Incredible Show!
5
By Kev 712
This is the first show from an incredible 3 night stand at Oak Mountain amphitheater in Pelham, AL back in July of 2001. Oak Mt. is Panic holy ground. If you've never attended a show there you must think that it must be one more amazing venue for it to hold such a special place in the hearts of the Panic faithful as well as the band. And I'm here to tell you that that assumption would be absolutely, 100% incorrect. Oak Mt. amphitheater is nothing more than a stage sitting underneath a large shed right beside I 65 just a little south of Birmingham and its just like many other "sheds" around the country. But for some mysterious reason, when this particular band would play at this particular shed the result was always an event that could be described as nothing short of pure magic! During this time period, 1998-2002, the band was firing on all cylinders and would bring top notch performances night in and night out. They could flow through long improvisational movements, make changes and segue from one song into the next effortlessly and at will, with such force and ease that it would leave you speechless. All 6 members of the band would always, no matter how intense of a direction that the music would take them in, be on the same page never getting lost in the conversation that would be taking place on stage. This type of high level performance was the type that Widespread Panic would deliver on any given night at any given venue during this time but when the band and the faithful would roll into Oak Mt. everything was moved up to a higher level. The jams were longer and more intense. The starts, stops and segues were even tighter. And the energy that was shared between the audience and band could only come close to being matched by that of other big multi-night runs such as Halloween in New Orleans or New Years in Atlanta. If you have never heard this show before your are in for such a treat, there'll be new surprises and jaw dropping moments for you during this show from start to finish. If you are like me and had the pleasure of attending this and the other two shows that intensely hot July weekend then you already know what the deal is and having a high quality copy of this show to go back and enjoy is a real treat. I've listened to this show numerous times over the years but have not gave it a good, attentive spin in quite sometime and it has been a joy to pick back up on the little treats again, like the "Morning Dew" tease around the 9:00 mark of "Bears Gone Fishing". That put a smile on my face as big as when they originally played it that night. Other notables of this show are "Last Dance" and a very enjoyable "The Harder They Come", which was the very first of the only three times that it has been played by the band.
As enjoyable as this show is to listen to and as good as it sounds being mixed and mastered from a multi-track source, its not $35.99 good. As been mentioned, you can download this show in your choice of format or even purchase the actual discs from livewidespreadpanic.com for significantly less than what you can here, which is exactly what I did. From what I read on various other sites they do plan to release all 3 shows from that weekend, this one being archive release 8.1 with the other two shows being 8.2 and 8.3. The only reason that I can see charging this much for a download in AAC format would be that the price include the other two future releases as a pre-order. That is just pure speculation on my part because it makes no sense what so ever to charge this much for one release. As of right now I highly recommend picking up this archive release from livewidespreadpanic.com, you will not regret it and will get a lot of milage out of this show. And hopefully the other two will be made available very soon.
