The Verdict:
I could see the first set of the second Tahoe show being a fun one to the right person. I'm not that person, though. It has a weird energy to it in that it feels like the boys move from rote playing to peaky energy and back again from song to song, and as such it doesn't really hang together as a whole. That said, Page and Mike shine on "Poor Heart," Trey lays down a particularly soulful solo during "Circus," "Stash" is short but weird, and everyone finally gels in a serious way on "Funky Bitch." Like the previous night's "Rocket Man" cover, "Instant Karma!" seems made for the band, and for Page in particular, but it comes off as sounding half-practiced and maybe played a key or so too high for non-cringe-inducing vocals.
The second set is weird. All the songs from "Disease" through "2001" stay short, and no particular song engages in any deep exploration. However, they all touch on some small aspect of the space/Storage Jam sound that's been popular lately, and, if you're feeling generous, the effect is a bunch of typical Phish songs transformed into a spacey, plinko-infused suite of sorts. If you're not feeling generous, you're just going to say "Where's the jam, brah?" and move on. I guess. But hey, this is fun and you should listen to the whole thing.
After the sequence, the set winds up pretty nicely with "Guyute" and a hot "YEM." A weird show all around, for sure, but probably worth more attention than it gets.
The Live Review:
8/10/11: Opening with Dogs Stole Things.
8/10/11: Trey going for KDF after, but then stops and starts Stealing Time instead.
8/10/11: That might have been the shortest Stealing Time ever, which I'm cool with. Poor Heart next.
8/10/11: Trey's a little extra sloppy so far today.
8/10/11: Fortunately, Mike and Page are picking up the slack on Poor Heart. Goddamn.
8/10/11: Oh, good.* Alaska.
8/10/11: *Not good
8/10/11: Solid Alaska, if you're into that sort of thing. Halley's is next!
8/10/11: Super-short Halley's into It's Ice. Trey struggling a bit with It's Ice.
8/10/11: When the Circus Comes slows things down a bit.
8/10/11: Ya Mar!
8/10/11: Page with a great little solo in Ya Mar. Crowd loving it.
8/10/11: A little plinko action creeping in behind Trey's Ya Mar solo.
8/10/11: Stash next. First real opportunity to put some meat on this set's bones.
8/10/11: Kind of minimalist, bass-driven Stash jam so far.
8/10/11: Interesting Stash. Quick segue into Funky Bitch after.
8/10/11: Page ripping up Funky Bitch on the organ. Trey joining in with some chording.
8/10/11: Trey is now ripping Funky Bitch apart.
8/10/11: Instant Karma! seems like a great Page-centric cover, but like Rocket Man the night before, sounds unpracticed and a step too high.
8/10/11: Antelope to close the set.
8/10/11: Disease kicks off the second set.
8/10/11: First set was a little 2011-average, especially at first with Trey's slow start.
8/10/11: A little more interesting from Circus on. Good Ya Mar, weird-but-good Stash, and a great Funky Bitch.
8/10/11: Trey's going to trill-town early on this Disease jam.
8/10/11: Leaning a bit in the space funk direction now.
8/10/11: Space time! Echo-y bass, Page on electric piano.
8/10/11: Arguable -> to Jim.
8/10/11: Middle Jim jam going plinko immediately.
8/10/11: Almost a Gorge Rock and Roll style jam emerging now. Angry.
8/10/11: Neat, almost Dire Straits-esque jam now. Sounds like Liquid Time, a little.
8/10/11: Weird truncation of that jam, but it's for Ghost, so I guess that's okay.
8/10/11: Trey is straight-up shredding this Ghost.
8/10/11: Now a dark sort of ambient space.
8/10/11: Ambient space > Golden Age.
8/10/11: Very brief but tight Golden Age. Fade out > 2001
8/10/11: Little Golden Age teasing early on in 2001.
8/10/11: Loops end 2001 > Sally.
8/10/11: Fireworks kicking in during Sally. I remember those from the show!
8/10/11: Vocal jam. All instruments dropping out one by one.
8/10/11: Late-set Guyute.
8/10/11: Velvet Sea is the landing pad song. Great little solo from Trey. Now YEM to end set.
8/10/11: Trey going to town at about the 12:00 mark.
8/10/11: The always-confusing Show of Life > GTBT encore to round out the show...
8/10/11: Pretty much how I remember the second set from being there: great run of songs from Disease thru 2001, set closed by Guyute + YEM.
8/10/11: None of the Q3 songs really get deep at all, but they all touch on some aspect of the spacey, echo-y, ambient sound from SBIX.
