[ CONTINUED FROM PART 1 ] it was interesting to see this piece performed again. or, really, just performed at all :) i don't remember the first and only other time i saw it. i've never listened to it on a recording. actually i have to admit i'm not really that familiar with zorn's game pieces. but they seem like a cool idea... i can't help wondering whether the surface has just barely been scratched though. at one point i was thinking, what would this piece be like if no-one could play loud? if it was totally low volume? and also, the recognizable strains of melody, harmony, beat, are these things just distractions from the "structure" of the piece? those are often the parts that seem the most enjoyable, but perhaps for the "wrong reasons". oh, there's a tune, great, but then one is frustrated (well some people are anyway) when it is interrupted. so maybe it would be nice if the band wasn't "allowed" to play such recognizable things. heck maybe it would be nice if it were done with just voices (yeah! that would be cool!), maybe radios... i dont know. anyway it was fun to see zorn conducting (gesturing, pointing at players, holding up cards, dropping the cards for a "downbeat"), to see the band having a good time playing. there were definitely some nice moments where joey and susie were bashing away together, one time in particular joey seemed to be "following" susie, which was interesting. one piece ended really nicely on susie hitting a gong (the only time i remember her using it). the highlight of the first set for me was an intense rapid-fire duo between joey baron and fred frith. that probably didnt have much to do with XU FENG the composition, i just really like frith and baron and they play well together, it was totally "out" but totally tight, a real dialogue, instant reactions, etc. it got me grinning. after that "tune", zorn went up on stage and went up to baron's drumset, leaned over and said something to joey, and i was very curious what it was. the coincidence of that right after what was to me the highlight of the set... (later, after the show, i asked zorn what he had said, and he didnt seem to mind the question but said i should ask baron. huh. ok. so i did, and baron said no it wasnt related to that duo with fred frith but was some sort of general musical direction, which was difficult to explain, though he did try, and was very nice about it, which i appreciated.) there were some good "crossfades" in the first set. but i did find myself not totally satisfied. i wondered whether the second set might be better now that the band was warmed up, and maybe more used to the nature of the piece. the second set didnt seem as crowded (but maybe thats just because i was not sitting in the same place). my wife, happily, did arrive. woohoo! at first the second set started out perhaps more consistently loud than the first set. all the endings for the first few pieces were something loud which zorn would cut off abruptly. this is of course an effective ending... but then they played an entire piece which was totally quiet! ahh... it was very nice. after that things got better. (not that they were bad before, actually i thought they were executing very well, but i was still thinking why does it always have to be loud. though i think the playing did get better after the quiet piece.) i should mention that zorn's "cards" which have the words like "slow", "fast", "loud", "quiet" on them, they have some kinda velcro system so he can hold up multiple cards and attach them together. well at one point he held up a larger-than-usual number of cards and the band (fred in particular IIRC) laughed, and then zorn turned the cards around and showed them to the audience. there was a big yellow card with "R" (was that the "Runner" card referred to in '93??) with five cards velcro-chained below it: "dense", "slow", "quiet", "static", "fast". http://panix.com/~edp/2003-09-17--cards.JPG besides the fact that this was funny, i think it's nice that zorn shared this with the audience. the whole time zorn had his back to the audience, and he was showing the cards to the musicians, but the audience never saw them (well you could try to read them backwards since they were sorta translucent and backlit, and some were not so hard to see). so it was a nice moment. after that they did in fact start playing, with zorn holding up those cards. he held up some other unusually large batches in that piece too. the mood seemed to me to get better, lighter, esp after the quiet piece and then the fun zorn-audience interaction. oh i almost forgot, there was another fun audience-interaction incident when zorn held up a card and baron either eargerly gestured about it or possibly feigned lack of understanding, and zorn turned that card around too to show the audience that it said "RHYTHM". either way, that's funny :) finally, after the nominally last piece, zorn named everybody in the band, there was a standing ovation, and they played one more. it was easily the most "straightahead" piece of the entire evening, to my memory. baron let loose with some of his trademark backbeat with intense accents. ribot and frith wailed bluesy guitar stuff, etc. nice way to end it... so my wife told me was glad she went. but she didnt really enjoy the music... we talked about it on the way home... in the subway station there was some intense jackhammering sounds. yow. wasnt really what i wanted to hear at the time, although it was kinda interesting, ironic even, given what we were talking about... i'd write more, clean this up, etc. but no more time. time to let go :) -ed