Sound Tribe Sector 9 “Axe The Cables” at Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA

I’ve been a fan of Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9) for quite a while now, and have seen some pretty awesome shows over the years, but I’ve never had a chance to see one of their acoustic (“Axe the Cables”) performances.

So when I heard that they were doing an Axe the Cables set at a Winery in Saratoga, it was a no brainer for me – I bought tickets as soon as they went on sale.

On Friday afternoon, we drove up to Sunset State Beach (in Watsonville) and camped on the dunes. Beautiful camping just a few minutes from the beach.

We woke up on Saturday and drove to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We were a little pressed for time, but we were able to hike to Berry Creek Falls before the show – from the trailhead to the falls it was about 4.5 miles.

After the hike, we raced over to Mountain Winery in Saratoga for the STS9 show. We got there about an hour before sunset. Fantastic venue, beautiful in both scenery and architecture.

Sound Tribe took the stage right at 7:30, which was a bit unexpected, but it was cool to watch them play as the sun set. We heard them playing from the parking lot and rushed into the venue just in time to hear them play “Circus”, which is probably my favorite song of theirs.

We ran into some friends at the show and they convinced us that we should stay at their place in Aptos rather than staying a second night at the campsite. An outdoor bunkbed on the side of a mountain sounded too good to pass up… And it was pretty awesome.

While it’s a much longer drive, we decided to take the scenic route (down the Pacific Coastal Highway) back to Los Angeles on Sunday. I’ve done this drive a few times now, but I’ll never get tired of all of the breathtaking views along the coast.

Oh yeah, I took several videos during the show. Pretty decent sound quality on these.

Here’s STS9 doing “ROYGBIV”>”Dance”:

Here’s an STS9 cover of The Rolling Stones “Sympathy for the Devil” (first time played):

And here’s STSS9 doing “Moonsocket”:

This was one of the better Tribe shows I’ve seen. While it wasn’t truly “acoustic”, their style of playing was perfect for this setting. It really was a perfect musical experience, and ranks up their as one of the best shows I’ve seen this year.

Setlist:

STS9 – 8/25/2012 – Axe the Cables- Saratoga, CA
Set I:
Kamuy
Circus
South of Here
From Now On
ROYGBIV-
Dance
…And Some Are Angels
Beyond Right Now
Sympathy For The Devil

Set II:
Equinox
Lo Swaga
Squares and Cubes
Untitled 2
Wika Chikana
Grow
Moonsocket
Rent

Encore:
Frequencies 2 – 3
Breathe In

You can see some more (awesome) photos from the Mountain Winery STS9 show here.