8/10/11: So it makes the run a little more coherent than just 'Oh, a bunch of cool songs in a row!'
8/10/11: Really, about as good as it gets for a S2 with no actual big jam.
May 31, 2016
2011-08-09 Tahoe I
The Verdict:
Having been to four of the first five shows of Summer II in person, I remembered the Tahoe run as being a sort of little brother to the Gorge run, and that impression (mostly) holds up upon another listen. Broadly, night one at Tahoe is like night one at the Gorge: average-great S1 with a few above-average standouts, and a strong second set anchored by a big, angry, spacey jam.
The first set has a pretty great selection of largely unexpected songs, and pretty much all of them are tightly executed. "Meat" gets slightly extended, which makes for an interesting take, and "Bowie" is a great-for-3.0 version.
But it's in the second set that this show really shines. Admittedly, "Jibboo" is not an auspicious opener, but shortly after, the band launches into a fantastic version of "Light" that revisits Storage Jam/Gorge "RnR" territory. Definitely worth a watch/listen. It will forever exist in the shadow of its monster brother and thus probably gets less respect than it deserves (including from me), but it's a great jam.
Phish - 8/9/11 "Light" from Phish on Vimeo.
A hot/mellow combo of "Chalkdust" -> "Slave" follows, and while it's good, it leads into a tepid mid-set, unless you're really into lackluster covers of "Rocket Man" for some reason. There are a lot of good song choices here, but things never really move beyond average-great territory again until the set-closing "Walls," which runs about four minutes longer than usual due to an extreme episode of shredding from Trey. All in all, it's a bit like the 8/6 second set in its "Come for the jam, stay for...well, don't stay"-ness. But that "Light" is a winner.
The Live Review:
8/9/11: It's Party Time! No, literally, the opener is Party Time.
8/9/11: Neat little outro jam with Page on organ and Trey chording.
8/9/11: Interesting to see Oh Kee Pa in the two-spot. And not followed by Suzy, but Bag.
8/9/11: Really hot ending solo from Trey and then a loopy sort of coda tacked on after. > Mellow Mood!
8/9/11: Really swanky Mellow Mood cover.
8/9/11: Rift!
8/9/11: Pretty smooth take on Rift, > PYITE.
8/9/11: Meat! Loving this setlist and energy.
8/9/11: Neat little funk breakdown in the middle of Meat. Don't remember that usually being there.
8/9/11: Mid-S1 Bowie. So that's weird.
8/9/11: Bowie going off in an almost Round Room (the album) or Victor Sessions direction. Neat.
8/9/11: Unique, Type 1.5 style Bowie that explodes into the peak effectively.
8/9/11: Bouncin is a nice Bowie follow-up.
8/9/11: > Horn
8/9/11: Fast Water in the Sky next. Great soloing from Page.
8/9/11: Trey going to town on a set-ending 46 Days now.
8/9/11: Well if you like Trey playing rock guitar while everyone else just plays along, you'll like this 46 Days :)
8/9/11: Really enjoyed that S1, though. Only really lagged a bit after Bowie. Great song selection, Bowie and Meat worth a relisten.
8/9/11: Jibboo opens the second set.
8/9/11: Standard Jibboo > Light.
8/9/11: Excited to hear this Light again.
8/9/11: Starts off in the usual way, but Trey starts snarling the arpeggios up (on purpose) at around 6:00.
8/9/11: Pitch-shifted tone from Trey starting at 7:30.
8/9/11: Full-on Storage Jam direction at 10:00.
8/9/11: Sort of like space plinko now.
8/9/11: This is a little less angry than the Gorge jam. Fish switching up the beat to something peppy.
8/9/11: Sudden build of noise.
8/9/11: Jam lands in Chalkdust.
8/9/11: Dixie and Hedwig's Theme teases in CDT.
8/9/11: So, Trey has teased Hedwig's Theme twice, and they were both shows I was at. Weird.
8/9/11: Mellow wind-down from the band at the end of CDT, which sets up a nice -> Slave.
8/9/11: Slow build coming out of the composed part. More so than usual.
8/9/11: Slave was a bit short and to the point. > Free.
8/9/11: Rocket Man cover.
8/9/11: Love Page on vocals on this, but they play it like they just decided to learn it five minutes before getting on stage.
8/9/11: Rocket Man > Hood.
8/9/11: A bit more going on in this Hood than in the Slave, for sure, but still a pretty standard version.
8/9/11: > Walls.
8/9/11: Walls gets a super-extended rock and roll ending from Trey. End set.
8/9/11: Bug > Coil is a great encore. I love Coil as the encore during N1s.
