Two On, Two Off

Review by: Crispy Duck
The C-VILLE Weekly, Charlottesville, VA.
May 02 - May 08, 2000

Back in the mid-late '80s, B.D.M.B. (before the Dave Matthews Band), the Grateful Dead ruled Charlottesville's college rock environment. "Steal Your Face" banners hung from the windows of fraternities along Mad Bowl, the Dead show was WTJU's biggest rock marathon cash cow, and bands like Phish, Widespread Panic and Blues Traveller were opening concerts for the local boys, INDECISION.

One part Allmans, onne part Traffic, and one part wise-guy Virginia soul, Indecision was the '80s answeer to this region's former heavywight musical genre, blues party rock. Indecision could lay out hours of heavy riffage coupled with dynamic musical improvisation set against a Dead inspired fluid rhythmic backdrop. Their concerts were considered "real" events, and clubs, festivals and colleges up and down the East coast played host to their greedily packed shows. I recall Halloween bashes at Trax as notorious spectacles complete with magical stage sets, hallucination inducing light shows, and Indecision's superjams. They were unstoppable.

Until they stopped, playing fulltime that is. But their fan base didn't suffer, as they still perform several times a year to packed venues, and Friday, April 21, was one such night. I wasn't gonna miss it. When it comes to modern psychadelia (the genre nowadays referred to as "jam bands"), I recognize that Phish is a pretty amazing and noteworthy band, but Widespread Panic and Bluees Traveller (and now Moe), can never hold a candle to Indecision's deep-in-the-pocket, thinking-person's psychedelia.

Their Outback Lodge show was a return to those graceful roots. Although I could tell they hadn't played together in a while, the woody tones and rolling rhythms quickly warmed up into deep heady jams early in the first set. It didn't take long for the group to reach stride and swallow up the 30s-something former college-party-goer crowd (with the occasional serious hippy-freak sprinkled about for good measure) with the honest and willful Virginia jams.

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