2009-12-05 Charlottesville

Alright, so the final show review of fall tour '09 continues two trends that have both begun rather recently. First, this is the third review in a row that I'm writing while badly distracted in some way. I wrote 12/3's review while listening to 12/4, wrote 12/4's review while I was falling asleep at my desk, and this time 'round I'm listening to Jeff Tweedy, which makes it difficult to get in the mindset of reviewing a jam band. So yeah. This review will probably suck.

However, I can say, for the second night in a row, that the show I'm reviewing definitely does not suck. 12/5 is another show in the vein of 12/4; that is, it's well-played all the way through, the energy level is consistent, the song choice is excellent, and though there's not much jamming to speak of, the little that there is is reminiscent of some of the better (though longer) megajams of late summer.

At the start, the band's playing could best be described as "gamely." "Bag" isn't anything special, and "Chalkdust" takes a huge Trey-nosedive at the climax, but rather than getting rattled, the guys take it in stride and recover with a hot "KDF" and a standard-but-solid "Divided Sky." 

Then comes the streaker, which seems to liven things up not just for the crowd, but also for the band. "Ya Mar" features some brilliant work from Mike, including lyrics that reference the streaker, after Trey's comment that "That took a lot of balls," And Mike continues to hold the reins for an energetic take on "Sneakin' Sally," including a closing vocal jam. "Old Home Place" is next, reinstating the bluegrass part of set one for the first time since 11/29.

"Cavern" and "Funky Bitch" keep the Mike train rolling, and this really lifts up the second half of the set. Mike's been the one consistently good band member since 12/2 or so, so getting to hear him take over the set like this is pretty appropriate since this is the last show of the tour. Things get a little more egalitarian with "Bowie," which is a standard-but-satisfying rock take, much like 12/4's "Reba." Then, right when it seems like the set should be over, Trey takes over with "The Wedge" and "Bold As Love," which put the exclamation point on strong set one showing.

Set two starts off with one of the deeper explorations of fall '09. Now this isn't saying much in some ways, but this "Tweezer" -> "Light" > "Piper" -> "Free" run is pretty great even if it won't be on any "...Of The Year" lists. The "Tweezer" jam is two balls-out rock sections led by some melodic leads from Trey sandwiching a neat little plinko space, and the segue into "Light" is clever and builds (seemingly) naturally out of the end of Trey's guitar pyrotechnics.

"Light," again, is the centerpiece here. It's standard Type 1 Trey up until about the 8:00 mark, and it honestly starts to get really repetitive until all of a sudden Page starts playing some ascending scales on the piano and Trey drops back into some chording. Just as those two mellow out, Fishman starts some seriously sinister drumming, and suddenly there's a really interesting dissonance going on. Things get sparser and sparser with Mike dropping some really high bass runs (to continue the dissonance) until we splinter into another loop-filled ambient space that, much like the one at the end of 12/3's "Disease," has more meat on its bones that what we've become accustomed to at this point in 2009.

This resolves into another nice segue into "Piper," which, despite revving up way too fast, features a brilliant two minutes or so of jamming between 4:30 and 6:30, oddly sandwiched between some pretty pedestrian soloing on each side. The song transitions roughly but, again, interestingly into "Free," which is (surprise!) a Mike-heavy version instead of a Trey-heavy one.

"Sweet Virginia" is the (geographically appropriate) setlist surprise. "Hood" features a poignant and patient build that climaxes brilliantly, but not really in the usual way...it's a bit more...umm...democratic than usual. "Golgi" includes some fun antics from Trey when Mike's bass temporarily goes out, with an explanation that this is the "trio version" as well as later shouts of "Cactus!" and "Bass!" "Antelope" does justice to the song in a way we haven't heard since some of the amazing versions of early- and mid-summer, as well as involving the ending vocals "Run like a naked guy, out of control!" from Trey and then the whole band as everyone catches on.

The "Loving Cup" > "Tweeprise" encore is the perfect exclamation point on what has been, at least at the end of the tour here, two great shows in a row. 

While I was pleasantly surprised as the variety and nuance of much of the band's playing throughout the summer and up through Festival 8, I've honestly had a really hard time maintaining interest in every single show through much of fall. While there were a few moments I absolutely loved (with 11/28's "Seven Below" > "Ghost" quite likely being my favorite part of the whole year so far), for the most part things are starting to sound a bit stale. Here's hoping NYE ends the year on a high note before we move into 2010. Once I finish reviewing the Miami run, I'll also be putting up a fall highlights list, which might be a bit of a challenge. But I'll do my best.

2009-12-04 MSG III

Well, 12/4 is the show I've been waiting for since fall tour began. I guess.

My complaint throughout, other than that the shows just haven't been as good as summer '09 by pretty much any metric, has been that there haven't been any real "full" shows. That is, there have definitely been a lot of good single jams, and a few really good second sets (11/20 and 11/28, as I've mentioned before). But there haven't been any shows that have been consistently good throughout, let alone consistently great or consistently amazing. The third show of the MSG run, and the penultimate show of the entire tour, falls into the "consistently good" category.

The show starts with a rare "Heavy Things" opener that, despite the lack of a guitar loop, is an above-average version thanks to an excellent solo from Trey. "Possum," "Wilson," and "KDF" continue in a similar vein, and it quickly becomes clear that this is one of those shows that, for better or worse, is going to be Trey-centric. None of these first few songs are anything special on their own, but it's a four-song sustained peak of energy to open the show, which we haven't seen for awhile.

The first real bright spot for me in the first set is hearing "Glide." Trey butchers the rarity a bit, but hey, it's "Glide," so who cares? It's a fun song that manages to keep the momentum going while introducing some novelty. "46 Days" is a guitar assault that picks up right where "KDF" left off, and "Bouncin'" is another low-tempo but cleverly-placed song that segues into "Reba." This "Reba" is a weird one. The composed section is well-played, and the jam is yet more Trey-fire, but it's surprisingly short. At 10:33, in fact, it's one of the shortest "Reba"s I've listened to. It's sort of a novelty in the sense that you rarely hear a "Reba" jam that is this straightforwardly and unabashedly rocked-out, but it's not going to be on your "best-of" list by any means.

"Dinner and a Movie" is another nice rarity, though it seems cut a bit short, and "Guyute," with its extra-grungy and distorted ending would make for a great closer on a well-constructed, high-energy set...if the set actually ended there. Instead, we get a "Maze" featuring some extra-dissonant chording from Trey over a staccato-heavy Page solo and a "First Tube" that's surprisingly slow, muddy, and loud.

"Scents and Subtle Sounds" is, fairly or not, inextricably linked in my mind to Phish 2.0 space jamming. I know, logically, that there will probably never be another "Scents" jam like those again, but whenever the song starts up these days, I can't help but get my hopes up. That was definitely the case here, as the song kicked off the last set at MSG '09. But no joy. Or rather, a little joy: it's always nice to hear "Scents," but this seven-minute version is nothing but Type 1 Trey-action. The "Rock and Roll" jam starts off the same way, but then moves into more interesting territory, with Mike taking a melodic lead on bass while Trey, flashing back to "Maze," adds some more arrhythmic chording in an "ASIHTOS"-like guitar tone. This evolves into a rolling, burbling jam space that recalls the "Light" from 12/2 but doesn't last nearly as long; however, it ends with a great segue into "Seven Below."

After some standard Type 1 action after the song proper, the jam winds down into a quiet space at around the 7:00 mark. Trey and Page play off each other to beautiful effect, and then we move back into more sinister, distorted territory at 9:00. Trey kicks off another great segue into "Twist" from here, and the "Twist" jam immediately goes funky. It's a unusual direction for the song nowadays, but it works. That is, until Trey decides to build a tension-and-release solo into the proceedings. This goes a bit awry, but the band recovers immediately by launching into "Mike's."

The "Mike's" is definitely a 3.0 version, but it's a really good 3.0 version. The Trey-shredding that carried a lot of the first set is back in full effect here, and it's excellent. The rest of the Groove is pretty standard, and then again we get what seems like a set-closer in "The Horse" > "Silent," but then "YEM" kicks off.

And man, what a "YEM" this is. The composed section rolls along with a level of energy that sounds more like it's from the first hour of a show instead of the third. The jam kicks off with a really oddly ethereal-sounding funk section that recalls "Shafty" at one point. Then we move into a great plinko section before Trey rips loose with one final, skull-crushing guitar solo. After the solo, the entire band slides back into the plinko space as slickly as if it was pre-planned. Just amazing stuff, and precise on a level that really should be heard to be appreciated. "Shine A Light" is a great way to wrap up the run, and after an especially good "YEM" and a well-built, energetic show all the way around, it left me feeling like the entire run had been better than it actually is. Which I guess is a convoluted way of saying that I really enjoyed MSG III, though I wouldn't go so far to call it a great show. At the same time, I think it goes a long way toward redeeming this spotty, mostly lackluster run and gives me high hopes for the tour closing show in Charlottesville. Roll on!

2009-12-03 MSG II

Well, the boys' second night at MSG starts off with the fire that the first night's opening duo lacked. It's always a good thing when "PYITE" opens a show, and it's even better when it's a particularly on-point, fiery version that's immediately followed by a "Number Line" that's noodled to perfection. After the band's mostly in-the-box performance on 12/2, I took this as a sign that things would be different on 12/3. I was both right and wrong.

