From: Charlie Dirksen
8/17/93 Memorial Hall, Kansas City, KS Opening standard. Pre-Nirvana is drawn out, and is eerie and enchanting as it
often is , but nothing out of the ordinary occurs. No real "vibration of life" that I can discern, and no interesting melodious
themes. Audience clapping, and then Nirvana at 4:28. The Nirvana section has great Page as usual.. nothun out of the ordinary.
Mike's solo section at 5:11 is fairly melodious, but still pretty evil and shady.. The pre-charge is typically good (tramps are
brought out.. audience screams). First shot at the Note is great and contains strong jamming from Trey, but nothing
exceptionally good. Second shot at the Note at 7:14 is well-sustained by Trey. No jamming around it. Charge at 7:31, and then
"Boy" at 7:48 after a modest scream. "MAN!!!!" really belted out.. as is "GOD!!" .. "Shit" not so much. Tramps jam at 9:54..
(WUDMTF segment standard fwiw).. Page is fairly active in here, as he has been all damn month, and Fish really accompanies
him well. Signals from Mike.. nothing special there. Page doesn't really close this tramps jam out as fiercely as in the versions
earlier in the month... jam segment 11:20.. Page is noodling quickly and melodiously right from the start!! Niiiice!! =^] This is
very beautiful and precious, though perhaps a bit on the repetitive side. Nevertheless, Trey noodles on a beautiful theme!!! Soon
Page starts complementing him very well on this complex little theme (Mike isn't doing that much). Stop/start mode around
13:10ish.. jam gets very quiet.. kinda dies out in here.. very little activity from everyone, until Fish starts bringing the groove
back to life.. slow crescendo.. very slow.. kinda repetitive and dull in here, though.. until Fish starts wigging out around 14:30...
Trey is just repetitively chording this little theme.. not much.. yes, they are still building around 15 minutes.. very slow crescendo
on this repetitive, only somewhat melodious theme. Trey starts soloing out of it, and then Fish pushes out the beat around 15:15
finally.. some serious rhythm now. But no one is taking any lead.. agh. I give up. At 16 minutes, Fish starts kicking out a bluesy
rhythm (i.e., nonYEM beat), but the jam is very repetitive and dull, imo. Nothing really goes on. Damn. This had some potential,
too. Jam quiets down and Fish drops out around 17:10, but Fish and Trey and Page and Mike all stealthily and steadily come
back in quickly and repetitively noodling on a very dry, anti-melodious groove... big crescendo and then at 18:14 the jam
explodes into a raging YEM jam, with fiery Trey and Page, in particular. This is a pretty damn sweet jam at this point, but it was
a long time coming.. Don't really know how to describe this. There's no Oye Como Va.. just a raging jam that sounds pretty
damn good for the most part, but which witnesses nothing unusually impressive until the very ending at 19:45 or so, when Fish
lets out a sllllaky groove (see contest jam of 10/31/94), changing the beat entirely.. Mike steadily and funkily jams with him..
Mike doesn't rage in here at all, though.. he doesn't really seem into this, even though this awesome rhythm has potential. Oh
there he goes.. he lets loose a lot of nice licks from 20:50 or so onwards.. Closing WUDMTF semgent at 21:20.. this segment
is in the same slaky groove as the B&D segment, and the vocal jam also proceeds in this ultra-groovy fashion.. but gets pretty
dull, imo, even though the audience starts clapping along at one point. There's a theme in here of sorts around 25 minutes, but I
can't place it if it is a cover.. Blah. Total time 26:51. Still a pretty decent YEM, all things considered. B-/B rating. two cents
charlie