House of Blues Chicago IL: October 4, 2002
Umph20 Oct 4, 2002
A three-set high-energy show in their hometown, this one is an early standout in a long career of standouts. Headphones and Snowcones makes its live debut, with Mike in marimba at the front of the stage, and Jake on drums. Highlight: Divisions > Visions > Divisions > Glory > Divisions.
Kevin Browning posted on the Umphrey’s blog about this show in 2012, ten years after this memorable show: https://www.umphreys.com/2012/10/10-years-ago-today/
“This setlist has enough arrows to even satisfy @goldlikejoel”
Notable:
Dump City to start the show is a solid standalone version, and quickly transitions into Roulette.
Roulette gets one of it’s first big improv jams in the middle, an 8-minute Jazz Odyssey as labeled on the track. They go back to finish the song with the last verse, and go right into Soul Food I.
Soul Food I had an exploratory jam in this 10-minute version, and then morphs into White Man’s Moccasins, with a tight version as is common these days.
Smell the Mitten is getting more solid and refined as they play all the written parts with some new embellishments, and they slam it into Push the Pig, another standalone version without a jam, and like other songs debuted this year, keeps getting better.
At some point Mike comes out from behind the drum kit to play marimba at the font of the stage, with Jake moving to drums, and they play around a bit with an improv jam and then it’s the debut of Headphones and Snowcones, which was released on Local Band Does OK, back in June.
They’ve only played Headphones and Snowcones 9 times, and the second performance was 7 years later, when Mike came back to join the band on New Year’s Eve of 2009 at the Aragorn Ballroom in Chicago, where he played marimba again.
I was lucky enough to see a rare recent performance, NYE at the Fillmore in Denver, 2019, and maybe there’s hope that they’ll keep bringing it out more often, since they also played it in Syracuse on 1-21-22.
Back in 2002, after Headphones and Snowcones they jam for 5 minutes and change back to Mike on drums and Jake on guitar, and slide right into Divisions.
This Divisions is notable as one of the highlights of the show, as they fill the two jam sections with Visions of Parin, and then Glory, before returning again to finish Divisions and the first set.
A nice no-jam The Triple Wide goes into Resolution, and this one slaps, reflected in the 10-minute Jazz Odyssey in the track list.
This JO has a cool set of teases, from Rage Against the Machine, Metallica and Megadeath.
The Utopian Fir has lots of great teases too, with the band obviously having fun playing snippets of some of the songs they like.
The Utopian jam afterwards goes for a good 5 minutes before a great version of Hangover, with a jam that extends the song out to 10 minutes.
Hangover has Brendan saying they haven’t done this in a while, but splitting the room, and having the crowd chant, “break out the booty wax, it’s Friday night!”
JaJunk is getting quite the polish and shine, in this 12th performance of the song. Still no extended jamming yet, but with a two-minute improv section it transforms into Padgett’s Profile, which is another nice creative segment, with 13 Days in the middle.
Joel announces for the first time that they’ll be playing the Vic Theatre Dec 30-31, 2002. “You can tell your friends; first night’s gonna be all ages, the second night 18 and up.” Brendan says “the second night has to be 20 and up because Joel’s going to take off his shirt and belly-dance.”
A classic cover from UM, Hey Nineteen by Steely Dan, has been a staple played since 1999. This one goes into a nice improv jam before the ending two songs of the set, Uncommon into In Violation of Yes.
IVOY, I’m learning, is a song where Jake takes over on bass, and the show notes detail his two Jaco Pastorius teases.
BB: “Thanks everybody, don’t forget to floss, drive safely.”
A strong finish in the encore with Prowler into The Crooked One finishes this stellar hometown show.
Setlist from allthings.umphreys.com
Set 1:
Dump City, Roulette, Soul Food I > White Man’s Moccasins, Smell the Mitten > Push the Pig[1] > Headphones & Snowcones[2] > Divisions > Visions > Divisions > Glory > Divisions
Set 2:
The Triple Wide > Resolution[3] > Utopian Fir[4] > Hangover[5], JaJunk-> Padgett’s Profile > 13 Days > Padgett’s Profile, Hey Nineteen-> Uncommon > In Violation of Yes[6]
Encore:
Prowler > The Crooked One
Footnotes:
[1] ended with Jake on drums and Mike on marimba at front of the stage; with True Romance “love theme” (Jan Hammer) jam
[2] debut, original; with Jake on drums and Mike on marimba at front of the stage
[3] with Killing in the Name Of (Rage Against the Machine) and One (Metallica) quotes, Wake Up Dead (Megadeth) tease
[4] with Imperial March (John Williams); Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love, Hot for Teacher (Van Halen); Whole Lotta Love, Stairway to Heaven, In My Time of Dying (Led Zeppelin); Reveille; Dough Bro; Born Under A Bad Sign (Albert King); Cherub Rock (Smashing Pumpkins)
[5] with Wherever I May Roam and One (both Metallica) tease
[6] with Continuum (Jaco Pastorius) and Portrait of Tracy (Jaco Pastorius) teases by Jake
Links to Audio and Apps
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.