The high-energy opening to set one continues through "Axila I" > "Taste," the latter featuring some great action from Mike and a better-than-average solo from Page. Mike's enthusiasm seems to get him the call next as the band goes into "Boogie On" and slays a short version, and then we move on to "Stash," which seems like a great, somewhat exploratory vehicle to keep this train moving...right? Right?

Well, something happens in this "Stash." There are some Phish jams that are bad because I'm just not "getting it." These jams might be someone else's Best Of All Time, but to me they sound like the mindless noodling parodies of the band always reference. There are some Phish jams that are bad because they're just executed poorly; the ideas are their but the hands aren't. And then there are the Phish jams that are bad because everyone's trying to do something potentially interesting at once, but nobody is jelling. I don't profess to frequently know what the band is thinking, obviously, but there are some times when they're synced up so poorly that it's just obvious. This "Stash" is one of those times. At the very least, Trey and Fish try to do interesting but opposing things during the jam at roughly the same time and the result is just flat. We wrap up shortly after, with this version weighing in well below the many excellent "Stash"s of '09.

Set one never really recovers. "Lawn Boy" is "Lawn Boy," then there's "Time Turns Elastic" (no comment), followed by slightly-above-average takes on "BOTT" and "Julius." This is one of those rare shows where I like the first half of the first set better than the second half.

The second set is more of what's becoming the standard Phish 3.0 template at this point: one long jam, one nice segue, and then a bunch of standards to end the show. We start with "Disease," which is 100% Grade A Trey Shredz up through the 9:30 mark before slowly creeping its way into a typical space-funk breakdown. It's creepy to me how frequently these long '09 jams depart for Weird Space between the 9:00 and 9:30 mark. Do they have a clock up on stage or something that tells the band when to stop functioning as a foundation for a Trey solo and start actually jamming? Because you can almost set your watch to it.

Anyway, the jam itself gets interesting at around the 12:30 mark, when Trey, Trey's looped guitar, and Page and start crashing together in a wonderful wall of sound. Things splinter into ambient space a few minutes later, but it's not the typical minimalist ambient dissolve of summer '09: instead, it's something more purposeful and haltingly melodic. Near the end of the jam, it gets more drone-like (think 12/2's "Slave" build) before melting into "Piper." The segue is great, though "Piper" itself is a pretty standard, Type 1 affair. There's a small "Birds"-esque funk space near the end that culminates in a bass outro that, in retrospect, sort of prefigures the rest of the show.

"Fluffhead" is your average version, but it leads into an energetic reading of "Cities" featuring some vocal vamping from Trey and a goddamn bass explosion from Mike. Again.

From "Cities" on, this is basically the Mike Show, in both good and bad ways. Good, in the sense that Mike ripping every song to shreds is awesome to hear, but bad, in the sense that he stands out partially because the rest of the band can't seem to get their shit together. "Free" is totally empty except for the bass, "Halley's" is a mess, and the rest of the show (including "Bowie") is just rolling up to a stop sign.

So, in the context of fall tour, this is honestly one of the better shows, if only for the high-energy run of songs in set one and the "Disease" > "Piper" in set two. In the context of '09 in general, it's another of those "listen to these two songs and skip the rest" shows, which seem to be becoming more and more prevalent as the year goes on. Aside from a solid jam here and there (like this "Disease" or last night's "Light"), I can still only really point to two or three half-shows as worth a listen in their entirety (11/20's and 11/28's second sets). Well, there's always MSG III! Fingers crossed.

Blatant Self-Promotion!

When I first started this blog, I was typing up show notes in Wordpad or Gedit while I listened to each show. Lately, I've started doing the same thing using Twitter instead. Unfortunately, this seems to have confused my Twitter followers, 90% of whom are academics who could care less about live music.

So, it seemed like a good plan for a number of reasons to create a second Twitter account, just to post my review notes and other Phish-related thoughts on. If you're interested in following, you can find my profile at www.twitter.com/saxscraper. My username is just @saxcraper.

2009-12-2 MSG I

Well, after the nuclear detonation that was the second set of 11/28, fall tour '09 has mostly settled back into its "groove," a jukebox-style approach to the band's catalog that I described earlier today on Twitter as "aggressively underwhelming." It's not that there's anything wrong with the band taking a fun, by-the-book victory lap at the end of their comeback tour, of course. As I've said before, I'm sure if I'd been in attendance for these shows, I'd have been perfectly happy with most of this fall tour. But on tape, four years later, and especially just after fall tour '13, it's hard to listen to this much "just-so"-ness.

Anyway, 12/2 is the first show of three at the Garden, pre-NYE for once. With that in mind, Trey comes out of the gates blazing...or at least trying to blaze. All three of the first trio of songs end in peak-y, trilling madness, but only "Wolfman's" really carries it off at all well. The middle of the set, honestly, is just flat. Good song selection for sure, and it's good to hear a (flubby) "Peaches," but there's not much that can be said about this set beyond a neat little funk space in "Wolfman's" and a solid-but-inessential version of "Divided Sky."

I feel like I'm failing to do my due diligence as a reviewer in only giving that many words to the first set, but that's sort of the space I'm in currently with this fall tour. Hopefully there's a reason for change soon. The first half of the second set makes me hopeful, in that it features some of what made the end of summer '09 so amazing, as well as at least one really unique soundscape.

The band rips into the second set with an energetic and perfectly-played "Golgi," which is followed by a monster "Light." Now, I'm not talking Dick's '12 "monster 'Light'" here, but it's still pretty great when you consider that at this point the most abstract reading the song has gotten so far in '09 was during the Gorge run. Trey starts off the jam with some strong leads, and the band follows along until a space reminiscent of "Timber" results. This unfortunately dissolves too soon into whale-pedal theatrics, which eat up the middle section of the jam. In the last few minutes, however, things get really interesting.

There's a dark, melodic section that kicks off at around 13:00, and it seems like the guys are headed for a spacey, minimalist sound similar to the end jam of the Blossom '10 "Number Line." Instead, though, things get darker and angrier. Trey and Mike double up on a deep, burbling effect, and there might have been a guitar loop in there during this section as well. Things stay murky for a few minutes before splintering apart (in a distinctly different way than the trademark '09 Ambient Dissolve) and then reforming into "Slave." This "Slave" is a worthy follow-up to the interesting "Light," as it features a really patient build and then an interesting and perfectly executed (how often can you use that phrase to describe an '09 jam?) drone-like build to the peak. And as if that wasn't enough, we get a quick segue into "Tweezer" next!

With all the weird, complex, and downright jaw-dropping "Tweezer"s of '13, this one might seem a little simplistic by comparison. But really, it's Type 1 "Tweezer" shredding of the highest caliber, invoking some serious mid-90s Trey licks at its peak, and featuring a funky, spacey breakdown near the end that hints at a greater jam to come before "Joy" rears its pretty, but frustrating head.

The rest of the show is by the book: standard versions of admittedly well-chosen songs, especially the closing "Day In the Life"/"Tweeprise" combo. "Velvet Sea" features an interesting solo, but the song proper is badly botched by a few band members, and "Antelope" is a solid jolt of energy that nonetheless fails to compare to any of the excellent summer '09 versions.

In the end, this show's really just about the "Light" > "Slave" > "Tweezer" sequence, and everything else you've seen before. But that's really enough, at least by fall '09 standards. At this point, I'm happy to have a standard show with one major jam feature, but I don't actually know if that's because I've lowered the bar due to fall tour in general being disappointing, or because the first half of 12/2's second set is really that good. It's probably a little of both.

I suppose it doesn't actually matter because I'm moving on to 12/3 tomorrow regardless. That's the spirit!

2009-11-29 Portland, ME

This 11/29 show is the last non-MSG, non-NYE show of the year, and it epitomizes the ambivalence I've felt for much of this fall tour and, in a way, for much of '09 in general. You've got some great technical playing, some fantastic energy, but a noticeable lack of improvisation compared to later years of 3.0 and (obviously) earlier eras of Phish. I certainly don't listen to Phish exclusively for the jams, but when you're listening to 50+ shows to rate the band over the course of a year, you really, really want something more to sink your teeth into than just the fifteenth "well-played" version of "Cavern." The first leg of summer tour provided the occasional excellent jam amidst all the standard takes on well-practiced classics, especially when it came to "Tweezer," "Disease," and "Piper." The second leg of summer tour expanded the improvisational content to encompass some truly great jams, especially near the end of the run, but by Alpine, the blueprint for The Summer Jam was starting to show a bit, and it's obvious that by fall, the boys were looking for a new way to get into weird jam spaces. It's just as obvious that, by 11/29 at least, they haven't found it yet.

This show is stellar in terms of energy. If I wasn't a jam-hound and was just going to a live Phish show to have a good, fun time and hear some top-notch rock and roll, a show like this would blow my socks off in the flesh. As it is, it's fun enough on tape but largely nothing I haven't heard yet this tour, and it's a bit of a bummer to keep following this tour when the real highlights (like 11/20 S2 and 11/28 S2) are so few and far between, especially compared to the end of summer when it seemed like the band couldn't be stopped by a brick wall.

Anyway, enough griping. "Possum" > "Disease" as an opener is pure fire, and the sort-of-segue is pretty neat, taboot. "Weigh," for such a heavily composed tune, is played really loosely here and is, strangely, the better for it. "When the Circus Comes" and "Water in the Sky" are both played faster than usual, and "Stash" is drawn-out and stays within its usual confines, but is a hard-charging version.

