Devolver, Live at the Winner's Circle, May 24th, 2014

     

      Hello everyone. Hope you are enjoying the unofficial start of summer. While it isn't blazing hot yet, the roof was on fire last Sat at the Winner's Circle and we were ready to let the Mfer burn. Why? Not much, just the biggest musical event EVER to hit Hanover. It was the 15^th anniversary of a little local band known as Devolver. And it was so big, all 5 members were on hand to throw down in style.
      This all started back in March. Myself, along with everyone else, were waiting for Phish to officially announce their summer Tour. We had rumored dates but I still needed the real ones. I was working and went on my afternoon break. I expected to see a message or 2 from my West Coast crew. Instead, I had 4 messages from Zach. WTF?
      He wanted to book a show for Memorial Day weekend. It turns out that was almost the 15^th anniversary of Josh and Rich joining the band. I saw the last show with Geoff on drums at Dan and Adrian's Memorial Day weekend party. They performed during the day on a flatbed truck. It was an enormous party and a rather spectacular introduction to one of my favorite bands.
      Zach couldn't get a hold of Tommy but I reached out Brian D (of Boxcar Social and Weathervane fame) who books the bands now. Within 5 minutes, I had the show booked. I was so pumped for the Devolver show I didn't really care if Phish announced dates or not. They did, and I'm seeing 7 shows this summer.
      Then Zach tells me the big news, Kyle will be playing as well. Kyle had left the band in 03 or 04. He ended up playing with a cover band called Radiodaze (yes, Kyle and Comic Book guy agrees, one of the worst band names ever)

     He was pretty much done with performing but still practiced a lot. He even told me he relearned some of the songs from the archive collection, which you can stream here

https://archive.org/details/DevolverMusic

Devolver, Live at The Winner's Circle, Hanover, PA , 2014-05-24

Set 1

After Midnight, Edge of Town, Highway 29, Side of a Mountain, Everything Comes Around, Bubblespeak>Dehydration Jam>Shutdown, Golden Years, Serve Me Up Another, Glasshawk, Laughing Clown, Bogey>Time, Pedalic Sax, Tumbleweeds and Mailboxes>Bogey

Set 2

Frankenstein, Turnaround, Coming Home, Funk II, Miss You, Surprise Surprise, China Cat> I Know You Rider, Psycho Killer, A Day Gone By, Looking Blind>Comfortably Numb>Edge of Town Reprise

You can stream it here

https://archive.org/details/Devolver2014-05-24.Winners_Circle_Hanover_Pa_AUD_FLAC_16

      I was surprised by the opener. I figured it would be an original but it was still good. Kyle's stage presence was increased 10 fold from back in the day. Not that it was weak back then but he really would be able to command an audience, probably even in a hockey arena. Edge was and still is one of my all time favorite songs by anyone. And they crushed it.

      For not playing together in so long, the transition from the D Jam into Shutdown was really sweet. We even got a Bogey multi part sandwich. The second set was even better. The Turnaround and Funk II were really epic, what with the two guitarists weaving an atmosphere that made one really wish they had made tea.

      The China Cat>Rider surprised the hell out of me. Zach told me they really wanted to play that combo. And again mad props to Todd Robinson (Christine's hubby) to taping the show. The most recent performance I have is from 2009 and it is important such a historic show gets preserved for all time. We're at about 450 streams; that's almost Grateful Dead numbers.

      I'm sure some of you are wondering why I didn't get this up right after the show. Well, my hangover was nearly as momentous as the show. I was incapacitated most of the day but still manged to play poker that night. So enjoy this show to its fullest as we get ready for the summer and its many splendors. Next Devolver show? Sat. November 29^th, at the Circle by the Square.

Dave Kemp

BA American Studies

PhD Rock and Roll