“This week’s #ThisDealInHistory features another early-era show from theNEWDEAL - this one from Hamilton, ON back in September, 2000. Hamilton played an important part in the formative stages of the band - it was one of those cities where we could travel a little out of town and play some regular gigs to work on our improvisation in front of a crowd (and without a net). Because the band never had a rehearsal in our existence (save for one jam session when we returned from our 2004 hiatus), we used these types of shows to just let loose and see where the improv could take us. We’d gauge the reaction of the crowd to know if we were moving in the right direction and we would then listen back to these gigs and pick out little pieces that we would want to extend upon in future shows.
This cut is from one of our last Hamiton gigs from this time period, as we started to expand our touring base and weren’t really able to play too many local-type shows anymore, but when i listened back to this show to find some #TDIH bits, i was impressed with how important these semi-local shows were in helping sculpt our style of improvisation and experimentation.” -Jamie
