what a weird show.
The good stuff is very good but what's bad / boring / uninspired is ugly.

a solid 6 / 10

the start had real potential to continue as a great show but unfortunately they pick terrible, momentum crushing tunes. it's frustrating...even 19 years later. I felt the same then and now.

like always, they are still the best band in the world.

HAB > Pilin' - Really cool classically influenced jam right out of HAB that turns much more digital after a few minutes. There's one part where the jam drops out to just Barber and it turns into a really gorgeous dub jam. The jam into Pilin' It Higher is some light DNB with e-piano and clean guitar that actually sounds really fitting. Pilin' jam is pretty simplistic and nothing special.

Fever - Standard.

Mary - Standard.

Widow > Happy > Widow > Happy > Widow > Happy > IRW - I'm not a big fan of these gimmicky song-switches unless they contain a lot of jams, which this does not. Not a single second of jams here.

Helix > Morph - The jam starts out with the usual 02/03 Helix jam, then moves into an actual jam. The actual jam is very dark to start. Really cool stuff. Barber is playing some really groove-based riffs here, and it works out really well. The segue into Morph is really cool and well-done. The jam in Morph itself is a standard Morph jam.

Therapy > 42 > Safety Dance > Ape > 42 - Really odd pairing here, but I actually quite like the jam out of Therapy. Really driving trance with powerful basslines from Brownstein. The jam into Safety Dance is pretty boring. The jam out of Safety Dance gets really crazy for a while and it's awesome! The first half of the Ape jam is boring as all get-out, but the second half gets into this really cool swingy jam that I really like with a middle-eastern feel to it.

Magellan > Ah Moshi Moshi > Magellan - First Magellan jam is nothing to write home about. The Ah Moshi Moshi Jam is fantastic and one of the best I've heard. The jam back into Magellan I could take or leave.

CWB - Standard.

I'm gonna give this a 3 star, just because once again there's a lot of filler. The whole Widow > Happy sequence is a gimmick at best, and a few jams were just straight up boring (Morph, 42, Magellan). Standouts: HAB, Helix, Therapy, Safety > Ape, Ah Moshi Moshi.

I got shut out of a Biscuits show for the first time the night before and came into this one ready to go nuts. HAB shifts through several well developed themes including a great dub jam before leading into an awesome jungle jam that resolves in Pilin. Segment Grade: 4.5

After that the set gets brutally murdered. I dont know who thought it was a great idea to play Fever (and i love that song!),Mary Had A Little Lamb and then Happy Widow>IRW in succession. 28 straight minutes without any improv, tDB almost -never- goes that long without a jam. One of the worst 30 mins in tDB history, Segment Grade: 0

Helicopters woke me up from my nap. The Helix middle section theme makes one of its last appearances(the last?) The jam that follows is sloppy but a huge step up from what just happened. I remember the fog machine on full blast and red strobelights during the most intense part of the jam. You could not breathe in the venue during Helix! The jazzy/dubby post-crescendo jam that segues into Morph is more interesting than the 15 minutes of wompy trance that preceeded it. Morph jam is the typically spastic funk it often features, though nowhere near as good as the other version from this week.
Helix>Morph segment: 3.5..I'd give the set a 2.0 overall just because the middle part of it is inexplicably useless.
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Second Set-
Therapy..Good opener choice, I like the newer reworked version more but this one had a nice bounce to it. The way they slowly depart the Therapy theme and step into the jam is really good and when they pick up the pace a few minutes later we definitely got into "Wow this is awesome for Therapy" range it stays pretty good before stopping abruptly and then Brownstein picks up 42 when it starts again. I dont know why they didnt just slam into 42 at full speed, or at least exploit an intro jam based around Brownstein's way-low bass tone.