8/9/11: Overall, fantastic first set, and an uneven second set. Though the Light is great and worth lots of listens. Encore is great.
Having been to four of the first five shows of Summer II in person, I remembered the Tahoe run as being a sort of little brother to the Gorge run, and that impression (mostly) holds up upon another listen. Broadly, night one at Tahoe is like night one at the Gorge: average-great S1 with a few above-average standouts, and a strong second set anchored by a big, angry, spacey jam.
The first set has a pretty great selection of largely unexpected songs, and pretty much all of them are tightly executed. "Meat" gets slightly extended, which makes for an interesting take, and "Bowie" is a great-for-3.0 version.
But it's in the second set that this show really shines. Admittedly, "Jibboo" is not an auspicious opener, but shortly after, the band launches into a fantastic version of "Light" that revisits Storage Jam/Gorge "RnR" territory. Definitely worth a watch/listen. It will forever exist in the shadow of its monster brother and thus probably gets less respect than it deserves (including from me), but it's a great jam.
Phish - 8/9/11 "Light" from Phish on Vimeo.
A hot/mellow combo of "Chalkdust" -> "Slave" follows, and while it's good, it leads into a tepid mid-set, unless you're really into lackluster covers of "Rocket Man" for some reason. There are a lot of good song choices here, but things never really move beyond average-great territory again until the set-closing "Walls," which runs about four minutes longer than usual due to an extreme episode of shredding from Trey. All in all, it's a bit like the 8/6 second set in its "Come for the jam, stay for...well, don't stay"-ness. But that "Light" is a winner.
The Live Review:
8/9/11: It's Party Time! No, literally, the opener is Party Time.
8/9/11: Neat little outro jam with Page on organ and Trey chording.
8/9/11: Interesting to see Oh Kee Pa in the two-spot. And not followed by Suzy, but Bag.
8/9/11: Really hot ending solo from Trey and then a loopy sort of coda tacked on after. > Mellow Mood!
8/9/11: Really swanky Mellow Mood cover.
8/9/11: Rift!
8/9/11: Pretty smooth take on Rift, > PYITE.
8/9/11: Meat! Loving this setlist and energy.
8/9/11: Neat little funk breakdown in the middle of Meat. Don't remember that usually being there.
8/9/11: Mid-S1 Bowie. So that's weird.
8/9/11: Bowie going off in an almost Round Room (the album) or Victor Sessions direction. Neat.
8/9/11: Unique, Type 1.5 style Bowie that explodes into the peak effectively.
8/9/11: Bouncin is a nice Bowie follow-up.
8/9/11: > Horn
8/9/11: Fast Water in the Sky next. Great soloing from Page.
8/9/11: Trey going to town on a set-ending 46 Days now.
8/9/11: Well if you like Trey playing rock guitar while everyone else just plays along, you'll like this 46 Days :)
8/9/11: Really enjoyed that S1, though. Only really lagged a bit after Bowie. Great song selection, Bowie and Meat worth a relisten.
8/9/11: Jibboo opens the second set.
8/9/11: Standard Jibboo > Light.
8/9/11: Excited to hear this Light again.
8/9/11: Starts off in the usual way, but Trey starts snarling the arpeggios up (on purpose) at around 6:00.
8/9/11: Pitch-shifted tone from Trey starting at 7:30.
8/9/11: Full-on Storage Jam direction at 10:00.
8/9/11: Sort of like space plinko now.
8/9/11: This is a little less angry than the Gorge jam. Fish switching up the beat to something peppy.
8/9/11: Sudden build of noise.
8/9/11: Jam lands in Chalkdust.
8/9/11: Dixie and Hedwig's Theme teases in CDT.
8/9/11: So, Trey has teased Hedwig's Theme twice, and they were both shows I was at. Weird.
8/9/11: Mellow wind-down from the band at the end of CDT, which sets up a nice -> Slave.
8/9/11: Slow build coming out of the composed part. More so than usual.
8/9/11: Slave was a bit short and to the point. > Free.
8/9/11: Rocket Man cover.
8/9/11: Love Page on vocals on this, but they play it like they just decided to learn it five minutes before getting on stage.
8/9/11: Rocket Man > Hood.
8/9/11: A bit more going on in this Hood than in the Slave, for sure, but still a pretty standard version.
8/9/11: > Walls.
8/9/11: Walls gets a super-extended rock and roll ending from Trey. End set.
8/9/11: Bug > Coil is a great encore. I love Coil as the encore during N1s.
8/9/11: Overall, fantastic first set, and an uneven second set. Though the Light is great and worth lots of listens. Encore is great.
