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I think the reason people think they don't like Reine or think they don't hear him is that they have no clue what he is playing. He plays lead in at least half of the songs, freeing Snah up for experimenting and playing rhythm. Then they switch, and Reine often plays fairly far out and creative while Snah takes the lead. This also changes the dynamics for Bent, who in many songs on this tour plays actual bass where he otherwise would have played barytone guitar or just guitar.
It's a pity people continue to complain about Reine. I agree Kristoffer Lo was great, but Reine is contributing no less than Lo did, and the band is so in sync when Reine is on board the ship.
Check out videos for evidence. Start with Dream Home, Heartattack Mac, Mountain and The Crucible to catch some Reine magic! Then continue with Ãœberpilgrim, August, and 577!
Lars M has kindly sent me setlist scans, but how do I put them up here? Do I have to be a web page programmer? Anyway, "Victim" is tagged on to "The Tower" in parenthesis…
@Devotional: All you say makes very good sense, except I have no problem getting into Go To California, My Best Friend or Neverland (Yes, I play on the Neverland team). My Best Friend didn't catch me at first back then. Not on record, not live, until they started exploring it during the second half of the 2000 spring tour. When I heard it in Stavanger at the beginning of the tour, it was 8 min long and played more or less like on record. When I rejoined the tour in Cologne a month later it was jammed out to 19 min, and I was awestruck. It was like seeing a different band. Same, but different. Something had happened along the road.
@TraktorBass: This brings me to your question. Were the stellar jams fewer and further between back in the days? In general I'd say yes. They have always been stretching out here and there, but not like today when almost every song is a vehicle for jamming. I guess this is partly also the reason why we seem to be two main camps these days: Those who want more 90's song-based songs, and those who are in it mainly for the jams, like I am. During the 90's, all concerts had at least a couple of jams, but not every night had stellar jams.
In '93 the jams mainly occurred in Mountain, Home of the Brave and Demon Box. Most concerts only include one or two of them. The Wheel is being jammed into life on stage this year.
In '94 the biggest jams were still Mountain and The Wheel.
In '95 they play around with Nothing to Say and Hogwash.
In '96 they start to stretch out STG. Nothing to Say sometimes includes part of Mountain. They also jam out the first embryonic Un Chiens.
In '97 the big jams are in Un Chien, Hogwash and, uhm… Nothing to Say with Mountain tease.
Come '98 and Trust us, and we get K9, Supertsoge/The Wheel, as well as Heartattack Mac which is jammed out for up to 15 minutes, sometimes including Waiting for my Man. It's a crime that this was not included on Roadwork 1. 1998 also saw the longest STG's to date, 17 minutes in Copenhagen including a long, floating and beautiful ending similar in mood to the ending that developed for The Cuckoo during fall 2018. And you had 10 min long Young Man Blues'es. I think it is safe to say that '98 saw the most jammed out sets of the Geb-era.
Spring '99 they continued the '98 jams, extended Black to Comm to up to 10 minutes, and at the very end of this era they introduced the mind-bending troika of Song for a Bro>Hogwash>Tristano.
Fall '99 and enter the pop-era. Still we got In Memory of Elizabeth Reed and Song for a Bro, Un Chien and Tristano.
In 2000-2002 the stellar jams were inside Song for a Bro, Liz Reed, Go To California, Flick of The Wrist, K9, Superstooge, Supertristano, Hogwash (Spacewash), Dora Peach, 577, My Best Friend, Pills Powder & Passionplays, Landslide, and… Walkin' With J. In Wien 2002 we got the once-in-a-lifetime Superstooge>Hogwash with both the coolest intro to date as well as an intrepid skronk-transition between the two. Do I need to say it? Mind-blowing!
But still most concerts only included 3-5 bigger jams.
2006 continued in the same manner, the main jams were in K9, L.T.E.C., Triggerman, and a few more, but many songs were still song-songs, to use Bent's own word.
Enter Kenneth, and more and more songs become vehicles for jamming.
Enter Tomas, and almost every song is a vehicle for jamming.
Apropos Kenneth and Tomas, they bring me to the next question.
@BronYAur: Ãœberpilgrim is re-arranged.
To conclude and bind this together: the whole reason I started traveling to see multiple concerts was mainly because there were fewer and further between the stellar jams back in the day, and to a huge degree also because the setlist changed so much from night to night, and from the beginning to the end of tours. Norway always got the first and the last concerts of the tours, much like today. But back then they always seemed to peak in Italy. Nowadays they seem to peak every night. Still you don't have to go further back than 2016, when they played the first half or two thirds of the tour before they finally re-invented both the setlist and themselves in Wiesbaden. That is the kind of magic I am in this for, and every tour has a couple of those nights. In 2017 it was Cologne/Leipzig, both very good cities to see them in. In fact I will say most of the 2017 concerts were magic and packed with stellar jams. 2018 was one long big highlight, and they seem to continue the trend in 2019. I could not be happier.