42 has no real jam to speak of as they immediately drop into Safety Dance's tempo. A bluesy Safety Dance intro with tribal drumming commences with a SOTW feel to it, Mags has some cool sine wave/theramin sounding noise going on towards the end of the 42 track, and when they go full Safety Dance it sounds quite nice.
2nd set Therapy>42>Safety: 3.0 or so? Therapy jam was pretty solid.
The Safety Dance jam has a few false starts where it seems like they'll move away from it but then stumble back into what they were doing before. Its a relief around 10:30 in when they finally push the tempo up and welcome us to the jungle. Lord knows why they didnt focus on the d&b jams this show as this is almost as good as the >Pilin from earlier. Sam and Marn lock in hard on the groove and Mags and Barber do some goofy interplay that ends up making everything feel nicely off-kilter and psychedelic.

They peak out the jungle jam and then bring it back down to play around some more. Great idea on paper, but then Barber apparently gets sick of jamming and throws the Ape ending riff out there for no apparent reason. Similar to the >42 in that they had a good jam going and couldnt finish it correctly.
Ape jam is a treat, the band seems really focused on building a coherent theme to jam around and Sammy's drumming is especially interesting. I love the way he uses the shuffling beat to slow everyone down into a very Shimmy sounding jam. The switch into 42 feels forced here when Shimmy was looming so heavily it sounds akward to jump into the fist pumping RLH-lite of a 42 ending for 30 seconds of guitar solo and 2 minutes of singing ;)
SafetyDance>Ape>42 = 3.5
Oh man I remember thinking this Magellan was make or break for the show the second it started. A good one would save the 2nd set, a bad one would solidify it as one of the worst shows i'd seen yet.
The first jam has a refreshing 70s Dead or 99 Biscuits feel to it and peaks pretty well. Moshi Moshi starts off with Magner on piano making me think "ooh maybe this wont be a new deal ripoff this time" and then immediately Magner comes in with the New Deal bass haha. Altogether a greatly entertaining Moshi Moshi jam that the crowd ate up. Magellan's ending jam is good for the first few minutes and then eventually shapes into a solid peak. Magellan = 3.5
CWB Encore..as usual, no jam to speak of except the same guitar solo it usually has. CWB=0!

As a whole..show isnt as bad as I thought it was,but it has some glaring faults. Seek out only the HAB>Pilin and Safety Dance>Inv Ape>42, maybe the Magellan if you're feeling lucky.

A friend of mine who attended this show (I didnât see it) burned it for me, almost as an afterthought. He thought it was pretty good; I thought it was incredible. Three years later, the second set is still one of my most listened-to Biscuits discs.

A+ Jams: Therapy--> 42 --> Safety Dance --> Aquatic Ape --> 42
Weak moments: None â the first set is solid, unremarkably good, three-star Bisco fare until (as moe.ron111 says) Helicopters, and its segue into Morph. This brings us to four-star level, and prepares us forâ¦
Why itâs five stars: The second set. Wow!!! Therapy --> 42 --> Safety Dance --> Aquatic Ape --> 42 is just so damn strong --- itâs probably my A-number-one set of â03. Think Therapy canât be a jam vehicle?? Listen and believe. Itâs a dance-y, trance-y, high, silvery groove, like a party that goes on deep into the a.m. hours, and evolves into a musical taser and a seamless segue into 42. This, in turn, is jammed nicely, soft and peaceful, and swoops into Safety Dance, another perfect segue, and a versatile jam to follow.
If you love the Biscuits, you owe it to yourself to hear the second set of this show.

Underdog fav of mine from '03. There are 3 segments of this show that are ridiculous. First is the Helix>Morph. Helix is a nasty throwdown version that slows around the 17 min mark for a tasty segue into a clean Morph.
Second is the 42>Safety Dance>Ape>42. The jam in the Safety Dance may be one of the best of the year and shifts perfectly into Ape. Definitely demands a listen. And finally, the Mag>AMM jam>ellan sandwich is nearly perfect.
The sound quality is pretty good too, not the crispest, but not bad, overall I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10.
Don't miss this show, it won't disappoint.