May 24, 2016
2011-08-06 Gorge II
The Verdict:
The second Gorge show is definitely a step back from the first, but maybe that was inevitable. That said, the guys manage to put together a show that, though lacking any legit jams, still passes the bar for the typical 2011 show by quite a bit.
The first set does nothing interesting, unless you count the cover of "On Your Way Down," but it strings together a series of great songs and Trey and the rest of the band (but especially Trey) blast through them at white heat. It's one of those sets where they blast out of the gate with the first few songs and you wait for the comedown, but then suddenly it's "Fluffhead" and you realize that they're just not going to let up. Even with no jams, that makes this set worth a mention.
S2 tries to get the ball rolling with a "Tweezer" that edges out in a few different directions, but never deviates all that much before ultimately seguing into "Caspian." The following "Sand" meets just about the same fate: lots of potential but no follow-through. Until, at least, Trey leads the band back into "Tweezer" flawlessly. Unfortunately, that segue is probably the highlight of the set. If you're intrigued by novel setlists, the show proper ends with two big-S1 songs ("Reba" and a tease-heavy "Antelope") and "Sanity" is part of the three-song encore.
I write these things like I'm hedging, but I don't mean to be. S1 delivers a pretty much perfect opening set. Then the second set delivers another pretty much perfect S1. There's something worth getting excited about there. You won't ever really need to listen to any of this show more than once, but you should probably listen to it once.
The Live Review:
8/6/11: Time for Gorge 2!
8/6/11: Possum opener.
8/6/11: Standard Possum. Next is Moma Dance.
8/6/11: No surprises yet, but band is really high-energy after Possum, Moma > Sample.
8/6/11: LxL, Ocelot continue a nicely first-setty S1.
8/6/11: Slowed-down version of Ocelot > Poor Heart. That's sort of a neat combo.
8/6/11: On Your Way Down! Love this cover.
8/6/11: Trey ripping up the outro solo.
8/6/11: Wolfman's Brother!
8/6/11: Trey developing a riff in Wolfman's that sounds a bit like Black Dog. Might be a Black Dog tease.
8/6/11: Sorry, Heartbreaker, not Black Dog. Take my music license away.
8/6/11: Plinko outro after a big Trey rock solo.
8/6/11: Shuffle beat on the outro from Fish sets up an arguable -> Maze.
8/6/11: Okay, that Maze was pretty crazy.
8/6/11: > Wilson.
8/6/11: Looks like S1 is going to end with Fluffhead.
8/6/11: End set.
8/6/11: Good ol' Type I CDT starts the second set.
8/6/11: Tweezer!
8/6/11: Fish switches up the beat for the jam. Trey on the wah pedal. Maybe headed to Plinkotown?
8/6/11: Type I jam winding down now. Mike taking the lead.
8/6/11: Some spooky loops as a brief callback to Storage Jam land.
8/6/11: > Caspian.
8/6/11: Short, noodly Caspian -> Sand.
8/6/11: Plinko time in Sand almost immediately.
8/6/11: Page playing almost jazzy fills now on the electric piano.
8/6/11: Trey shredding Sand now.
8/6/11: Sand peak -> Tweezer.
8/6/11: Page laying some nice piano over the main Tweezer riff.
8/6/11: Winding down now?
8/6/11: > Birds.
8/6/11: Waste is a nice landing after that sequence.
8/6/11: Waste > Golden Age.
8/6/11: Can't they just play Golden Age a half- or whole-step lower so somebody, anybody can actually hit that high note in the chorus?
8/6/11: Brief, contained Golden Age with an outro after a short Trey solo.
8/6/11: Reba! Didn't see that coming.
8/6/11: Which is hilarious, since I was AT this show.
8/6/11: Pretty standard (which means good) Reba.
8/6/11: Whistling ending.
8/6/11: Antelope. Very S1 end to the S2.
8/6/11: Trey trying to whistle the Reba riff over the Antelope intro.
8/6/11: It's not working, but I appreciate the attempt.
8/6/11: Tweezer riff tease now.
8/6/11: Sand tease now.
8/6/11: Golden Age tease/jamlet now in the middle of Antelope.
8/6/11: End S2. Encore opens with Suzy.
8/6/11: Rowdy Suzy > Sanity.
8/6/11: Fish gets in a few 'What?!'s during the screamy part of Sanity.
8/6/11: Tweeprise.
The second Gorge show is definitely a step back from the first, but maybe that was inevitable. That said, the guys manage to put together a show that, though lacking any legit jams, still passes the bar for the typical 2011 show by quite a bit.