The real meat of this set (sorry) comes with "Meat" and "Undermind." "Meat" starts to descend into goofy Phish antics, with Mike changing his name from "Cactus" to "Prince," but then things get weird when the band heads into a space jam instead of a funk jam. "Prince" and "Princess" (Fish) both get solos, and then there's some fantastic minimalist Page/Trey interplay. This sonic weirdness carries through right into the "Undermind" jam, which is also top-notch guitar-led space. Clearly, the guys have the chops to go deep at this point, but they rein it back in and stay in jukebox mode for the rest of the show. Trey and Mike give "Mike's Groove" the nuclear treatment, and we're on to the second set.

You can pretty much imagine how the rest of the show plays out by reading the setlist. Hot versions of "Moma" and "Rock and Roll" are followed by a potentially phenomenal "Light": halfway through, Trey and Page lock together on a set of fast, bubbly arpeggios and it seems like things might really take off, but the band quickly falls back on the ol' '09 ambient fadeout trick, and though "Light" is followed by a surprise "Crimes of the Mind" which Trey rocks into oblivion, that's the extent of surprise you'll feel listening to this second set, unless you really like "Pebbles and Marbles," in which case this could be the best version from 3.0 (which isn't saying much).

The encore is a weird one. I absolutely love the band's "cover" of "Free Bird," so it's impossible to go wrong there. It was hard to listen to this five minute "Carini," though, after listening to the song grow into a ridiculous hydra-headed beast over '13 tour. Finally, after the cacophony of "Carini"'s screaming (literally, thanks to Fishman) peak, we end the show with..."Waste." I like the sentiment behind ending a show this way, but especially at the wrong end of a three-song encore it feels a little flat.

I feel bad complaining so much about a run of what are essentially energetic, solid Phish shows, but I'm looking forward to getting to '10 in hopes that there's something more interesting around the corner...

2009-11-28 Times Union Center II

Earlier this year, the Tahoe Tweezer unseated the 12/31/95 "Reba" as my all-time favorite Phish jam. I'm a little biased because I was actually there for the former and not for the latter, but it's my favorite instance of jamming from the band out of all of the ones I've heard so far, hands down. Yet, I saw all eight shows of the west coast run that spawned the Tweezer and Tahoe II was probably my 6th or 7th favorite show overall. I feel similarly about this second Albany show.

The "Seven Below" > "Ghost" combo to start the second set is just mind-blowing. In '09 terms, it's like jamming from another planet, from the past (or, considering how much it sounds to me like a pared-down version of some of the bigger '13 jams, the future). It's like nothing else the band has played in '09, at least thus far. Plus, "Seven Below" and "Ghost" are probably my two favorite Phish songs to see jammed out, so that's a little extra bonus for me. This segment of the show is just as good as everyone's been telling me it is. The rest of the show, though, is largely more of the boilerplate Fall '09 stuff that I've been so bummed out about recently.

The first few songs are standard, then we get a major "d'oh!" moment when Trey tries to start "Uncle Pen" and totally biffs the intro. It's a little funny because he clearly started playing the song on 11/27 before calling an audible and going with "MMGAMOIO" instead...apparently he forgot to practice overnight. Anyway, he recovers and it's a perfectly serviceable version of the song, but it sort of speaks to how most of the rest of this first set runs: Fall '09 Super-Song-Choice Mode is still engaged here, but so is Fall '09 Sloppy-Playing-And-Uninspired-Solos Mode. So. Yeah.

"Sanity" is a great choice for the four-slot, and getting a following "Foam" and then "Walk Away" > "NICU" is awesome in theory, but even the "Walk Away," while solidly played, doesn't reach its usual frenetic rocksplosion heights. I'm happy to hear "Vultures," but this version is a slopfest. "Number Line" is short, but features what is, frankly, one of the best, most consistent flat-out rock solos I've ever heard from Trey. So there's that.

Aside from the "Number Line," though, the only highlight of the first set is "SOAM," but what a highlight it is. On any other night, without the massive opening pair of songs coming in set two, this "Melt" would be the highlight of the show, or even the run. I've really come around recently on this song in general, but part of what's historically put me off about it is that the jams get too abstract, too sharp-edged too fast, and while I'm all for exploratory jams, there's typically nothing to really latch on to that resembles music or emotion in a "Melt" jam. It's like watching two robots beat the shit out of each other: it's loud and abrasive and a little terrifying and you have trouble looking away, but it doesn't really make you feel anything.

This "Melt," though, manages to strike a balance between the jam's usual abrasiveness and a melodic quality that makes it more approachable without taking out the heart of what makes a clangy, bangy "Melt" jam (in theory at least) a "Melt" jam. And, in case you couldn't tell, I love it.

The second set is purely all about the "Seven Below" > "Ghost." Typically I would spend a bunch of time here explaining each jam step-by-step, but in this case this duo is so goddamn essential to Fall '09 that I'm just going to link to them and assume that if you don't know them already, you'll go listen now. It's fine. I'll wait.

Back? I'll wait for you to put your socks back on.

Okay. "Cool It Down" is a neat bustout, but honestly the rest of the second set was just sort of filler for me. Like with the Tahoe Tweezer, I vaguely remember being happy that they played "Tela" after, and then I promptly forgot what the rest of the set even was because I was busy picking my jaw up off the floor.

The encore "YEM" is a great victory lap version, though. First of all, YEM encore. Second of all, this "YEM" is like your mom: everyone gets a turn, and they're all sexy. "YEM" is typically a song that doesn't do much for me outside of the awesome composed sections, but lately (in '09) the guys have been doing some interesting things with it. That continues to hold true here.

So yeah. While this show is not strong overall, to the point that I'm willing to recommend you just skip it beyond the "Melt," "Seven Below" > "Ghost," and maybe "YEM," Those highlights are so high that this is probably, by default, the high-water mark of Phish for fall. Maybe the entirety of '09, though I'm still pretty partial to the Gorge since it was my first show.

On to the last pre-MSG, pre-NYE show of the year!

2009-11-27 Times Union Center I

So, I'll say this right up front: this show is the epitome of the solid "song-based" Phish show. There are a few brief moments of improvisational cleverness here and there, but no real jams to speak of. However, the song choices are superb and the playing is generally up to or above par throughout the entire show. So, you can probably come to a verdict on this show for yourself without really having to read much further. Just look at the setlist, and if it looks like fun to you, dive in. Generally speaking, for once, what you see is exactly what you get.

As is increasingly the case in this fall tour, the band annihilates the opener right out of the gate. This is a flaming hot blowtorch of a "Bag," followed by a clever segue into "Maze," and some absolute madness from Page especially during his spotlight in that song. Then, we get a few neat little ditties like a slightly-more-barroom-than-usual "Driver" and a "Gumbo" with some extra spice. "It's Ice" is basically a straight reading from Rift (take that to mean whatever you want), and since I love me the occasional Undermind rarity, "Two Versions of Me" is fun, though Trey has a bit of trouble with the lyrics. "Timber" is absolutely shredded, and "Light" is a short, pre-improv Type 1 version that ends with a serious '99-sounding ambient space that lasts for a few minutes. It sounds at first like the typical set-ending crescendo of noise, but then it just keeps going, building on the ending note(s) a bit like the Worcester '12 "Roses," but not as good. But still pretty good; and it and closes the set on an intriguing note.

No building on weirdness in the second set, though! We kick off with the strangely but effectively placed "MFMF," and then there's a mini-segue into the first-ever cover of "Golden Age." Predictably, this version is a bit rough around the edges, but blossoms into a full-blown Type 1 jam briefly before we're moving on to "On Your Way Down." This is probably, frankly, the highlight of the show. Trey slays his leads, Page nails the vocals, and Fish appropriately beats the hell out of his drums, and for a moment I was reminded that Phish can just flat-out tear up a good rock and roll song when they want to.

"Fluffhead" and "Harry Hood" take up the lion's share of the rest of the set, and both are solid-but-standard versions. The only other thing really worth mentioning in this set is the "Piper" -> "Tomorrow's Song" combo. The "Piper" has a pretty fantastic, if brief plinko section that dissolves nicely into an ambient wash that resolves itself in the opening of "Tomorrow's Song" (debut!). But the success of this pairing probably depends on your enthusiasm for Undermind rarities. For me, it was great to hear the song and the little jam that gets tacked on to the end of it, but for most I imagine it would be a potentially interesting "Piper" "derailed" by a "momentum-killer."

I enjoyed this show more than I imagine most fans would, because I like a good song-based show occasionally (at least on tape, if not when I'm in the audience live), and this one's constructed and built to perfection for my Phish-y tastes.

But, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to diving into 11/28's second set and hearing some real improv again.

2009-11-25 Wachovia Center II

Considered within the context of a Fall '09 tour that has so far been largely underwhelming compared to the late Summer '09 fireworks, the Wachovia Center run feels a little like a practical joke.

Night 1 had a totally flat first set, and some uninspired jamming in the second set flagship "Disease," but teased real brilliance at the end with an unreal "Simple" > "Slave" > "Weekapaug" segment.

Night 2 starts off strong, dashes hopes with weird setlist choices, then comes back in the second set, starts strong and...dashes hopes with weird setlist choices.

There's still a slight upward curve to the quality of these fall shows in general, but it's frustrating because the peaks are (so far) few and far between. And it's not for lack of playing ability or energy, because when the band actually makes contact, they hit it out of the park, as with the last quarter of 11/24 or 11/20's second set. But everything else is just sort of...bleh. Maybe it's just that I've been listening to 2013 shows too much lately and the lack of consistency in '09 stands out more than usual in comparison. Anyway, 11/25.

