OK everyone, here\'s the jambase/jambands review. Hopefully it gets published. 56 adjectives, all different. Phew!
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The Breakfast: Bringing Down The Puppet House
This is Seth Wolfman reporting live from the balcony at the Puppet House Theater in Branford, CT, where The Breakfast have just finished a colossal two night mega-throwdown. As I type I have a bird\'s-eye view of the post-show afterglow, which is quite bright because The Breakfast lit this place up. The air is so thick after these shows that you can taste it.
This two night run started last night to a stuffed house that came ready to party. The first set was highlighted by a creative and seamless “Garcian Fishbowl” > “Escher’s Etchings” that featured scintillating rock-trance hybrid jams juxtaposing many ins and outs, highs and lows. The band’s newest epic composition, “Gravity”, yielded its finest version to date. The gargantuan exploratory jam and vocal reprise were garnished with glistening gobo work by new light tech Gregg Ellis. Overall the energy that the crowd packed for this set was unprecedented for the first set of a two-night run; it felt like a 2am festival set.
To make this run even more interesting, the band announced that it would be covering a complete classic rock album each night. After much anticipation and predictions, the crowd was surprised and pumped as the opening strains of “Roadhouse Blues” signified that we would be the first people to ever hear a complete live rendition of The Doors’ Morrison Hotel. Familiar tunes such as “Peace Frog” and “Ship of Fools” kept the audience grooving, while the band capitalized on the one-time opportunity to jam on rarities such as “Maggie M’Gill.”
When a band opens a set with a song that is usually a closer, it always brings an element of excitement and intensity to the table. Tonight’s third set opened with “Taboo or Not Taboot” which immediately set the tone for a funk-down party atmosphere. The highlight of the set was a roof-raising “Great Big Fiery Ball In The Sky.” (Operating word: Fiery.) No pretenses here, just a titanic in-your-face rock jam that made me picture the doors of the building actually blowing off. The set ended back where it began, in funkytown, with funk monster “Gladys Pimp and Kangaroos With Me.” After inciting a raging dance party, the band ended the show with the song tantalizingly unfinished. The crowd was so utterly dialed in during this entire show that the walls could have crumbled around us and we wouldn’t have even noticed.
Show #2 opened with the daunting task of having to be better than show #1. A packed, rowdy pre-show house showed that the fans were clearly up to the challenge. Then The Breakfast showed they were equal to the task by opening up with “Gladys Pimp” right where they had left it off the night before. You could splice the recordings together and not even know that it was a different show. This set was defined by the Breakfast’s unparalleled segue savvy. “Puppetry” > “Garcian Fishbowl” > “Frankly Po Zest” > “Puppetry” looks great on paper, and sounds even better in person. Puppetry featured a puppeteer working one of the incredible 2-foot classical puppets that hauntingly decorate the venue. By the time the conquering new tune “Doughboy” closed the set, it was impossible to tell which was hotter: the wild audience, the jams, or the anticipation as to what tonight’s album cover would be.
The crowd waited eagerly for The Breakfast to strike up the first chords of set II so we could see what the album would be. Few songs could have brought the explosive response that accompanied the opening strains of “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The added elements of hundreds of balloons and Jed Kordell on trombone signified that there would be no messing around with this unthinkable covering of a seminal rock album. The highlights were a triumphantly trippy “Within You Without You” and a superbly psychedelic “Lovely Rita.” Who knew that “Lovely Rita” was an epic psychedelic jam vehicle? Somewhere, Lennon was smiling.
Third set capped off six sets of sustained stimulation for all who came. The first jam in “Buquebus” featured an early climax that blasted right through several would-be downbeats and drove the house nutty. The energy never came down from that point. Another huge double drum solo, monstrous “Mayfly Disarray”, and heavily requested “Rufus” had everyone in the house in full freak mode. “Superfly Phaddy Phat” opened with an impressive beat-box vocal jam, then emerged as the smokin’ old-school closer it has always been. The encore of “Rockin In The Free World” featured the musical prowess of guitarist Tim Palmieri and drummer Adrian Tromantano. For the entire encore, Palmieri played drums and Tromantano played guitar and sang lead vocals, and there was no drop-off in musical quality whatsoever. Unbelievable. The place went mad one more time…the lights came up…and the audience was left to bask in the glorious aftermath teeming with love and satisfaction.
I can feel it from way up here.
Seth Wolfman
