set list was pretty identical to other sets already posted on sp.com. a good selection and seeing as it was my first sp show it covered a lot of material and a number of my favorite tracks were played, so no complaints.
highlights:
eye- this worked really well as a "live band" song.
speed kills- the spacier, SIYL bside version, not the Machina II version
superchrist-united states monster medly: completely epic
the entire acoustic break: once upon a time, the crux, rose march. i would have loved to hear "pox" from the ep as well, but still great.
the beginning is the end is the beginning: i was amazed with this, and that they didn't play the "rock" version.
they only played 2 songs from zeitgeist, i'm not sure if that material is just naturally working itself out of the sets or if it was done with a specific purpose. new songs G.L.O.W., Superchrist, and Set the controls are raising a pretty high bar for the next album.
i'm not going to mention what made the encore special, just that if you have a chance to catch these shows, do it.
now, for the geeks:
i didn't get too close to the stage, but BC's Diezel Herbert's were still displayed prominently. i didn't see the bogner's at all, i'm not sure if they were hidden or if they were ditched for this tour. he played the new signature strats for most of the night (of course) as well as the iommi sg and the schecter for the down-tuned stuff.
ginger appears to have switched from ampeg to... something that i didn't recognize. the logo looked maybe like ashdown? fender p-bass all night long. her tone for nearly all of the material was that classic, not quite clean, pushed to overdrive bass tone. no beef against any previous SP bass players, but ginger played her ass off. i was quite impressed.
props to Jeff Schroeder, who played a lot of guitar last night. no sign of his rack, which he recently said contains the randall MT series amps, but he definitely has switched from marshall to randall cabinets. i noticed that he did have a black les paul for the first song, on more than a few from the rest of the set he played a washburn LP style guitar (i think they're call Icons?) instead of a gibby. makes me wonder if a washburn/randall sponsorship has been secured. he also played a few sgs, 2 jazzmasters, 1 black and 1 red, a strat on "the crux" and a blue tele on "rose march," and even showed some theremin skills on "set the controls."
lisa on keyboards used a roland fantom x8, which seems to be the standard for touring acts these days. she also had what appeared to be a full hammond rig, and a minimoog voyager. i believe a rhodes was brought out for the acoustic stuff, but i could be wrong about that.
to wrap - great show, great gear, great band. i couldn't be happier.
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