The "KDF" and "46 Days" pairing that starts this show is absolute fire. Trey is firing off melodic rock leads like it's the mid-90s, and a good time is had by all. It feels like the momentum from the end of the previous night has carried over totally unabated. Then "Sugar Shack" derails the guitar pyrotechnics. Now, I love this song, actually. But Trey just cannot seem to play it, and struggling through it seems to shut him down until "Antelope." The rest of the first set, honestly, is forgettable. There's a tight version of "Divided Sky" (segued into incredibly suddenly out of a promising "Halley's" jam), and "Sleep Again" as a rare Phish performance, featuring a pretty little piano jam from Page, but that's about it. "Antelope," featuring Trey goofing around with the intro riff and then annihilating the song's peak, brings the damn house down, but everything between that and "46 Days" sounds like a different band.

The guys come back strong with a spacey "Birds" jam that features some interesting guitar-looping action and staccato chording over a burbling, murky soundscape instead of the typical funk jam. This was an absolute surprise, and easily one of my favorite jams since the Gorge run, if not my top choice. "Farmhouse" is surprisingly shreddy, and then Trey (because this is a Trey show, despite Mike's usual bass heroics) rips into "Tweezer" with a Type 1 barrage that culminates in a really clever, ever-building arena-rock riff. Whether you're a 2009 hater or apologist or somewhere in-between, it's hard to argue against the fact that "Tweezer" has provided more than its share of highlights throughout this year. Yet, each version is a little different and unique, and this one keeps up the trend by managing to be inventive and powerful while staying within standard rock and roll confines. Highly recommended.

The "Tweezer" fire carries over to "YEM," which features a great composed section and nice solos from everyone but Fish and a vocal jam that entertains for its entire length, even just on tape. I can't really look past the "YEM," "Esther," "TTE" close to the set, though. Especially after having "Divided Sky" in the first set, this is just too much composed "goodness" in one show for me. I get that it's 2009 and the guys have been practicing and want to show off their chops, but when this much of your show gets blocked out for compositional opuses (which is apparently the plural form of "opus"), I lose interest. I'm sorry, but this show just derails for me after what's honestly a pretty amazing first half of the second set.

"O! Sweet Nuthin'" is a great closer, and Trey plays his solo with the same energy and creativity we heard earlier in "Farmhouse" and the two show-opening tracks, but the second half of this second set is shut down by astoundingly goofy (maybe intentionally goofy?) setlist choices.

2009-11-24 Wachovia Center I

Four shows into Fall '09, with 11/20 set 2 the only real bit of music worth noting (except maybe bits of 11/18), listening to all this old Phish when there's so much good new Phish to revisit was starting to become a bit of a drag. 11/24 isn't a vast improvement by any means, but it's a perfectly average-great Phish show, and for that I'm thankful. At least for now.

Most of what's worth hearing here, even from an average-great frame of reference, happens in the second set. "Chalkdust" always succeeds or fails as an opener based on the amount of punch it brings. When the band comes out ready to kick ass, you hear it right away in a song like this. When they come out to play some songs and have a good time, you don't get that punch, and this "Chalkdust" falls into the second category, unfortunately. It's followed immediately by a long "Gin," but despite the length, it's a standard reading. "Cities" is pretty tepid as well, but it's the first time I really noticed how much Mike stands out in this show. I don't know if he's playing with even more verve than usual here or if it was just the mix, but he sounded like he was everywhere during this show, and it saved a number of songs that would have otherwise been just "meh."

Anyway, "Cities" is all Mike, then there's a really loose and fun take on "Camel Walk" that leads into "The Curtain With." This song seems to be everywhere lately when I listen to Phish, and so it was nice to hear. It's a solid version, but really only novel because of its relative rarity. Mike comes back to the fore on "Moma" and the "Reba" is a great choice for late in a first set, but again, doesn't really stack up to any of the far superior high-end 3.0 versions. All in all, a really standard set with some good song choices, but at least fall tour first sets seem to have finally hit a good balance between interesting song choices and steady execution.

In a way, I think "Possum" is the highlight of this show. No, seriously. Stop laughing. It opens the second set with the energy that "Chalkdust" was lacking, and Trey is playing some interesting leads for the first time in the show. Mike, still, is just going straight-up nuts on bass, and it feels like maybe the show has started over, in a good way. I guess whether this transition is really a transition for the better depends on how you feel about this "Disease." I'm conflicted. It rocks in a typical Trey-led way for the first ~9 minutes, then Trey tries a change of guitar tone and there's a slight move toward a more blissy jamming space. This falls apart quickly, though, and Trey tries to default to the usual '09 mid-jam funk zone. Fortunately, Fish and Mike fucking refuse to allow this to happen, keeping the rhythmic momentum going and pushing the jam into a more interesting soundscape. We get some great little Page bits around 1230 as the momentum starts to wind down, and then a really brief section of something at 1430 that I'm going to call "space-blues." It's awesome and lasts for far too short a time. Overall, this "Disease" is a bit disjointed and not necessarily that excited as a whole, but there are a few neat ideas that hint at something beyond the second-song-second-set jam structure we're getting accustomed to here late in the year. The neat segue into "Twenty Years Later" doesn't hurt, either.

This "Hood" is wonderful. It's short, but nice and noodly, with a slow build that blasts into a great climax. It doesn't do anything special, but it does its thing really, really well. The momentum builds into a neat little jam in "Mango Song" with Mike taking the lead again.

Unfortunately, "Mike's" is short and just about as plain as you can get. The segue into "Simple" is solid, and there's pretty much never a "Simple" jam I don't like, but this one is aborted way too quickly in favor of "Slave." This "Slave," though, follows the pattern of the earlier "Hood," and is a great version for it. The peak is absolutely explosive, and it leads into a really wacky "Groove" wherein Fish switches up the usual beat about two minutes in to something much slower and, somehow funkier. What results is a cowfunk jam right out of 1997, closing the show proper with the kind of energy and invention that would have been nice to hear for the first 75% of the show. But I'm griping. If you can't get enough of '09 "Disease" jams, this one won't disappoint you. The "Hood" is boilerplate "Hood," but in the best way, and the "Simple" > "Slave" > "Groove" run is a great omen for the remainder of the tour. I hope.

Oh, the "Day In The Life" closer doesn't hurt either. I'm feeling optimistically hopeful for 11/25.

2009-11-22 War Memorial

Ugh. These last few shows have been the blandest stretch of Phish since I started listening for the purposes of reviewing shows on this blog. After a pretty bang-up end to Summer Tour '09, I'd hoped that momentum would carry over into big things for the fall. Maybe there's just a lot of rust to knock off or something, but things just aren't clicking along at the level that they were for, say, Red Rocks, or the Gorge, or the last few shows of summer. And besides, the band was knocking of five years of rust at Hampton, and so far I prefer that run to anything in Fall '09, honestly.

Again, it's not that much has been bad (more on that in a minute), it's just boring. Much like the Western conception of society, I like to work on the assumption that Phish is always innovating, always improving, always progressing. There will be parts of each era that are worth listening to on their own, but they'll always also be stepping-stones to future greatness. This feels like whatever the opposite of greatness is, minus the zaniness that rescued many a shitty show in 1.0 and the sheer experience and musicianship that rescued many a shitty show in 2.0. I can't even say "At least Phish is back!" because they've been back now almost as long as they were gone.

Anyway, I'm pretty bummed about Fall '09 so far. Except for that second set of 11/20. Holy shit.

Nonetheless, watch me tread my way through 11/22!

Well, there's a "Bowie" opener, which keeps up with the run's "Setlist surprises but no interesting jamming" theme. It's a pretty standard version, and the transition into the ending gets flubbed pretty badly, and while I'm not a huge stickler for missed notes, especially post-'94 or so, when you miss that incredible, fist-pumping transition into the closing "Bowie" riff, it hurts me right in the heart because it's always so good when it works.

"Julius" has a little extra heat on it for this run-through, and "Boogie On" features the usual excellent Mike-centric parts. "Beauty of a Broken Heart" is a great tune, and it's good to see it pop up. Largely, though, the first set goes by without anything of note. Incidentally, it should be illegal to play "Heavy Things" without the guitar loop. I mean, really.

"Stash" is actually a great version, continuing 11/21's tradition of a boring first set with one absolute monster of a jam. The jam style is pretty standard, but it's a perfectly executed loooooong build in tension, with a blistering release at the end.

That's really the last we see of Trey, though, until the end of the second set. A few songs in the second set, depending on your preferences, either Could Be Standout Versions If Trey Had Played On Them or Are Standout Versions Because Trey Stays In The Background.

The "Drowned" > "Twist" > "Piper" > "BBFCFM" run would probably seem great if I wasn't a little burnt out on the stereotypical '09 jamming style. "Drowned" features a nice little rock and roll jam for the opening few minutes, and then, literally as I said out loud "here comes the space-funk part," the band transitioned into a spacier segment with Trey strumming the usual funk chords over Page's organ. Then, of course, we have the ambient melt-down at the end, that's also predictable at this point. The most interesting bits of this jam are the ones where Mike takes over and drives the band in some interesting directions briefly. "Twist" features a mellow jam that's also Mike- and Page-led, with Trey sticking to the background still (since pretty much the 7:00 or so mark in "Drowned"), and while the band sounds sort of incomplete this way, the results are, at least, interesting. Toward the end, the jam implodes (in a good way) a la 11/21's "Rock and Roll" and segues into "Piper" which, again, shines in its last few minutes as Mike takes the lead with a ridiculous driving bass riff the Page plays off of to perfection.

