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.
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