This week's #ThisDealInHistory takes us to Dallas, TX for our show at Trees on 11/3/2003. Texas never gets enough love from tND - the distance prob has a lot to do it with, as it certainly isn't the vibe that's a problem. Every visit to Dallas (and Austin) invariably ends in a memorable night, both onstage and off. This date was no exception.
The cut starts with "Then And Now", featuring some interesting bass pitch-bending/whammying from Dan and some super-groovy shaker work from Darren - both parts adding new dimensions to a tND standard.
"Then And Now" is an interesting piece of music: It utilizes a grand total of one chord, contains an incredibly basic four-note melody and the groove is contained within a repeating bass and drum pattern.
That being said, it's a huge fan (and band) favourite and can often be one of the more powerful tracks in a show. I chalk this up to both its hypnotic vibe and the anthemic solo section that usually follows. This version contains both of these elements but instead of building the solo to epic proportions we choose at 3:26 to take it in a different direction, briefly exploring a 1970's jazz/funk angle via some slippery Rhodes chords and spacey Moog bits.
A key/feel change is called at 4:50 and we eventually introduce an odd-meter chord progression (at 5:20) that we enjoyed playing around with at the time. We never really turned those chords into a proper song, instead preferring to throw them in here and there and see what would come of it. In this instance we take it in a bouncy disco direction before i trigger the cue for "Ravine" at 6:49.
We subsequently fall into the "Ravine" intro at 7:02 but choose to extend that for a while with a filtered Juno 106 rhythm over top of the repeated "Ravine" bass line. Check the bit at 8:12 when Darren switches over to the ride cymbal for an awesome synth/ride cymbal duet. Dan switches up the bass part to develop the drama building into the main section at 10:21. Gotta love those bass filter sweeps! When the filter resonance overloads (like at the beginning of "Episode 7" on Gone Gone Gone) my heart just goes all a-flutter!
At 11:05 Darren breaks out the beatbox and I start adding what sounds like ring modulated rhythms on the Nord before laying down some double-keyboard melodies on the Rhodes and Moog (in harmonized intervals, no less).
For whatever reason we decide at 13:08 to play "Subdivisions" by Rush (like you need a reason to play that song?). It's apparent that we didn't discuss (or practice) this beforehand as our interpretation of the song can only be described as "liberal"...
After about 75 seconds of that we decide to get it together and close out with something a little more straightforward, in this case "VL Tone" without a jam in the middle. -Jamie
