From: Charlie Dirksen
5/2/94 South Music Hall, Birmingham, AL (Rvwd 10/95) Oh, to hear Gig open a show!!!! The opening of this MikeS is
standard. Otiel from ARU (right?) is on the tramps for this. He also plays a little during the tramps segment (nothing
meritorious). I don't really hear Trey in the tramps segment (I guess he was giving Otiel time to adjust, or something) until he
(Trey) does Floyd's "Money" for a few seconds. Trey finally opens up around the 4 min point. A very good MikeS tramps jam
(great compared with recent MikeSs, imo). No off-key sustain crap to speak of. The tramps segment ends at the usual time (5
mins). I haven't heard Otiel for awhile! Where'd he go, he must still be here.. oh here he comes! He and Trey noodle around
back and forth... The jam sounds like a RUSH tune around 6:15 (Tom Sawyer)!! At 7:15, the jam kinda picks up, thanks to
Fish, who kicks in a 2001 straight-up no bullshit drumbeat. He drops out soon, though, at 8 mins or so, and all I hear are Mike
and Starkweather (is he the BT bassist, or is he ARU as well!? he's always guest-appearin', it seems.. ;) wailing away. There's
just the two of them in the jam now (Mike and Stacey). Trey and Otiel are gone. At 9 mins, the jam is mellow and laid back --
with the two bassists going at it; no Fishman. There's no organized theme or anything. Mike snaps fiercely though, around
10:10, and keeps it up (scales scales scales, but they sound COOL). At 10:44 ARU's Otiel (I guess this is him) starts doing his
typically-ARU Weird Vocal Stuff (lots of ooouuu-ing). If you know ARU you know what I'm talking about (it is characteristic
of ARU and only ARU, to my limited knowledge). He keeps this up for awhile over the bassists' funking. Fish comes in silently
around this time (I guess this is Fish). Page comes in at 11:50 or so (he had dropped out waaaay back when Mike and Steve
started their thing). Sounds like Trey gets into the vocal jamming with the ARU guy for a little bit at 12:20 or so. This jam kinda
dies out at 13:50, with only little doodles from Page and Otiel and Mike and Fish. Just quiet masturbating at this point -- no jam
or groove, per se (14:30). The "jam" starts building, though, and the drums come strongly back into the picture, so by 15:30
everyone is jamming somewhat severely (it's not as HOT as PHISH can get, tho.. lots of sustain from Page? Is this Page at the
damn keyboards? Where YOU at this show??? Want to post something substantive to the net??). This jam just sorta ends at
16. Nothing that great.. uneventful, frankly. Not special (hear this.. flame bait.. c'mon.. you were there.. TELL US what it was
like). This MikeS->Jam doesn't come close to the 4/21 DMB Watchtower, or the ARU 5/5/93 YEM (holy shit!!). B-/C+
rating for this MikeS->Jam. Definitely not awesome imo, but certainly not "through the motions." There were special guests,
but shit, this just wasn't that uh, special. Sorry.