A 2 CD set from our final performance. New York City has always been a special place for us to play. It was always our real home, as the members all grew up in New Jersey, and it’s usually the gig where all the family and close friends come out. That it proved to be our final gig was, of course, bittersweet. But the show speaks for itself. It was emotional up on that stage and perhaps you’ll be able to hear that on tape. Of interesting note is that on December 9th, 1964, exactly 40 years to the day prior, the John Coltrane Quartet had assembled nearby in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio to record some album called A Love Supreme. Not to offer that the music we created was on par with that inimitable album, but maybe, just maybe something was in the air at Tribeca Rock Club that night. Maybe it was the familiar faces -- some of our college buddies, some of the hard-core fans who had seen every NY gig, some of the heads who hadn’t seen us in years but came out to pay their respects…. maybe it was the sight of Brian’s dad, headbanging…. or maybe it was Ilya’s parents, Pete’s girlfriend – others who we kind of knew, yet others who we didn’t but felt internally all the same…. they were all there. Maybe it was the “Dust Up” opener which basically said “Hey, thanks for coming out, now get out of the way of this sledgehammer,” or maybe it was that “Refusenik” --- the emo ending as urgent as it had ever been. The textbook jazz-funk of “Hippo” which harkened back to the yesteryear sound of the band when we first began…. the old school setlist where “24 Hours” and “Phobophobe” and “Spin Slowly” were all dusted off (or is that dusted up??) and bludgeoned with new school fervor….. the comedy of the “Spanish Castle Magic” retakes….. the “Bulbous>Mesh>Bulbous” encore (what else could it have been?) where Ilya plays the bird-chirping ringtone of his cell phone into the snare mic…. Brian’s truly awesome and inventive colors, Pete’s sinewy and melodic basslines, always locked in like the hammer he is…..Ilya riding his crash cymbal in the end of “Anew” like he’s in Nirvana or Weezer, but really like he’s in OM Trio. This was truly the gig to “come strong” and we think we did. We’re proud of this one. (To make the show fit on two discs, the encore was moved to the end of Disc 1).
