@J_D_G said:

I've spent about 15 years trying to like the Hampton '97 "Mike's" as a jam. Can't remember if I finally got there or not, with the help of the official release. I appreciate it for being different, but always found it languid.

...where 'languid' means 'static,' presumably? i tend to think both hampton 97 openers (sorry Emotional Rescue 'shippers) are snoozefests. there's a weirdly sluggish, static feeling to both those shows, isn't there? the way caspian and ghost sink down into nothing, how long the ac/dc bag takes to figure anything out, the bullshit tweezer...i love that hood but it's the opposite of 'fleet' if memory serves.

and even the great hampton halley's is a weird, not wholly likable creature: the long funk jam goes a damned long time without moving at all, then there's this odd molasses-related-slo-mo-disaster and trey kind of slowly oozes into that SPACE JAM EVERYONE LOVES, which is basically the whole band standing with their feet together and eyes closed, waving and teetering and managing somehow not to fall down...

i can never quite decide whether i love or just tolerate those shows. (i drooled all over them in my .net reviews but the more i hear, the more ambivalent i get.) the halley's is definitely a Thing Unto Itself, but i have a hard time imagining anyone preferring it to, say, the palace tweezer, which goes on this awesome uphill climb, wobbles vertiginously at the top of the mountain seeing spirits, then shrugs and says FUCK IT and straps on a pair of skis for the izabella > twist > piper insanity.