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.
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