Looking for the ball? I’m not sure if it’s happening tonight, but I have a recording of Cycles performing set number 2 at Beanstalk Music Festival!
Beanstalk knows what the people want…more CYCLES! So it’s no surprise that for the past three years I’ve attended the festival, the trio from Denver has received the honor of performing two full sets over the course of the annual celebration. This year, for their round 2, the band played a fierce set with an eclectic mix of covers and originals that touched a bit more on the band’s jammy side than their first set.
The set opened with “Hang It Up On The Wall”, a tune that exhibits one of the things Cycles does best, the micro-jam. The band is able to launch into these compact jam segments that feel like they’ve been plucked out of moments that often times take other groups 10-15 minutes to build to. This particular segment benefits from the depth of Patrick’s big reverb, packing vibrancy into the air surrounding the lead, built on the backs of new drummer Collin O’Brian and Tucker’s never-flailing rhythm work. The result is an onslaught of soaring builds that undulate throughout the moment, seemingly for as long as the rhythm is willing to let it play out. It’s quick, but it’s compelling.
Following the strong opener, the band launched into what would be the biggest jam of the set, an almost 18-minute jam on Disclosure’s electro-pop hit, “When A Fire Starts To Burn”. The jam itself got quite far from the structure of the original, evolving into a forever-building tornado of notes, played over a foundation of ominous reverb. After some sharp peaks, the bottom dropped out and Tucker carried on the original bass riff while Patrick laid out some heavily phased-out synth tones over Collin’s drums, which seemed to have a tinge of reverb on them at that point as well. This evolved into a syncopated start-stop jam that led Tucker and Patrick to both rip it up. After a bit, the reverb was back in full force and drove the outro jam. The segment was not only massive in scope and impressive in quality, but also exciting at the prospect of Cycles handling almost 20-minute jams.
The band continued with a take on the Patty-penned tune, “The Ball”. The epic solo commanded the stage as it always does, navigating itself through one of the biggest peaks of the night, not once but twice. The set also featured Patrick doing his best Jimi Hendrix impression with the cover of “Isabella” and his best Iron Maiden impression with the intro to the newer tune “Strife”. The tune bounces from badass dragon-riding 80’s metal riffs to dreamy lounge pop in the blink of an eye, in a jekyll-hyde pairing that few bands could pull off so fluidly.
The set continued with a rocking version of “Chapanga”, a jammy excursion into the band’s most dependable jam vehicle, “Something In The Water”, which traversed several peak moments and then blended into the band’s instrumental anthem to raging, “Party Boy”, before then closing everything down with their tried-and-true cover of Les Claypool’s ode to one-upsmanship, “One Better”.
Cycles always finds a way to bring something new to their show. They never seem satisfied with playing a “safe” set, playing with a fearlessness that is endearing and captivating both in their song selection and their ability to elevate each tune with compartmentalized jams that stoke excitement in their fans. They have that proverbial musical slot-machine quality that keeps you coming back because you just know you’re bound to win…and if you made it to Rancho del Rio that weekend, you definitely won.
Cycles | 2019-06-29 | Beanstalk Music & Mountains Festival at Rancho Del Rio, Bond, CO
-= One Set =-
01. (Intro)
02. Hang It Up On The Wall
03. Fire Starts To Burn (Disclosure cover)[1]
04. The Ball
05. Isabella (Jimi Hendrix cover)
06. Strife
07. Chapanga
08. Something In The Water >
09. Party Boy
10. One Better (Les Claypool cover)
Show Notes: This was Cycles’ second set performed on the Main Stage on the third day of the Beanstalk Music & Mountains Festival.
[1] “When A Fire Starts To Burn” contained a “Get Up Out Of Your Head” tease.
Taper Notes: FOB DFC Mics raised around 10′ DIN. Thanks to FOH engineer Andrew Waltman for the board patch and mix!
Thank you to Cycles and Beanstalk Music Festival for supporting live music taping/sharing shows. Go see live music and support your local artists! #spacetapes
LINK: https://archive.org/details/Cycles2019-06-29.AKG.P170.AUD.SBD.Matrix.flac16
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