Here we go again, one year later Luau Cinder with the same line up and same venue for New Year's Eve was poised to tear the roof off again. Lately seeing the shows seems like Luau Cinder is evolving into a more focused beast that still at any moment has the potential to throw you into a 30 minute musical segue roller coaster that somehow winds it's way back to where it began. This being said the band has been going strong and coming into the new year blue moon celebration well rested, laid back and ready to rock. Building off of close to 200 shows now, and an album that is nearing completion, I was excited to hear what the band had in store for us all.
Luau Cinder took the stage with a confident swagger at about a quarter to 10, this being the 3rd NYE show so far for them, and after many nights in this venue before they showed us why people keep coming back right from the get go. The first song of the night, nice mellow island groove of DSP hasn't been played been played since 2007, sounded well rehearsed and had a nice gradual build to the fitting Blue Moon. Great to hear this original Luau reggae vibe again, hopefully it will stay in rotation and was not just played for the special occasion, played for only the third time since 2007. A nice nod to the old school days of the band to start the show. From there they played solid versions of Walkabout and then the newer original Franconia with it's easy groove the energy was patiently building into the first feel good peak of the show then smoothly back to the original melody before straying from it to much. The next song contained the only real type 2 jamming of the 1st set and was quite a little ride for being that early in the set. Lead Pipe started off normal but as soon as the the jam began they quickly set loops that sent them into a whole different orbit foreshadowing some of the craziness that was to come later. With tweaked out synthesizers coming from Lance on the keyboard while putting aside his usual guitar for a minute as well as lead synth bass from Nate kicking in heavy, all of a sudden the rock tune found it's way into Drum and Bass mania with Aaron swithing to a grinding techno rythym. After adding guitar back into the mix of loops the wave peaked up and had a nice evolution of aftershocks until the "Blizzard Jam" segued into the quiet intro to Bug. Much better then the only other previous version played about a month ago, all in all a nice landing pad for the first real serious jam of the night. Next came a nice version of Winning Losers another newer song that has been gaining power lately. A decent clash cover followed, nice but not a whole lot of energy put into it. The always fun Rusted Razor put another mark of glory in the set, could easily be the set closer or 2nd set closer, but getting to hear this tune early is a good sign of things to come. Three different pieces of music composed fluidly together in one song is how I think of it, a masterpiece every time and this is no exception. The first set came to a close with straightforward versions of Laustin Texas, Say Hey, and Cortez the Killer, seemed like Luau Cinder needed to take a break and get ready to ramp it up for NYE, and that they did.
