Coming to town on the same weekend as two of our campus’ favorite musical acts, Girl Talk and Super Mash Brothers, trance/fusion/jam group Disco Biscuits had a lot to live up to. But in a coup of the weekend concert scene, Bisco completely blew away the competition, putting on one of the most entertaining and musically impressive shows I’ve seen in quite some time.
I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical at first — I’ve never been much for the trippy jam sound that I’d heard Disco Biscuits favored, and after listening to some of their tracks online I still wasn’t completely sold. And, to make matters worse, my pregame moves the night of the show certainly weren’t up to par relative to the average Disco Biscuits fan (I did my best to stay on the legal end of the spectrum). I wouldn’t say my expectations were low, I just didn’t have any expectations at all. Going into the concert, I was pretty sure I had no idea what I was getting myself into — and, as it turned, out, I was right.
A few minutes into the band’s first song, I discovered the reason I didn’t appreciate the Disco Biscuits’ recorded music: it’s something that simply must be experienced live. The four members of the band managed to continuously blend technically tight music and improvisational jams with familiar sounds and traditional jam band climaxes and riffs, all while playing to the mood of the crowd. Do all of the songs blend together in one big loopy, tripped-out jam? Yes, they do. Do they make you feel like your ears are on awesome, stereophonic drugs? Yes, they do.
For all the silliness going on at their show (one fan was seen carrying a foam E.T. baby through the crowd, and that wasn’t even the half of it), the four members of Disco Biscuits clearly take their music seriously, and it pays off. Rather than focusing on onstage antics and banter with the crowd, these guys play hard, play well and let their music do the talking (with a little help from a killer light show). Their music delivers live, even for the most skeptical of music critics. The Disco Biscuits aren’t just a band for fans of fusion, or fans of jam bands or fans of trance. They’re a band for fans of music.
