Canopy Club Urbana IL: September 7, 2002
Canopy Club hosts a weird show with a killer first set, new songs 13 days, Uncommon and JaJunk, and rappers from the opener, Primeridian, taking over parts of both sets including the entire 20 minute Push the Pig. 13 days doesn’t have a name yet. Great playing and vocals in this show by former drummer Mike Mirro.
The 27 minute Nothing too Fancy with pre-debut Smell the Mitten sections is excellent.
Frasca (@M_A_Frasca on Twitter) was there, taped the show, and has an Audience recording available on archive.org, and there’s also a Soundboard matrix recording as well, which is linked below. The SBD has the the tracks names mislabeled, but the recording is in order.
Notable:
Pay the Snucka part three goes into a really crazy what almost sounds like a Fender Rhodes but then in listening to it a couple times it sounds like Jake on the guitar lots of crazy feedback and string bends makes me think it’s a guitar. Then it slams right into that opening salvo of Get in the Van.
Then a very strong 2×2 without an improv jam but a very nice Bayliss solo section.
Then Brendan announces this is a new one we need a name for it if you could help us out. “this next song needs a name we’ve only played it once and if you could help us out we’d appreciate it.“
It’s a nicely tightly played 13 days, and it ends with that nonresolved ending with the guitar pick scrape over the strings except these days they’ve done away with the last resolution note which is played in this version, as they transition into Utopian Fir.
Utopian Fir is truly excellent, they’re really experimenting with that central section that can be anything they want. These days they often play pieces of a cover song in that location. This was an example where it starts out with a Joel scat but right into some different cover teases, like a Hot for Teacher section and then some very weird improv where everyone is kind of contributing a lot all at once.
Almost as chaotic as You Enjoy Myself by Phish in the vocal ending of that song, but this is instrumental and vocals and shouting, there’s guitar licks that don’t go anywhere and it morphs into a little bit of that Metallica song tease (One) and and then into the reggae section which is again classic Utopian Fir unchanged to this day. And then the finish is very much a breakdown into reggae where everyone is doing the offbeat and then two out of four of beats with moments of silence and Mike Mirro in the background with the awesome reggae backbeat and then they go right into that opening part of The Fuzz.
You can really hear Mike Mirro and Joel on the vocals in The Fuzz.
So called calypso tune which is that Harry Belafonte tune with Mike Mirro on steel drum is called Jamaica Farewell, only played twice. It’s Jake on the drums, and Mikey on percussion for a killer drum solo section. Jake announces after “that number is called shits and giggles.”
Brendan announces “we’re gonna play a new song that we’ve only played a few times it’s called Uncommon and we hope you like it.”
Then it’s quite an auspicious start to Push the Pig and then the Primeridian rappers come out and start – don’t be fooled by the 20 minute Push the Pig, it’s mostly comprised of freestyle rapping from the opener, Primeridian. (Tree and Simeon) From a review on archive.org: “The long stay of Tree and Simeon created a rushed forced second set that was far to short. This only led to a Waiting Room encore which is only four minutes.”
Michael Frasca who was there and taped the show mentioned it too – the long Push the Pig rap section left too little time for a full Umphrey’s second set, and it was a short encore. The same thing happened in second set after JaJunk where Primeridian ended up freestyling until they ran up against curfew which caused the short encore.
Set 2: Notwithstanding what was said above, the second set does begin with a 27 minute Nothing too Fancy. At 10 minutes, NTF morphs into what we now know as the beginning of Smell the Mitten. Grown from Gesture Under a Mitten, Smell the Mitten is yet to debut as the rewritten song. Gesture was played for the last time a month before on 8-27-02, and Smell the Mitten is due to debut on 9-17-02, in a few weeks. They improv for a while, and then come back with Smell the Mitten guitar licks, and then speed up the tempo to finally end almost 30 minutes of the instrumental Nothing too Fancy.
Then a 20 minute Der Bluten Kat. Very cool Joel keyboard work during jam 1 in DBK.
Fool in the Rain, nicely done.
Before JaJunk, Brendan announces that they played the next song for the first time yesterday (at Mishawaka Brewing), and they still need a name for it. “No Dirty Sanchez, no Teabag – you guys are better than that.”
10 minutes of JaJunk ends with 12 minutes of freestyle rapping from Tree and Simeon of Primeridian.
Encore: Waiting Room
Setlist from allthings.umphreys.com
Set 1:
Pay the Snucka[1] > Get In The Van > 2×2, 13 Days, Utopian Fir[2]-> The Fuzz, Jamaica Farewell[3] > Drums[4], Uncommon, Push the Pig[5]
Set 2:
Nothing Too Fancy[6], Der Bluten Kat[7] > Fool in the Rain, JaJunk[8]
Encore:
Waiting Room
Footnotes:
[1] part III only
[2] with Hot for Teacher (Van Halen) and One (Metallica) teases
[3] debut, Harry Belafonte; with Mike on steel drums, Jake on drums, and Brendan on percussion
[4] Jake on drums and Mike on percussion
[5] with Jaime Roundtree and Simeon Viltz rapping; with unique lyrics
[6] with Smell the Mitten teases
[7] with Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne) teases
[8] ended with Jaime Roundtree and Simeon Viltz rapping
Link to Audio
The Live Music Archive app (iOS) and the Taper’s Section app (Android) is a great way to find and listen to these shows. You can stream, download for offline listening, save favorites, and mark shows as already listened to. The app pulls all data directly from the public repository of live music recordings posted at archive.org.