"BBFCFM" is funny, including some Trey-speak regarding Fishman and Fishman's dad's dental patients, "Maze" is pretty much Trey-less, which allows Page to shine even more than usual, and a few of the late songs "Theme," "GTBT" could have been good versions, but they're so filled with Trey's missed notes that it really takes you out of the song.

At this point, I'm sort of feeling like I'm writing just to write, and I imagine you got the picture already: I didn't much like this show. I like the opening segment of the second set because it's weird but it's not necessarily anything you haven't heard before if you've listened to the tour up to this point. The "Stash" is pretty impeccably played, but we're also in the middle of a year when you could hit Shuffle on a playlist of every song since Hampton and land on an amazing "Stash" in a few clicks. So. Hrm.

Here's hoping for more variation (both from me and the band) with 11/24.

2009-11-21 Cincinnati, OH II

Well, after 11/20's stellar second set, I was really looking forward to diving into this show. Apparently, this run is widely considered a jewel of the 2009 Fall Tour...but I must just be in a curmudgeonly mood because really only 1 of the run's 4 sets seems worth talking about at all to me. That's my long way of saying 11/21 is in the running for the Least Interesting Show of 2009.

As I feel like I'm often saying about shows like this, it's not bad, per se, and there aren't really any cringeworthy moments or blood-boiling ripcords. It's just boring. Some great setlist calls ease the pain a bit, but these are all novelties more than they are legitimate points of interest.

Anyway, here's my shitty, bitter response to 11/21. Yeah!

Now maybe I've been listening to too much '12 and '13 Phish lately, but Fall '09 first sets have seemed really stale, generally speaking. I'm not looking for a first set to do much other than be fun, but a lot of these first sets so far do feel a bit like that "nostalgia band" thing everyone was whining about when Phish first got back together. Obviously, at this point in Phish history, there's no real way to make a case that the guys are creatively stagnant. Summer '09 even made this seem like a laughable claim. Fall '09 first sets, though, are starting to sound like a really technically proficient cover band to me.

In this set we get "NICU," a melodically pretty "Wolfman's," "Torn and Frayed," "Strange Design," "Ginseng Sullivan," "Albuquerque," and "Dirt." It's like the band decided to play an entire set of great, rarely-played, five-minute-or-less songs. Had I been at this concert as part of a run, I probably would have loved this (BGCA2's first set from this year comes to mind as a similar situation). However, on tape I don't know why I need to hear more standard versions of these songs not really broken by anything.

But then there's the "Melt." If there's anything that comes close to redeeming this snoozefest of a show, it's this first set "Melt." The jam starts very Trey-led, with an almost blissful, slow feel to it as opposed to the usual frenzied pace of "Melt" jams. Things start to get atonal at about the 10:00 mark, and eventually degenerate to the point that Trey is playing with a really interesting dissonant tone and style by 11:30 and the rest of the band is following suit on a really unique descent into madness. Shortly after, there's a return to the usual "Melt" riff, but man, this is a keeper of a jam. In fact, it's probably the only thing I'm keeping for my highlight reel mixtape from this show.

The second set starts promisingly enough with "Rock and Roll" and some solid Trey Shreds (TM) action, but it soon dissolves into the standard '09-era jam template. Maybe I'm just too far into '09 at this point and I'm over-jammed, or maybe it was reading this piece from Miner the other day, but I'm getting sick of the whole Rock Guitar Solo > Minimalist Funk > Ambient Breakdown thing that happens during every jam. During the summer it was fresh, and the band played through jams like they felt like it was fresh. Now, we've heard the same thing about 20 times, the band seems like they're sort of bored but sticking to the template for safety's sake, and as a result "Rock and Roll" is boring.

"Ghost" sticks to a typical Type 1 script, and though solid versions of "Suzy" and "Sleeping Monkey" happen later in the set, there's really nothing to recommend from this frame, honestly.

Got my fingers crossed for Syracuse, though I'm about halfway through the first set, and despite a surprise "Bowie" opener and some seriously good Mike Gordon action just in general, it seems like another short-hits-slog. Hrm.

2009-11-20 Cincinnati, OH I

After hearing an above-average show get derailed by weird setlist choices in Detroit, I wasn't exactly thrilled when the band's first of two nights in Cincy opened with one of the strangest first sets I've come across in awhile. Luckily, this show's excellent second set more than makes up for its opening idiosyncrasy.

As I've been fond of pointing out in the past, while I love Phish's more intricate composed works in theory, hearing 3 or 4 of them in one show (or even just 2, sometimes) really throws things off for me. So I was ready to be displeased when I looked at the setlist for 11/20 and saw "Divided Sky," "TTE," "Fluffhead," and "YEM" all in the same show.

Things start with sloppy but energetic readings of "Chalkdust" and "Moma," and then, honestly, the rest of the first set passes more or less as you'd imagine it would based on the setlist. There's a little bit of noodly fun in "Jibboo" and "FEFY" is a nice (and nicely-played) surprise, but otherwise there's nothing here that you can't hear on a million other Phish recordings. This is probably my shortest-ever first set review, but there it is.

The second set stumbles out of the gate with a sloppy take on "PYITE," and at this point I was clicking through to the setlist for the next few shows, looking for a light at the end of the tunnel...when this "Tweezer" just exploded right in my damn face. This is an amazing version in a year full of amazing versions; I'd be willing to put it up there with the best summer takes. At this point in the show, Trey gets very "riffy." That is, he starts channeling that amazing power he has of picking an excellent riff up out of nowhere and leading the rest of the band into a great jam space based on that riff. This happens once at around 5:45 and happens again at 8:30, with the help of a heavily distorted, fuzzy tone that lends a little extra oomph to this space-funk romp. The band takes a left turn into pure space for the last minute or so of the song, but unlike the typical Summer '09 ambient meltdown/segue, this one has a little more momentum as Fishman keeps things rolling. This sets up a nice segue into a short "Light," which morphs in turn into "BOTT" slowly and sublimely. The take on this song is extra-short, but that's okay because it changes into "Possum" seamlessly and on a dime and this "Possum" is just absolutely incendiary. We get a bit of a breather with an average-great "Slave," and then one of my favorite "YEM"s in awhile hits. The composed sections are played almost perfectly and with serious verve, and the jam goes minimalist-funk, recalling the set's earlier "Tweezer," just without the distortion. Trey latches on to another great riff here and the band follows him for a few minutes, setting up a vocal jam wherein all four members harmonize on the guitar riff for a few more minutes. It's one of those perfectly clever Phish moments that made me sit back for a minute, listen, and grin, even in the middle of a long day at work. The set sputters to an end on "Joy" and "Golgi" fumes, but it's one of my favorite '09 Phish second sets in awhile. If you can handle a pretty standard take on "Slave" (and I love the song, so I can), the "Tweezer" > "Light" -> "Back On The Train" -> "Possum," "Slave To The Traffic Light," "You Enjoy Myself" run in this set is one of the better pieces of music these guys have put together throughout '09 and is pure Phish magic, not "just for '09," but for any year. Definitely worth a few listens.

Song choices for 11/21 look amazing. Looking forward to it.

2009-11-18 Cobo Arena, Detroit, MI

Hey hey, everybody! It's my first review from the new house in Klamath Falls, Oregon! Moving was, surprisingly, a blast, and settling in has been even more fun. Lots of hiking and biking and good food to be had. Best, though, was (obviously) getting to see eight Phish shows back-to-back in the flesh over late July and early August. But I haven't really collected my thoughts on that pulsating mass of musical goddamn brilliance yet (the Tahoe Tweezer alone deserves a few blog posts), so I'm get back on the train, as it were, and start reviewing the Fall 2009 arena tour!

Before getting into the gritty details, I'll apologize in advance for the increasing lack of videos in these posts, and the posts to come in the future. One of the things that really inspired me to get started on this blog was mkdevo's YouTube channel, which made available just about every highlight of 3.0 in wonderful video quality. I loved the idea of writing reviews but being able to break up the walls of text by including video of the best bits of each show, and his channel (and others like it, to a lesser degree) made that possible. As you likely know, said channel was shut down by Phish, Inc. awhile back, and so now there are much fewer videos available to link to. When possible, I'll still try to include a highlight here or there, but for the most part, I'm now stuck putting out the "wall of text" by default. Phishtracks is a great resource, and I plan to use it as much as possible...but yeah. It's a shitty situation. Anyway, sorry for the lack of moving pictures (and probably a lot of dead video links now in my older reviews). It sucks.

That said, on with the show(s)!

11/18 is a flat-out rocker almost all the way through, with a few surprisingly solid jams sprinkled into the batter. It's derailed a bit by some seriously weird setlist choices (though 11/20 has it beat by far for early Weirdest Setlist of Tour), which slow things down at just the wrong moment, a few times. Though it's not near as good as some of the best late Summer '09 shows, the boys' enthusiasm is infectious and Cobo works great as a solid tour opener.

