Palace Theatre, Albany, NY

Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 20:58:13 EDT
From: [email protected]
Subject: Trey Albany Palace Review

I had been really excited since getting the news that the SPAC show had been 
moved to the tiny Palace Theatre in Albany.  Looking at the history of Trey 
playing in the venue made me even more excited to head up to Albany on my way 
to VT.  Got to Albany (never been- cool city) kind of early and walked around 
a bit.  There was this "live at five" music thing out in the streets nearby 
so I checked that out- pretty lame.  The show had sold out quickly and there 
were quite a few people wandering around outside looking for tickets.  
Getting in wasn't too much of a process though.  Tickets-by-Mail hooked me up 
with some nice tickets on the aisle of the left orchestra, about ten rows 
back.  The whole venue was a classic theatre complete with a huge cloud of 
dust, a strange smell, general darkness that took a while to get used to, and 
a peeling roof and walls.  Don't get me wrong though- its beautiful and the 
acoustics are incredible.  It also has a really cool marquee out front.  I 
found out later that this was the last show before they give the place an 
overdue touch-up.

The Palace was really jammed and they did not care about the aisles on the 
floor- so they became totally crammed- making my aisle seat not so great.  I 
tried to get my mind off the squishedness with what quickly proved to be a 
great show.  First of all, the lighting was amazing in such a small place- it 
really took over the entire room!  The sound was also really nice.

The first set opened up with a solid MLC-->Cayman Review.  This brought some 
energy into the crowd, but the MAJOR highlight of the first set was the Push 
On-->Lively Up Yourself-->Windora Bug-->Push On.  These were all really 
awesome sets and it just sounded so cool.  Push on faded down into a chill 
jam that Lively and Windora came out of.  Windora had a nice chill reggae 
type jam with it that exploded into the thrilling conclusion to Push On.  At 
the end of that when Trey did band intros, he saved Tony for last and then 
(perhaps because the show was near Tony's home city of Saratoga) Trey took a 
"We're on Tony Tour AGAIN" sign out of the audience and held it up while the 
rest of the band teased the 2001 theme.  They could not have left the crowd 
much more pumped up.

During set break, in addition to grabbing some more water, I set out on a 
mission to find an empty seat so I would not have the aisle-cramming problem. 
 I chilled with some people up on the rail for a minute but then they made us 
move.  Then I saw Cyro Baptiste selling some of his CDs over on the left side 
of the orchestra and went over to talk to him and he signed my ticket.  I 
ended up finding a nice seat in about the fifth row, just left of center.  
The seat move made for a much roomier second set.

The second set started with "Night Speaks" which had a cool little jam- but 
nothing like the one from the second night of Red Rocks.  I was excited to 
hear the rare "Sweet Dreams Melinda" and this one was much better than the 
one from San Diego that I heard.  It really sounded nice- and Trey's voice is 
in much better shape than it was at Red Rocks.  The "Last Tube" was the 
monster that I had been waiting for.  It went on and on and got so great that 
Trey took off his guitar and started running laps around the entire stage.  
Can't say enough about this song!  The "Sultans" encore was nice, but good 
luck following that "Last Tube."  Trey also took a "Grippo tour" sign from 
someone in the audience and put it next to "The Truth."

Cool show, cool venue- see you all on Saturday night in VERMONT!

Jimmy Macauley
[email protected]

Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 13:13:23 EDT
From: [email protected]
Subject: Review Albany

I don't know if I have ever seen anyone have more fun than I did Thursday night at the Palace.�
It was a toss up between "us and them"!

Chris Jackson


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