Hahaha! "Terrible setlist"? "Endure GTC"? Thanks to tapers extraordinaire Lars M and Spacebandit I just had my mind blown by a Starhammer worthy of Roadwork release. Before that a fresh, jammed out Go to California had me smile for 13 minutes. Back in the day we traveled for weeks to witness stuff like this. These days they reach the boiling point 3-4 songs into the opening night already.
Each to his own opinion, setlists discussions are fun, and following the setlist postings is like football season. But the result does not necessarily say much about the game, and the setlist does not say much about the jams.
@Devotional: Superstooge was played quite a few times in 2017, and Hey Jane was played sometimes. Vortex Surfer is also still played now and then, so I don't think they have forgotten the existence of Trust Us. That said I would love to hear more songs from it too.
@supernaut: I have never been to Bodø for a MP concert, so I don't know if this concert had a smaller audience than usual, but it's a small town, so I am not surprised.
I find the setlist good. I am especially glad to see The Promise played again, got nothing against Go to Cal, and I am intrigued by Ãœberwagner>cover song.
Great video of The Crucible. I think this song draws musical lines back to Demon Box days.
Happy to see The Tower, as well as Dream Home survive. Would like to see more songs from The Tower re-appear, like Bartok and Cuckoo with its extended outro from fall 2018.
To bring this back on topic, I will see Copenhagen and Hamburg on this tour for sure. I am also thinking of Lausanne. Anyone else?
Who? Me? Hahaha! That was a wet dream coming true in 2002. Your comment had me break out the Athens recording again. Energetic concert with lots of hot playing. No shouting for 577, but there is this guy shouting for Vortex Surfer a couple of times…
Second time in Greece. First time was An Club in Athens 06.10.2001. My recording of it is still out there, a great night it was.
No worries. I am still listening to it daily. Although yesterday I had Psychotzar on my brain all day, today I woke up with The Cuckoo on my mind. I cannot make a full description of how the music impacts me emotionally (isn't that what you want to read about, JERO?), other than that I think The Tower has got it all. In my world it is already a classic alongside DB, TU, HMF and HBM. I feel privileged and lucky to live right now and be able to follow this band the way I do. I hope they keep The Tower, Bartok, Dream Home, Cuckoo and Ship of Fools for the upcoming tour. Although the other half of the record would be just as fine. And I hope they never stop.
Can someone please ask Bent or Cecilie next time they bump into them what is going on between Hamburg and Utrecht? Thank you.
18 months in, The Tower is still growing. This landmark double album has been supported by two years of live concerts. Five different versions of the band have explored it intrepidly.
It has spawned a TRIPle live record, the complete high quality video footage from Krach am Bach, the Roadburn recording, the Rockpalast/Burg Herzberg video, the Rune Grammofon YouTube livestream, Motorpsyhodelic Clips webpage and all the Bernie videos. Thank you, Bernie. Thank you, Motorpsycho! Never has the access of high quality sound and vision been better.
I manage to attend 13 concerts during the time span of The Tower. 13 fantastic experiences in eight countries together with many of my best friends and this amazing band.
On top of this I have been able to collect recordings from 43 of the concerts to get me through everyday life. I am still working my way through the last recordings from fall 2018. Big thanks to tapers and torrenters for your amazing efforts! I even recorded a few myself too, for the first time in 12 years.
As I write this I am revisiting Belgrade 2018.03.09. What a day, what a concert, and what a night…
But getting astray here. Point is that I have had The Tower back on repeated play for the last couple of weeks now, after maybe a year long break while listening to all the live stuff. And while I was very happy with it to begin with, the record has only grown in the meantime, and still does, one month before The Crucible will be released and force it out of my player! At least for a while.
Haha, brilliant! In the meantime I edited out my gong remark, but cool! I hope they bring a big one for this tour!
@BronYAur: What do you not find impressive about the song?
I am a 100 times more impressed by this song than the song before it in the radio program, and 100.000 times more impressed by this song than the song after. Approximately.
I find the song brilliant as a Black Sabbath/stoner rock-pastiche. The psychedelic rock and stoner scene has imploded in an oversufficient quantity of Sabbath-clones (yawn) long time ago, while at the same time none of the current bands have ever been able to catch the essence of the music. Enter Motorpsycho: Case closed. Now we can all move on. 5000 bands can lay down their instruments. There is no need to try anymore. It's been decided. You're obsolete. You didn't have what it takes. Now leave it to the grownups, and go play somewhere else. Thank you!
