I think the atmosphere is whats helping us push this a little higher in our minds. It was a late night, and one in Chicago at that, and at a venue of this size it had all the makings of a great night. the question was, would they deliver? They did. It was a blast inside of there, and the band played with a lot of energy. The crowd fed off of it, and they gave the energy right back. I was all over the venue last night and there was no drop off in intensity in that whole venue. The balcony peeps were getting down just as hard as the soundboard peeps who were getting down just as hard as everyone riding the rail.

The opening threesome of the Floor, Wappy > Wife Soup showed they meant business from the get go. The floor had an some jamming going on before intro, not that long, but they opened it up a little bit before they moved into the actual song. The Wappy reminded me of a bright lights jam; fat heavy synths, patient, dark, but with a rocking edge bc its wappy, it moved along nicely. Nothing super memorable, but it was a treat to listen to. I dont know how accurate my notes are, but I had that between the floor and wappy were were already ~30 minutes into the set. Wife Soup was sweet, and it was received very well, I was center balcony at that point and I felt it sway/wobble underneath me. No coincidence, people love their soup.

Resolution > Booth love was another strong segment of music. Sets like this are why I love segue heavy shows/sets, the music comes in chunks and it allows the sets to progress more fluidly, seems like the improv ventures 'out there' a bit more as well. Reso had a nice spacey, funky, layered first jam that I dug it alot. Second jam was built around the zsa zsa gabor theme and some of the licks from it, but they changed it up a bit. Nice to see them bust that out, as I was bummed it got cut from the UMBowl. Per my tastes, anything built around that riff is money, so I was really happy with how this Reso played out. They did one of those stop on a dime transitions into Booth. Booth had a timing jam come out of it that took a little while to find its groove. But they locked into something at the end and it peaked HEAVY. Most interesting BL Ive heard in awhile.

Comma Later and Hangover were a fun way to end the set, nothing to write home. I enjoy the funk/jazz of these tunes so I was digging it, seemed liek Comma took the energy down a little. kind of a nice breather after the heat the opened the set with, and the energy in the room picked up with Hangover.

Snucka is a fun way to open a set, I actually enjoy parts I and II more than part III, so I'm always happy to hear the intro pop up. I dont think they did anything out of Pt I besides take it into Triple Wide. Most people on here complain about songs following them around; I think Ive seen triple wide more than any other song, and I couldnt be happier about it. This version was great, it was atypical and it got dark and to the point quickly. Waful claims that OB is his favorite song to light up, but he always impresses me most when he's doing the lights during 3x. He uses similar techniques every time and it blows me away every time. He also started to paint the walls with the Mac III's and once he uses those big patterns on the wall EVERYONE goes crazy. Waful owned the room for the whole triple wide jam.

Once I heard the intro to deeper I headed towards the lobby because I hadnt eaten since breakfast and figured early in the second set the lobby would be empty. Whilst the crowd got Palmer Square'd, I got a hot dog and took a piss. I consider that a win. I walked back into the room right as we learned about the things that matter most, or what could make us old . . LIKE JOEL. ITK had a fun jam. Really high energy, no real theme, but it didnt suck, which is nice. I made a note about the energy it created in the room, so Im assuming there was a nice peak, but probably a forced one seeing as how I dont really remember anything too specific about it.

Conduit > Haji > Conduit, Rosanna -> Hurt Bird Bath was a whole lot of fun. The first conduit jam before the went into haji had a really nice proggy bounceback jam. Some people bitched about conduits placement, I think its justified bc the jam they played there needed to come out of a prog song, and it worked perfectly coming out of conduit. Haji was sweet, and the jam out of it and back into conduit was just CRUSHED by baylor.

Rosanna -> Hurt Bird Bath was so so so so cool!! They jammed the outro out of Rosanna and then noodled around a little bit. Eventually they work their way to a riff that sounds similar to one of the HBB riffs. They then do a lap and come back and straight up play the riff but at a bit of a slower tempo than they do during HBB played regularly. So were getting what I believe is the bridge of HBB played to us in what I called a tease at the time. They double back and then pick up the pace and the volume a little bit, this is no longer a tease, theyre working their way into A HBB but doing so by playing the middle section of the song first! I think they repeated it a few more time, until they pause and you hear Kris' intro and then they launch into the beginning of the song. When they got to the portion of HBB that they had teased previous to actually playing the song, I felt like they played it at a quicker tempo than normal it was pure adrenaline. This HBB is one Ill never forget.

Encore was decent.

Id give the show an A.