Things kick off with a "Bag" that features a more melodic and varied Trey solo than usual, culminating in an a full-out rock-out that carries on into "Foam" and "Stealing Time." This opening trifecta is the first of a number of blasts of high-energy rock that characterize the majority of this show. "Bouncing" slows things down necessarily, but it's a small speed bump en route to high-energy versions of "Sample" and "Kill Devil Falls." Lest you think this first set is all about the rock, though, a well-played version of "It's Ice" and an electric take of Fest 8 standout "Mountains in the Mist" cool things down a bit, but in a satisfying way. "46 Days" is the clear winner in this set, cranking the rock back up for a few minutes but then dissolving, not in the usual '09 ambient noise-wall, but an interesting and multilayered plinko-type jam that segues slowly into the opening of "Bowie." This version won't win any awards, but it's a solidly-played first set closer. Aside from the "46 Days," there's nothing in this set to sink your teeth into, but for the first set of tour, it's a high energy affair and gets things started with a bang, a few oddly-placed slower songs notwithstanding.

The setlist weirdness gets more extreme in the second set, but there are some great moments here, too. The opening "Jim" is an ante-up on the first set's rock vibe, all Trey guitar pyrotechnics and trilling and whatnot. The "Disease" that follows seems primed for a major-key noodling explosion, but at about the 9:00 mark, things get strange and the jam that follows is full of bizarre modulations and eastern-sounding scales. It's a melange of a few of the jamming styles the band was playing with early in the year, and as unique as it is, it's over way too fast after about five minutes. Definitely the show highlight, though, and one I'll be keeping in the back of my head as a measuring stick as the fall tour rolls on. There's a neat segue into "Free," but in my opinion, "DWD" -> "Free" has never worked as well since "Free" has become a Mike vehicle. If you're going to segue into it out of a huge jam, you've gotta have that fiery riff exploding to the fore right away, especially at a show like this where Trey has dominated the tone of most songs. I love the idea of this pairing, but there's a big difference between the old "Free" and the new one, and it's most obvious at moments like this.

Setlist head-scratching begins in earnest soon after "Free," with a wonderfully discordant, bizarro-world take on "Taste" surrounded by "Waste," "Bug," and "Wading." I love each of these songs, but as three of a four-song pack? Late in a second set? No thanks.

The guys seemingly try to reclaim the lost energy they were easily summoning for much of the show with a late Mike's Groove, complete with "Hydrogen," but it's a pretty standard take all the way around. There's a really globular "Zero" to close, and the enthusiasm's definitely still there after a few hours of music, but this feels through and through like an tour-opening show: all energy and no exploration. The show borders on being one of those rare post-95 instances where the rock-and-roll fire just blazes nonstop for 150 minutes, making up for the fact that none of the songs are really "going anywhere." But some weird setlist choices rob the music of its momentum a few times, most noticeably in the middle of the second set. Cobo's just fine, but unless you have a hankering for yet another mostly energetic, technically well-played Phish show, you can just check out the "46 Days" and "Disease" and move on happily.

I'm Still Alive...

In case anyone out there in the internet-aether was wondering, I'm still alive and haven't given up on my Phish 3.0 reviewing project. I spent a lot of June getting ready to move from Washington to Oregon with the missus and start a new job, then the beginning of July actually moving and settling into our new place. Then I was lucky enough to be able to do the entire west coast summer run in person and just got back from the Hollywood Bowl a few days ago. After the absolutely incredible level of playing I witnesses over eight nights, it's honestly difficult to go back and listen to, well, really, anything the band played prior to this last month (except maybe some '97 funk or '99 space). I just keep listening to the last eight shows on repeat and haven't had much time for anything else.

Anyway, I'll likely write up my thoughts (briefly soon, and then later on on a per-show basis in detail). Those'll go up on my other blog but'll also likely end up here and on phish.net. Then I'll get back to reviewing 2009, starting with 11/18!

2009-11-01 Festival 8 III

So, especially after my review of 10/31, the third night of Festival 8 is going to make me sound like a broken record. Just like the previous night, 11/1 has a completely unique set that's amazingly done that immediately makes the show a Must Listen, and yet...and yet everything that happens outside of that one set is pretty much inessential and pales in comparison to pretty much anything that the band did during the second leg of Summer '09.

So, the acoustic set is just about sublime. The song selection is a little weird: considering this might be the only acoustic set we ever hear the band play, they stick mostly with songs you'd expect to hear an acoustic setting anyway, but the few surprises are big surprises.

A lot of the expected acoustic songs feature neat little mini-jams, and (at least on my recording) Page's piano stands out over Trey's acoustic guitar, which means when the interlude on, say, "Water in the Sky" hits, Page and Mike are actually up front for once. In addition to the very fact that the band is playing on acoustic instruments, this set also represents a sort of different "order" of hearing the band members than what I'm used to during electric shows, and that in and of itself is a small but incredibly important detail. "Brian and Robert" is excellent in this setting, as is Mike's "Invisible," a song I'd never heard before. "Mountains In the Mist" and "The Curtain With" are the two big surprises here, and they're both played to perfection. "Mist" includes a short outro jam that features a lot of gorgeous acoustic interplay, while "The Curtain With" translates wonderfully into this setting, showcasing the boys' ability to play composed pieces precisely and beautifully without any electronic frippery.

Yeah, I just used the word "frippery."

The rest of the set sounds pretty much like you'd imagine it would. "Let Me Lie" actually sounds better in the acoustic setting, "Train Song" is excellent, and though I could take or leave "Sleep Again" as it's already been played acoustic by Trey ad nauseum, it's not badly played. "McGrupp" is the obvious highlight of the second part of the set, though, featuring some wonderful ivory-tickling from Page and setting up a wonderfully schmaltzy encore.

If you like occasionally indulging in acoustic cheese (like I do), then this encore is for you. "Driver" is great, hearing "Talk" at all is fantastic, and "Secret Smile," like "Let Me Lie," actually comes across better in this setting than in the electric sets it's been used in. Overall, this is definitely not just a gimmick set, and is well worth a listen. It's a wonder that they don't do sets like this more often.

Oh, and here's the beginning of a set of videos of the entire set, again. Thanks, internet!

The rest of the show, regrettably, doesn't live up to the first set's promise, though it's definitely more cohesive and energetic than the previous night's non-costumed sets. In my review lexicon, where I usually refer to these types of sets/shows as "workmanlike," I'd rate the rest of 11/1 as "workmanlike+."

The second-set-opening "Bag" is pure fire from beginning to end, and set a tone, early on, that the band was in Crush-Everything-Out-Of-The-Park Mode. Unfortunately, that never really translates into anything beyod strong, song-based playing, but when this show does excel, it's mostly because Trey's in full force. "Rift" is the trainwreck most, if not all 3.0 "Rift"s are, but the following "Jibboo," "Heavy Things" pairing showcases more amazingly precise and energetic shredding from Trey a la the opening "Bag." This pair is worth a listen if you have any sort of positive feelings toward these catchy-as-hell Farmhouse tracks.

"Reba" gets a surprisingly exact reading up through the end of the composed part, where everyone suddenly accordions into each other and then everyone sort of takes their own path into the jam. Again, here, it's Trey's guitar pyrotechnics that make the jam itself a satisfying recovery. "The Wedge" and "Guelah Papyrus" are neat setlist choices, but neither one is particularly solidly played, but the "Undermind" that follows makes up for what has come before.

"Undermind" actually clocks in at under 8 minutes, but it's easily my favorite "jam" of the show, and quite possibly the festival. Things get spacey as soon as the lyrics drop out, with Trey, Page, and Mike all altering their tones accordingly. The boys continue in this semi-plinko space-funk vein for a few minutes before Trey just decides to up and shred the shit out of everything (in a good way), driving the song to a surprisingly explosive end. "Sparkle" is a nice bridge to a weird, winding, almost slow-motion "Melt," which ends the second set, which on second thought is probably the best non-gimmick set of the festival. Again, if you're a jam-hound, I'm sort of damning with faint praise here, but there's a lot of good playing buoyed by some great playing on "Undermind" and weird playing on "Melt."

The final set of the fest looks awesome on paper, but in execution is just more of the same: high energy, low improv. If you've enjoyed the run so far, you might as well head down the final stretch. If you've found yourself wanting more, you can probably skip this and head straight into Fall '09 proper. The "Tweezer" clocks in at 15 minutes, but it's pretty standard funk all the way through. There's a great, sudden jump into more ambient space at the 14:00 mark which turns into a solid segue into "Maze," which turns out to be a high-energy affair driven by Fish's manic drumming and Trey and Page slamming away for all they're worth on their respective instruments...though again, it's more energy than innovation.

The rest of the final set is pretty straightforward, save for an extra-strong "Limb By Limb" until "Light." About 7:00 in to the song, Page leads the band via weird-space-organ washes into an ambient space that just gets more and more abstract for the next eight minutes or so. There are points where the percussion drops out completely, and Trey eventually gets what sounds like a few different loops running. The end result is a solid few minutes of legitimate late-90s ambient jamming. It never really "goes anywhere," but I don't think that's the point of ambient jamming. If you're a fan of the band's ambient phase (and I'm slowly becoming one), you should check this "Light" out. Eventually, the ambient space coalesces nicely into a "Slave" that's long, patient, and features a very satisfying, weekend-ending peak.

The encore features a nicely-played "Esther," but all told it's a pretty weird closer...I sort of prefer to think that the show ended with "Slave."

