Magic Beans | 2019-06-28 | Rancho Del Rio, Bond, CO [SBD/AUD Matrix]

This is the part where you feel good… Magic Beans playing night 2 of Beanstalk Music Festival!

As Dustin Hoffman put it in the frighteningly prophetic movie, Wag the Dog, “when it’s cooking, it’s cooking”, and by night two of their annual festival, the Beans were cooking. While night one was full of individual jams, night two featured the mightiest segment of non-stop music throughout their three sets. A sandwich of epic proportions.

Kicking things off with the title track from their most recent release, “Off Leash” is a song that synthesizes the essence of affinity with its only lyrics, “This is the part where it feels good.” Like a psychedelic epiphany, the lyrics just make sense on a human level. The song featured one of the more interesting jams of the set, taking listeners through a cosmic forest of jamtronica jamming that would set the pace for the next hour or so. After the final peak, the band broke right into “Handshake Or Hug”, another cut from their most recent release. The tune has a discofunk rhythm that flares during the jam where Casey Russell goes full ham on the Nord solo. It then slinks into a laid-back, spacey jam that develops patiently into an explosive outro over the next several minutes, before then dropping into the solemnly funky groove of “Evil Eye”. The instrumental featured a mid-tune sit-in on percussion from Lespecialist Rory Dolan. As the song began to fade, it seemed as if the musical block was coming to a breather, but then the band kicked right into a fan-favorite, “Lost & Found”, with Rory still manning the back-up percussion role. This rendition of the song would end up being the biggest jam of the evening, featuring several bars of spaced-out jamming and an expansive drums segment. Once again, it would have seemed that this would be the end to the enduring segment, but the band then surprised the crowd again with a reprise of the chorus from “Off Leash”, providing the perfect book-end to the first hour of the set.

The last half hour of the set contained its own highlights: a slightly re-worked (compared to the last version I saw back at the GOAT last December) version of “Be Kind, Rewind”, and a completely unexpected, almost ragtime-esque take on Radiohead’s eternal “Creep”, which featured Will Trask on back-up percussion, where he stayed for the remainder of the set. The band also performed a tight version of the title track from their 2018 album, “Casino Cabaret”, that featured an especially funky breakdown, aided once again by the special sauce that is the Wales/Trask combination intermingled with Casey’s rubberfunk Nord tone. The set finally closed out with the evocative “No Reservations”, a mellow yet celebratory send-off, featuring a pair of soulful solos from Scott and Casey to take it all home.

Magic Beans crafted a movie-tempo set for the second night of their festival; it had action, heart, drama, unexpected cameos, a re-worked song by Radiohead, and ended on a positively uplifting note. I give it two thumbs up. Tag line: The feel good set of the summer.

Magic Beans | 2019-06-28 | Beanstalk Music & Mountains Festival at Rancho Del Rio, Bond, CO

-= One Set =-
01. Off Leash >
02. Handshake Or Hug >
03. Evil Eye[1] >
04. Lost & Found[1] >
05. Off Leash[1]
06. Be Kind, Rewind
07. Creep (Radiohead cover)[2]
08. Casino Cabaret[2]
09. No Reservations[2]

Show Notes: This was the second night of the Beanstalk Music & Mountains Festival, headlined by Magic Beans. Will Trask was featured on back-up percussion on “Lost & Found” and for the remainder of the set.
[1] “Evil Eye”, “Lost & Found” and “Off Leash” featured Rory Dolan (Lespecial) on percussion.

[2] “Creep”, “Casino Cabaret” and “No Reservations” featured Will Trask (Analog Son) on percussion.

Taper Notes: FOB DFC Mics raised around 10′ DIN. Thanks to FOH engineer Andrew Waltman for the board patch and mix!

Thank you to Magic Beans and Beanstalk Music Festival for being cool with taping/sharing shows. Go see live music and support your local artists! #spacetapes

LINK: https://archive.org/details/magicbeans2019-06-28.AKG.P170.AUD.SBD.Matrix.flac16