City Bisco II
It was that time of the year once again. Fall is among us and the nights have become brisk. The last weekend of September brought The Disco Biscuits to the Mann Center in Philadelphia, PA for the second ever City Bisco; a relatively small music festival featuring four sets of The Disco Biscuits, among other performing artists such as Method Man & Redman, Shpongle, Emancipator, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong and others. Needless-to-say it was a much anticipated weekend.
City Bisco Lasers
The weekend would start early for us as The Disco Biscuits had announced they would be playing the Thursday night before City Bisco at Baltimore Soundstage in Maryland. As you could imagine, most everyone at the venue would be making the short trek up I-95 North to settle in for the next two days and nights. The pre-party had great energy through and through. So much excitement for the moment at hand, while also so much anticipation for the coming days.
September 26, 2013 – Baltimore Soundstage – Baltimore, MD
Set 1: Little Lai > Wet > Little Lai, Minions > Therapy, Strobelights and Martinis > Spacebirdmatingcall
Set 2: Little Shimmy In A Conga Line > Bernstein and Chasnoff * > Bombs > Little Shimmy In A Conga Line, House Dog Party Favor
E: Spy
*Inverted
We awoke to Friday. This was it. Today is the day. Check out is 11am which is perfect for us as we wanted to hit the road early in hopes of beating any kind of traffic. The drive seemed to take longer than we thought, but in reality it was just the anxious butterflies churning up the stomach. We arrived at the Hilton on City Ave only about two miles away from the Mann Center. Our Philadelphia correspondents had already checked in and moved their bags to the room. Let the party commence!
City Bisco Lights
Time flew by and before we knew it the Biscuits were about to come on and we hadn’t left the hotel yet. We arrived about 30 minutes before set time and the line to get in was ridiculous. No one was moving, everybody was complaining, and security was making just about everyone take their shoes off. I will however give security the benefit of the doubt for the first night as a lot of people showed up right as the Biscuits were about to come on.
We got in with just enough time to gather beers for the group and grab awesome seats smack dab in the middle lower section. We couldn’t ask for a much better situation. The weather was exceptional and so too were the people around us. Other than $8 beers and the security to get in, I’d say it was a damn near perfect night. The first song of the weekend would be a 47 minute long version of “Basis For A Day”…WOW! An epic four song first set laid down a reoccurring theme; The Disco Biscuits were here to jam.
This night had an interesting set break on the schedule. Method Man & Redman would perform in between The Biscuit’s sets. Event Staff had moved a catwalk/extended stage to about the fifth row so Method and Red could get closer to their fans. Praise Jah himself I wasn’t up in that crowd because these dudes were flinging around so much water it looked like the splash zone at Seaworld. I’ll give it to them though. They brought major energy to the stage even if the crowd wasn’t their typical target audience.
September 27, 2013 – Mann Center for the Performing Arts – Philadelphia, PA
Set 1: Basis For A Day, Story of the World > Cyclone > Story of the World
Set Break: Method Man & Redman
Set 2: Confrontation > Tricycle > Theme from Shaft * > Confrontation, Reactor > Floes > Reactor
*First time played
Saturday would start with a good old fashion Bloody Mary mixed with West Virginia University football. Unfortunately no cheesesteaks would be enjoyed by the WookiePost team this trip; a decision that could come back to haunt us later. After an unbelievable WVU victory I had to take a power nap to refuel myself before the last night of the three show run. Unfortunately I did not wake up in time to catch any of the earlier acts but was able to get there just in time for The Biscuits. This time however our seats would be back and to the right. Rumors had it that not enough tickets were sold for The Mann Center to open up the balcony. Just from a rough headcount, I inferred there were definitely less people this year than last year. That being said, the second night did not disappoint.
Hope then caterpillar with dub version of floodlights was bonkers. I had never seen these songs live before so it was a little extra special for me. Shpongle was a little more relative, to say the least. Although it was only a DJ set, he turned it on towards the end of his set and did a great job bringing in the last set of the weekend.
Disco Ball
The Disco Biscuits along with their lights crew did a more than a fantastic job putting on a spectacular show, or weekend for that matter. Unanimous across the board, the WookiePost team agreed on another successful weekend and another successful City Bisco. We look forward to seeing them again at what will be our first ever Mayan Holidze.
September 28, 2013 – Mann Center for the Performing Arts – Philadelphia, PA
Set 1: Hope, Caterpillar > Svenghali > Floodlights 1 > Caterpillar
Set Break: Shpongle
Set 2: Mindless Dribble > Disco Inferno 2 > Tempest > Crickets 3 > King of the World
E: Frog Legs > Run Like Hell 4
1 Dub version, with Tom Sawyer (Rush) tease 2 w/ Get Lucky (Daft Punk) teases 3 middle section only 4 ending only
Kloc
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