LawnMemo

The Daily Ghost

The Daily Ghost #86 10/31/2009 Empire Polo Club, Indio, CA

(AUD Download @KernelForbin Remaster)

Background (Set: 3 of 3 – Song: 3 of 5 – Show Gap: 4)

On Halloween, and the second day of Festival 8, Ghost is played in the middle of the third set.  The segue from Fluffhead has not been included.

2009-10-31mo

Composed Section (0:00-3:23)

Trey begins this version of Ghost, Fish comes next, followed by Mike.  Page begins to work his way in using the clav.  The pace is average with some added juice from Page’s clav.

The solo section gets some nice Page loving and then a nice dose of Mike and Trey together.  A nice little jam there.  Nicely done.

The lead is MUCH better than the previous versions, tight and much more precise.  During the pause we hear some Trey feedback, before he just decides to head into the drop on his own terms.

Trey…Make sure you look before you leap…He comes back in WELL before Fish.  Did he forget there were other people in the band?  What the heck was that?  Luckily the band catches up quickly and it is not a full train wreck.

Easy at Indio (3:24-5:39)

The jam starts with some sectioned off measures and Fish begins to push the tempo.  Page gets real crunchy at the start of this jam.  Trey starts to solo, then moves to some power licks at 3:55, giving energy to this jam right away.

Trey then decides to come away and begins to solo with a nice easy bluesy tone.  After the power licks he played this sounds nice and easy.  Page continues to stay crunchy while working through the space created by Trey’s longer notes.  At 4:18, Fish changes up the beat to provide even more contrast to this early jam section.

Mike holds a steady background throughout this section.  As the interplay between Page and Trey takes stage, Mike anchors things down.

Trey backs away at 4:42, and the rest of the band starts to build things a bit.  Mike gets noticeably stronger, then Trey re-enters with a higher pitched tone.

This is has been a nice solid groove the band has build.  Well played with some layering of textures and sounds.  Solid first section…

BEOW BEOW BEOW (5:40-8:34)

So remember when Mike was laying low?  Just providing some background?  Well, with one switch of his rig, magic…

Mike’s hungry BEOW BEOW BEOW comes in to devour any empty jamming space.  It adds a ton of power to this section and gets things moving.  Page gets more funky on the clav and Trey plays some great chords on top.  Mike’s tone switch is a tremendous catalyst to get this section rocking.  The jam went from nice, to super awesome.

The band is once again locked in with everyone contributing nicely.  At 6:40, Page will start to move between the clav and the piano.  At 6:48, Fish drops a fill and Trey starts to work on building things.  Page moves full time to the piano at 7:05.  Trey starts to let some notes ring out and Mike’s BEOWS work underneath.

At 7:15, Page drops a gorgeous melody that sends this jam into bliss city.  Not a Reba or Hood Jam bliss city, but a blissful city where Mike’s bass is eating everything in sight.  Page carves his mark and the counter sounds between and Mike and Page are incredible.  The best part is Trey’s tone somehow seems to mesh with both extremes, forming one fantastic full band sound.

When the jam breaks down at 7:40, and Page and Fish nail every note, I know good things are coming.  The jam starts building as Fish pushes the pace.  Mike also starts to really increase the frequency of his BEOWS and this jam is cooking!  The band is locked in and I am doing this…

This got awesome fast!!!  Page is once again on top of his game.  Every melody he comes up with is one that makes me smile.

Beauty>Trey WTF (8:35-13:50)

There is not a drastic change to this section from the previous.  In fact the build began before the 8:35 mark.  I decided to separate sections here, because of Mike’s tone change.  Unless you have good speakers/headphones, you might have missed it.  At 8:35, Mike switches tones, and as Page is on fire on the piano, Mike creates a rumbling earthquake.  Another great move from Michael Gordon and he is once again is the catalyst to a different path.

When Mike changes, Fish starts to work another beat in.  This is one that I don’t recognize and is super cool.  It is unique, complex, and provides a interesting balance.

Trey starts to work some repeating licks on top of the Mike and Fish rhythms.  Things are heading toward a peak.  You can certainly feel it.  At 9:43, Trey latches on to a lick and starts to follow it upward.  He then comes away from it and drops a noooooooooooote at 10:04.  The nooooooote works wonders yet again and he follows this by repeating some high pitched licks.

The entire band is working as one, just leaving us with a wonderful sound.  Page moves to the keyboards and repeats numerous melodies.  At 11:03, Trey finds a lick that he uses to bring us to the very top of this peak.

At 11:08, Page holds down some organ chords and lets the rest of the band just annihilate the end of this! The entire band goes nuts and builds to one final gorgeous peak.  At 11:27, everyone in the crowd does this…

Hose city!!!  A gorgeous lick from Trey after the build.  I LOVE that peak.  It is rocking, blissful, and even a tad bit funky.  Life is beautiful.

After Trey holds a note at 11:50, he begins to let of the gas.  Fish continues to crush things for a while before moving to the cymbals.

By about the 12:20 mark, things begin to work there way down.  Page moves back to the piano and then a fill from Fish at 12:48.  Then something happens…

The jam breaks all the way down, and Mike finds an awesome bass line.  Page drops a nice piano chord on top and it sounds like an awesome funk jam could break out.  You can hear it from 12:48-12:58.  Everyone was on board!! That got so awesome, so quickly!  Instead Trey forces the return to the Ghost theme.  WTF!!! Horrible rip chord there!

From there, Trey forces the Ghost theme and our Ghost ends that way.

Final Thoughts

I am not going to let that ugly Trey chord ruin my feelings for an otherwise great Ghost.  The initial segment is good but nothing special.  After that though, Mike switches to the BEOW and from there things completely kick ass.  It rocks, then builds, and hits just a beautiful peak.  Had that funk jam at the end actually taken place, we could be talking about an all time version. Instead, just a very good one.

Score: 8.9