Anyway, overall it was really fun listening to Festival 8 for the first time. I feel like in writing my reviews, I became a bit of a broken record and maybe ended up sounding like my ultimate reaction was "Meh, no jamzzzz!" when in reality the entire run was pretty satisfying. I think, hypothetically speaking, had I shown up for this festival and gotten a set of acoustic Phish and an Exile on Main Street cover along with six sets of generally well-played, high-energy classic Phish songs with a slight jam sprinkled in here and again, I would have been more than happy. It's just a little mystifying, honestly, why the band - who have been exponentially increasing their jamming prowess since Hampton - would play a festival - arguably where they have, in the past, been prone to indulge their jammy tendencies the most - and play all three nights straight. I guess I feel like as a Halloween run, this set of shows succeeds, but as a Phish Festival, it's probably my least favorite. Which, again, is not to say it's bad. But, if you haven't got the time to hear everything, just check out the acoustic set and the Exile set. You won't miss much else, except maybe that 10/30 "Wolfman's" > "Piper" and the 11/1 "Undermind."

2009-10-31 Festival 8 II

So, after thoroughly enjoying 10/30's "Wolfman's" > "Piper," and finding the rest of the show a pretty lukewarm affair, I sat down today and mainlined the rest of Festival 8. What I found was, largely, a continuation of 10/30's less-interesting bits, made mostly palatable and at times even exhilarating by the fact that while Phish doesn't jam much (read: "at all") over the course of this festival, they sure as hell play a lot of music, much of which is interesting in ways other than the usual "OMG 25+ MINUTE OXY JAMZ, BRAH" ways. Basically, what I'm saying is "Come for Exile, stay for the acoustic set, then probably listen to anything from Summer Leg Two if you need some jams."

10/31 starts off with two Summer '09 early-first-set standards, both played very straight. "Lawn Boy" is a great curveball early in the set, and "KDF" has a little extra fire to it, thanks to some hot Page action. From this glimpse of life, though, we fall back into a long and whale-filled "Gin" that just kills the momentum, followed by a surprisingly rough "Coil." Page gets an especially nice outro solo on this version, but it's too little to carry what is easily one of my least favorite first sets in a long time. The "Jim" > "Possum" combo shows a bit of energy again, but then the "Antelope," usually a 3.0 fists-of-lightning-blasting staple, falls flat. I usually try to put a YouTube clip of a first set highlight here before the next paragraph, but honestly, I can't really think of anything worth posting.

Exile on Main Street is one of my favorite albums of all time, so it's weird to me that I've never listened to Phish's cover before. Maybe I was afraid that they wouldn't do it justice? Well, they do. Certainly, part of Exile's charm (for me, at least) is the fact that the album is so rough and raucous and just screaming with energy; in that regard, it might have been better to have the band covering it in, say, the mid-90s than in 2009. But otherwise, this is a great take on an incredible album, and that's really what Halloween is all about, right? It's just weird to realize that Phish's live take on a studio album is actually slow, cleaner, and neater than the original work.

Anyway, the first half of the album cover is (pleasantly) paint-by-numbers. The addition of the horns and guest vocals is a nice touch, too, though I feel like there are lots of horn lines from the original album that are just missing in the cover. I'll have to give the album a relisten and see. It was great to hear Phish play "Tumbling Dice," one of my favorite songs off the album, and "Torn and Frayed" gets a neat little outro jam. Two of my other favorites, "Sweet Virginia" and "Sweet Black Angel," get really interesting, almost minimalist readings and are two of the brief moments when it sounds like Phish is making this album their own rather than just trying to repeat what the Stones have already done.

Perhaps expectedly, things really get rolling with "Loving Cup" (performed with horns and the whole shebang!). Fishman gets a vocal turn on "Happy," and there's some mini-space-jamming in the middle of the "Ventilator Blues" -> "I Just Want To See His Face" > "Let It Loose" sandwich. "Let  It Loose" is a great outing for Page vocals-wise, though the "Shine a Light" that comes after is easily the sloppiest version the band has played, and it sort of smudges what would otherwise be a triumphant ending to a great album cover. All in all, though, Phish's version of Exile is very true to the original and it makes for an excellent set, even if the boys' readings of the Stones' songs are generally pretty straightforward.

Someone's kindly uploaded a decent video of the whole set, if you want to check it out:

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the third set is much like the first in terms of improvisation: there isn't any. However, the playing's a bit more consistent and the energy's a bit higher. A 12-minute "Number Line" nonetheless stays within the lines for its entire runtime, then segues nicely into "Fluffhead," which in turn has a herky-jerky segue into "Ghost." Having thought "Number Line" would be the jam vehicle of the night, I next expected "Ghost" to go deep instead. No such luck. It turns from standard type 1 soloing to a bit of full-band bliss jamming in the last few minutes, but it's nothing to write home about. In all honesty, the "YEM" is probably the improvisational highlight of the night. The composed section is very well-played, then there's a brief by excellent plinko-y segment before the whole thing breaks down into an especially scream-y vocal jam that ends a very by-the-numbers show on a wacky note.

The "Suzy" encore brings the Exile musicians back out to sign backup and play some horns, which spurs Trey on to new heights of encore-level shredding, and it's a great close to a long show that is of course notable for an excellent album cover but that also succeeds at being fun despite not having any jams by just having so much goddamn music that there's going to be something for everyone.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I bet you thought that was a Bowie reference.

As you might have noticed, the blog has changed dramatically in terms of appearance and functionality. I woke up this morning and saw that I still haven't received the specifics of my first assignment for my new employer, and so I decided to use the three-hour window of free time that had suddenly opened to Do Stuff To The Blog To Make It Better. Hopefully it worked. Here are the probably-painfully-obvious-but-important changes:

1. There is an actual picture of Phish playing a concert in the background of the blog, instead of that shitty stock photo I had up before. Blogger still, mystifyingly, requires that all background images be under 300k in size while suggesting that you upload an image that is at least 1800 x 1600. So I shrunk down a massive photo and then compressed it until it was 299k in size. So it's a little grainy, but Google is silly and I couldn't make a better-resolution background because SAD.

2. I changed the template and color scheme of the entire blog. Now it's blue and grey instead of that eye-watering red/orange/white combination I had going before. Also, the "Dynamic" template is gone, as most of the options it provided looked like total unnavigable shit. Instead, I've chosen to make this blog look and work suspiciously like my other blog.

3. Now there's an easy-to-find list on the sidebar that helps you read by tour, just above the archive of all of my posts thus far.

4. Maybe most importantly, there's now a list of "Favorite Sources" in the sidebar. In most posts thus far, I've been including Phish.net links, and YouTube videos where possible. The sources list doesn't include all the channels I've used videos from, but it does list a few of the best and most comprehensive. As there aren't a lot of videos from '09 to choose from (and many that do exist have embedding turned off, or were cut up oddly because of YouTube's old 10-minute limit), I've also started using PhishTracks links to stream songs I want readers to be able to hear ASAP, so there's a link to there as well. Basically, I wanted to give credit to the people whose work I've been resharing, and this list seemed like the best way to accomplish that.

And now, since I've already posted "Changes," I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't include "Wolfman" also:

Which of course then makes it mandatory to include this, as well:

See? Everything eventually leads back to Phish.

2009-10-30 Festival 8 I

So after a bit of real-life traveling, I got back into town a few days ago, ran a half-marathon (like we do), and then last night finally got a chance to sit down and block out the drudgery of doing some web design by listening to the first night of Festival 8 for the first time. I made the mistake of reading its generally negative Phish.net reviews before listening, and so I was prepared to add the first "workmanlike show" to my Fall '09 Tour Rundown List. In reality, though, while there's not a lot to recommend in this show's first set-and-a-half, there are a few high-quality jams toward the end and a slow-burning "Hood" that makes the second set at least worth a listen.

I suppose starting off the festival with "Party Time" was an apropos decision, and at the time it was probably a fun Phish moment for those in attendance. On tape, this version is a flub-filled disaster, and though Trey and Mike (!) tack on decent solos at the end, this is clearly the band stumbling out of the gate. "Chalkdust" is a nice recovery, though: not only is it a fiery version, it features a somewhat atypical jam. It's nothing like, say, the IT "Chalkdust," of course, but there's some mode-shifting (I think) throughout that makes it a little darker and more interesting than any other version so far in 3.0.

The next few songs are nice choices for setlist flow, but nothing else worth mentioning happens until the "Stash," which again serves as a great first-set jamming launchpad as it has for most of the year. Where the jam in "Stash" has lately generally tended toward the tension-and-release side of things with a huge, sloppy side order of whale pedal, this version manages to mingle tension and bliss jamming pretty interestingly and is definitely worth a listen.

The rest of the first set, though, is really not. It's a pretty standard series of straight-up songs, played...umm...straight-up. I really like "Beauty of a Broken Heart," and this is one of the more flub-less version they've played thus far, but otherwise, there's nothing here that you haven't heard before. The set-closing combo of a slow, muted "Ocelot" and a particularly messy "TTE" definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd love to see more of the jamming style that features in the last few minutes of the "Stash," though. Maybe that'll happen later on in the fall?

