Man o man, that was fun.
Had to be the biggest crowd at Toads since the 1000th show, and that was probably the biggest crowd I\'ve ever seen the Breakfast pull. (not talkin about festivals.)
Shakedown was fun, they set a great mood to get the night goin.
I thought the Chase was a perfect choice for an opener- people were groovin right off the bat... somehow I didn\'t recognize the pre-Sundance jam as the "pre-Sundance jam" and was quite surprised to have it played so early in the show- talk about sendin a message! The new years countdown did seem to catch the band off guard for a split sec (was that chadwick gettin all up on the mic??!?) but I thought it actually played out really well, and the balloon drop was wiiiicked cool!!
So the kindafreakybutincrediblyawesome moment of the night was when they busted into Echidna\'s as the first tune of 2009. Me, Face, Sallyalli, hollymamalakabudaya, and Snake-ub were raging that tune the whole time we were chillin pre-show. And when I say raging I mean every 30 seconds one of us was singing, humming, whistling, or farting the melody to that tune. I don\'t know why. Probably because Face wishes he was Zappa\'s manwhore. We raged that tune at the hotel. We raged it in the car. At Bar. On the streets of New Haven. We were harmonizing like Boyz II Men(pre-trio). It was stupid and crazy and goofy and annoying and lame and fun and awesome all at the same time. Somehow it made it just a supremely special moment to start \'09. Thank you, Breakfast.
Whew.
After that- "Phaddy is an interesting choice," I thought at first. I\'ve never loved PBB, but boy the jam in that tune was fun!! Dangledoozer had some kinda bounce going that really changed the sound from what I remember it being (definitely different than Deuce version) and I specifically remember seeing JimCobb and Cheshire Mark during that jam having that kinda shocked look, like "What the hell is goin on here?!?"... In the good way.
To keep this post from being 3 years long I will just say that Gravity and Rufus were both top notch. The things that happened musically during Rufus are not legal in 36 states.
The bustout of Superfly was a really superb version- it felt like it had some type of previously untapped power to it- where as in the past I felt it was more of a chill song. Ep 1 I do not remember being as epic as previous posters have stated, but it was very nice to hear it again, at any rate- and the part where adrian takes over was quite noteworthy.
The rest of the show becomes quite a blur in my mind- everything just felt so good in that room (and I\'m not talkin about bd\'sfreetuna). Overexposure was danceparty fun, Terrapin had that chill type of epic-ness to it, and Mayfly just brought the funk for the true hod-caws left in the room. Wildpack literally dislocated DrewKingsley\'s kneecap. incredible. Drew, I didn\'t see it happen, but I certainly noticed your painful limp in the aftermath- ouch. You sucked it up like a champ. It brought back visions of TaintFace when Tahd the Tickla broke his foot at Sullivan Hall in NYC.
I was totally satisfied with not getting an encore. I couldn\'t have possibly taken anymore. There wouldn\'t have been a better peak than that Wildpack.
Good luck in \'09, asscracks.