From: Victor Szalvay
Subject: Antelope in Review Pt.17 3/11/88
Well, needless to say, I have been a slacker over this past winter break.
Given that I had a bunch of tapes with me all ready to review, I really
did a poor job of getting to them.  I apologize for my lack of zeal, but
somehow I got caught up in the holidays.  Back to the action!  The next
subject is not currently in the HPB but I have a sneaking feeling that
there are at least a few copies floating around.  

3/11/88 Johnson State College- Johnson, VT

This time it is the last song of the night!  The grand (or not so grand in
this case) finale!

Antelope -- Intro:  Fun and frilly intro at the beginning.  Trey starts it
up and Page is close to follow, along with Mike and Fish.  They seem to
have good control of the basic progression and are experimenting a little
with goofing around and patting here and there in that ragtime kind of
way.  Let’s see if the transition is decent: -- Well, not too bad... Mike
adds some power  but then

Opening theme: 2:40 there is nothing except for drums for a while, kind of
an anti-climax

Trill!:3:05  Weak and flubbed at the end!!  OH no!

Key Change to Em: 3:13  Explosive right away as Trey screeches in agony
with his instrument.  Page is right there adding the background color that
really fuels the jam.  I am surprised that Page is so audible hear, I am
used to these old shows with virtually no Page in this song, but he is
there jamming along.  So what is happening?  Well, the soloing from Trey
is nothing too exciting.  He is running through the motions but it seems
to be lacking that true feeling that really makes this tune work.  Page is
dominating and the sound is a little too crowded.  Once in a while, Mike
just disappears for a few seconds, that must be pissing someone off!!  
Trey is building now with greater intensity, but we are FAR off from any
sort of gearshift...  It is just not coming together that way tonight, it
seems.  Nice harmonic major key work from Trey, very mellow but beautiful
and Page counters with some very nice stuff. 

Second Gear:  7:50 or so it seems.  A rise that works out well.  Trey
still working in the major scale over this minor key... the sound is very
experimental.  He cuts back to minor at around 8:30 very abruptly.  I
really liked that nice major key jam.  Some more hints of it now from Page
and Trey.  They flub for a second and recover back in the minor key.

9:20 the intensity is artificially built up out of that flub as they all
hammer on the instruments achieving a small climax, but I won’t even give
it gearshift standing since it was forced out of a mistake.  (Sorry!).
Some decent trilling from Trey but this jam is really going no where fast
and now Trey runs out in a new direction that again seems to lead to a
wall.  Mike follows him faithfully as good as ever.  Wow!  Now Trey is
really pushing to pull this one out.  A series of trills and runs that
really come off well.  Oh here we go!!  Trey is going wild into:

Third gear: 11:40 an extended gearshift or downshift and trilling segment
into the infamous:
Pre-Marco-Groove:  12:00 Not that great.  I think they may want to be out
of here pretty soon or something.  No one is trying to make this
brilliant.
TREY:
Ry, Ry, Rocco (the announcements commence!)
 (with the appropriate pauses, thanks!)
MARCO ESQUANDOLAS:
POSTER NUTBAG (Well, placed, man!!!)
MOSES PEEFS!
MOSES GRITT!
(secret language clown riff)
HAPPEN YOU TO HAVE ANY SPLEEF, MAN?
slight delay before:
High Gear Theme:  13:35  Really weak transition and lame intensity.  Not
the worst I’ve heard, but not even close to being good.  
Trey:- Set the Gear shift:
etc. the usual
End:  14:45  Pretty long, when looked at the average length of a Lope.
Well, if you get this tape, get it for the Chicken or Harpua, not this
version of this song!