Anyway, second set starts off with a rocky by energetic "PYITE," which makes the first of many great second-set segues into "Disease." The "Disease" clocks in at 13:00, but it definitely doesn't make the best of that stretch of time. Up until the last two or three minutes, in fact, it's a Trey wankfest, and while it's not a bad one (he slams some great blues-rock riffs into the fucking ground), it's just average-great Phish. The last two minutes fade into some interesting ambient territory, for sure, but it fades quickly into "Caspian." Again, here, the segue is excellent, but the results are underwhelming. "Caspian" is very heavy on the whale, to less-than-stellar results. Fortunately, it fades into a great little outro jam led by Page and Mike, which transforms into another great segue, this time into "Wolfman's." And, finally, shit starts to get real.

The "Wolfman's" jam begins, interestingly, with Page on his piano, leading the charge, rather than the funk we've become accustomed to. Trey stays out of the jam, chording around in the background for the most part, until 8:30, when everything comes apart (in the best way). The guys bring back that abstract soundscape they teased earlier in "Disease," but here it's way weirder, and way better. There's about three minutes of this wonderfully rhythmless, abstract shit before "Piper" fades in organically from the morass of sound that's built up. It's wonderful, and on top of that, "Piper" ain't half bad, either.

Before the lyrics come in, Page plays the "Piper" piano riff a few times with a weird 80s synth tone (still leftover from the ambient jam), which is a nice touch. Once the jam takes off in earnest, the band goes straight back to space, before eventually landing for a few minutes of what I labeled in my notes as "transdimensional elevator music." This two-song sandwich is one of my favorite soundscapes of the year so far, right up there with the Red Rocks "Boogie On," the Gorge "Sally," and a few others I'm sure that I'm forgetting.

And then there's "Joy."

We get a heavy dose of Page on the "Bowie," too, and while this isn't necessarily top-shelf material, it's solid enough that it doesn't smudge the shine of the "Wolfman's" > "Piper" pairing. "Hood" is a long, slow, 15 minute build to a rather muted peak, but the fist-pumping "Golgi" that follows provides the punch its end is lacking.

All in all, there're a few standout moments in this show, but the only really consistently quality section is the second half of the second set. The "Stash" is one of my favorites (if not my favorite) so far, and the "Wolfman's" > "Piper" pair is representative of the best kind of '09 jamming. You could safely listen to those alone, though, and not be afraid that you're missing anything.

Exile is next!

Late Summer '09 Wrap-Up

So, just like I did at the end of Leg One, I'm doing a wrap-up post for Leg Two that includes a brief, few-sentence write-up for each show and a list of that show's highlights. Almost exclusively, this list focuses on the interesting improvisational moments of each show, not because I'm entirely about the space jams, but because if I was to highlight every single noteworthy moment from each show, including each and every extra-hot Type I jam, this list would contain something like 1/3rd of all the songs played in summer of '09, which sort of defeats the point of a best-of, doesn't it?

Anyway, here's the list, with a few extra fun songs thrown in since this leg was quite a bit shorter than the previous leg.

7/30: Better than pretty much any Leg One show, except maybe Camden. Highlights include "Stash," "Ghost" > "Wolfman's."

7/31: Quite possibly the best front-to-back show of the summer for me. Gorge I would be the only other contender that's probably better than Camden or Alpine. "Melt," "Drowned" > "Crosseyed," "Tweezer" > "Number Line" > "Fluffhead" -> "Piper" -> "A Day in the Life." Yep. Pretty much the entire second set.

8/1: Great show by Leg One standards, but pales in comparison to Red Rocks I and II. "The Curtain With," "Rock and Roll" > "Disease."

8/2: Weakest show of the run, but really only because of a Bill Kreutzmann sit-in that goes awry. The jamming is actually quite good and if Bill's ham-handed drumming doesn't bother you, then this will be an obvious improvement over night 3. The "Boogie On" is best-of-summer stuff, too. "Reba," "Boogie On," "Seven Below."

8/5: Really uneven show in terms of energy and flow. In the context of Leg Two, you wouldn't be missing much if you skipped it. Decently spooky "Disease" and quirky "Cities" > "Maze" pairing.

8/7: Gets off to a slow start, but the interesting jamming starts in the middle of the first set, and stays consistently interesting through the rest of the show. Minus the "warm up" songs, this would probably be the best full show of the summer, for my money. With them, it's probably second to Red Rocks II. "Stash," "Sally" > "Cavern," "Light" -> "Taste," "Hood."

8/8: Doesn't stand up overall to the previous night, but the song-based parts of the show are stronger, and there's a monstrous "Rock and Roll." "Antelope" is also interesting-good in a year of solid "Antelope"s.

8/11: Another "saggy" show after the great Gorge run. A lot of energy, but the setlist doesn't really cohere and in this case "energy" often seems to mean "flubbing." Also, little to no improvisation to note. The only legitimate "meh" show of Leg Two.

8/13: "Workmanlike," as I described a few shows in Leg One. It holds together better than 8/11, but there still isn't much here to sink your teeth into. "Drowned" > "Caspian."

8/14: Easily the best show since the Gorge, but heavier on Gamehendge fun and old-school antics than any real improv. "Forbin's" > "Mockingbird," "Stash," "Piper," "Ghost" > "Psycho Killer" -> "Catapult" -> "Icculus."

8/15: Workmanlike, well-played show except for "46 Days," which is one of the standout jams of the summer.

8/16: Victory lap show, mostly. Really fun, high-energy, mostly song-based playing that's a good cap for a long tour but isn't really that satisfying on its own. "Number Line" > "Twenty Years Later."

I'm out of town for a few days doing business-y, professional stuff this week, but I'm hoping to dive into fall starting with Festival 8 this weekend. Exile on Main Street is one of my all-time favorite albums, and somehow I've just never sat down and listened to this entire set before. So this should be a blast...

2009-08-16 SPAC

Well, here we are. The end of summer tour '09. As I was at the end of Leg One, I'm a little surprised that I've made it this far. When I started this project, it was to try to get a sense of Phish's evolution throughout 3.0 as a whole, to try to reconcile the amazing shows I've seen live and the few I've heard on tape with the general internet-whining that frames 3.0 as a total embarrassment and waste of time for "real" Phish fans.

I don't really want to spend an entire blog post at this point arguing for the relevance of 3.0 or even '09 in particular, but I'll just quickly say that I've had as much fun listening to this tour as I've ever had listening to any other Phish tour, and as far as I'm concerned, that's the only metric that really counts. This shit is great, and as I've never listened to any of fall or winter '09 before, I'm absolutely stoked to follow the band later into the year. '09 so far has been much more weird and experimental than I expected, and when the experiments flop, in general the band's playing on non-jammed songs has actually been more solid than it typically was anywhere between, say, '95 and '04.

With all that in mind, I'll say that SPAC is a fitting tour closer for a tour that, as far as I'm concerned, was much better than any of us likely expected in early June '09. It doesn't feature a lot in the way of improv, but it's got some fun antics, a good mix of old and new songs, and an energy that makes it clear that this is a victory lap for the band that we last saw at Coventry before this all got (re)started.

We get a surprise "Llama" opener, but it seems like it's as much a surprise for the band as it is for the crowd; Troy falls off a cliff early and things never really recover. It's like a bust out that shouldn't have been busted out. "Moma" is a great redeemer, though: it's a song that the band pretty much always seems to nail, and Trey especially attacks this version with great relish. The energy carries over into a surprisingly early "Guyute," which melts into a lovely ballad bust-out in the form of "Anything But Me." Page gets a great legit piano solo here, and infuses a bit of lately-rare jazz into the night. "Cars Trucks "Buses" has a bit of stop/start fun in it, but the remainder of the middle of the first set is pretty pedestrian up until a "Possum" that's unexpectedly Page-led.

The guys continue stringing together another marathon first set with an "Ocelot" that features a bit more shredding than Trey usually includes in the usually loping jam section, and things end on a high note with a well-played "Antelope" (which still isn't anywhere near the upper echelon of excellent "Antelope"s already played this year).

"Number Line" is the night's go-to second-set monster jam. It jumps off the rails at about 10:00, heading immediately into a tail-chasing guitar jam of the type that was such a big part of some of the wilder jams in the Red Rocks run. Page takes the lead with some spacey organ madness at 12:00 while Trey recedes to the background, chopping out some nearly atonal, sinister-sounding chords. The bottom falls out in a good way around 16:00, paving the way for a few minutes of abstract madness of the best kind, and setting up a slow, patient segue into "20 Years," which features a whale-y Trey jam that falls flat and goes for way too long.

"Halley's" > "Rock and Roll" is another great pairing, with the ">" between the songs being less of a transition and more of a stop-on-a-dime direction change executed by all four band members at once. It's a great moment, and the "Rock and Roll" itself ain't bad, either. It stays pretty standard type 1 until the final minute (9:00) or so, though, and then enters a similar space as the end of the "Number Line" jam just long enough for a dissolve into "Harpua."

The "Harpua" kicks off the "victory lap" part of the show in earnest: there's a fun narration, Fish singing the shit out of "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry, "HYHU" heading into some more "Harpua," and then a fluid "YEM" (because what else do you play as the last song of your comeback tour?).

The fun continues through the encore, which features "Grind," the only Joy tune to not be played live yet, "I Been Around," and a surprise "Highway To Hell."

The "Number Line" hangs with some of the better jams of Leg Two, but there's not a whole lot else in this show that stands out when compared to the earlier shows in the leg. It's by no means a bust, like, say, Shoreline or Toyota Park. It's a nice wrap-up, and the effortlessness with which the band bounces from song-based playing, to improvising, to pulling 90s-Phish-like hijinks one last time strengthens the case for the relevance of 3.0 while leaving some room for more growth later in the year.