tonight" in the
chorus, or something.. you know, THAT DREADFUL SONG).  Don't get me wrong.
This tune isn't teased in this segment per se, but Trey's chords
(actually, come to think of it, MIKE might tease it once) really sound
like this dreadful tune.  Anyway, these opening few minutes are just
dreadful, but fortunately, this jam dissolves into 

a slightly more Reba like jam segment, with some delightful, interlocking,
counterpunctual type stuff between Page, Mike and Trey... they were
obviously listening to each other, and for the most part, this segment of
the jam really works, and contains a groove that is almost Split-like in
its structure and texture.. very, very pleasant at times.

The final jam segment segues (somewhat haphazardly) out of the previously
mentioned segment, and is Essential Reba (about time).  These final few
minutes are about as amazing and spectacular as Reba gets, and Trey's
trilling is GLORIOUS. It is extremely unusual for him to go off quite like
this (very few Hoods and very few Slaves and very few Possums (etc) have
trilling like this.. and practically no versions of Reba do, that I can
recall off the top of my head).  I'm actually embarrassed to say that I've
had this Reba around for a long time and had never paid that much
attention to it.. shame, shame SHAME on me. 

I still prefer the more all-around melodious jam segments of the 5/16/95
and 10/31/94 and 6/23/94 and 6/19/95 Rebas, generally speaking, but this
8/16/93 WITHOUT QUESTION contains the most magnificent closing Reba jam
I've ever heard. 

two cents
charlie