The first set does nothing interesting, unless you count the cover of "On Your Way Down," but it strings together a series of great songs and Trey and the rest of the band (but especially Trey) blast through them at white heat. It's one of those sets where they blast out of the gate with the first few songs and you wait for the comedown, but then suddenly it's "Fluffhead" and you realize that they're just not going to let up. Even with no jams, that makes this set worth a mention.
S2 tries to get the ball rolling with a "Tweezer" that edges out in a few different directions, but never deviates all that much before ultimately seguing into "Caspian." The following "Sand" meets just about the same fate: lots of potential but no follow-through. Until, at least, Trey leads the band back into "Tweezer" flawlessly. Unfortunately, that segue is probably the highlight of the set. If you're intrigued by novel setlists, the show proper ends with two big-S1 songs ("Reba" and a tease-heavy "Antelope") and "Sanity" is part of the three-song encore.
I write these things like I'm hedging, but I don't mean to be. S1 delivers a pretty much perfect opening set. Then the second set delivers another pretty much perfect S1. There's something worth getting excited about there. You won't ever really need to listen to any of this show more than once, but you should probably listen to it once.
The Live Review:
8/6/11: Time for Gorge 2!
8/6/11: Possum opener.
8/6/11: Standard Possum. Next is Moma Dance.
8/6/11: No surprises yet, but band is really high-energy after Possum, Moma > Sample.
8/6/11: LxL, Ocelot continue a nicely first-setty S1.
8/6/11: Slowed-down version of Ocelot > Poor Heart. That's sort of a neat combo.
8/6/11: On Your Way Down! Love this cover.
8/6/11: Trey ripping up the outro solo.
8/6/11: Wolfman's Brother!
8/6/11: Trey developing a riff in Wolfman's that sounds a bit like Black Dog. Might be a Black Dog tease.
8/6/11: Sorry, Heartbreaker, not Black Dog. Take my music license away.
8/6/11: Plinko outro after a big Trey rock solo.
8/6/11: Shuffle beat on the outro from Fish sets up an arguable -> Maze.
8/6/11: Okay, that Maze was pretty crazy.
8/6/11: > Wilson.
8/6/11: Looks like S1 is going to end with Fluffhead.
8/6/11: End set.
8/6/11: Good ol' Type I CDT starts the second set.
8/6/11: Tweezer!
8/6/11: Fish switches up the beat for the jam. Trey on the wah pedal. Maybe headed to Plinkotown?
8/6/11: Type I jam winding down now. Mike taking the lead.
8/6/11: Some spooky loops as a brief callback to Storage Jam land.
8/6/11: > Caspian.
8/6/11: Short, noodly Caspian -> Sand.
8/6/11: Plinko time in Sand almost immediately.
8/6/11: Page playing almost jazzy fills now on the electric piano.
8/6/11: Trey shredding Sand now.
8/6/11: Sand peak -> Tweezer.
8/6/11: Page laying some nice piano over the main Tweezer riff.
8/6/11: Winding down now?
8/6/11: > Birds.
8/6/11: Waste is a nice landing after that sequence.
8/6/11: Waste > Golden Age.
8/6/11: Can't they just play Golden Age a half- or whole-step lower so somebody, anybody can actually hit that high note in the chorus?
8/6/11: Brief, contained Golden Age with an outro after a short Trey solo.
8/6/11: Reba! Didn't see that coming.
8/6/11: Which is hilarious, since I was AT this show.
8/6/11: Pretty standard (which means good) Reba.
8/6/11: Whistling ending.
8/6/11: Antelope. Very S1 end to the S2.
8/6/11: Trey trying to whistle the Reba riff over the Antelope intro.
8/6/11: It's not working, but I appreciate the attempt.
8/6/11: Tweezer riff tease now.
8/6/11: Sand tease now.
8/6/11: Golden Age tease/jamlet now in the middle of Antelope.
8/6/11: End S2. Encore opens with Suzy.
8/6/11: Rowdy Suzy > Sanity.
8/6/11: Fish gets in a few 'What?!'s during the screamy part of Sanity.
8/6/11: Tweeprise.
2011-08-05 Gorge I
The Verdict:
The first Gorge show is easily my favorite show of the summer so far. After the break, the band has immediately come back with a new purpose, it seems, where long-form improv is a thing again, and it isn't all about feel-good renditions of well-known tunes tempered by the occasional bust-out.
I guess the guys played a few shows like this, very early during Leg 1, but really you haven't heard Phish music like this since maybe 6/4. Not to mention the fact that the show's centerpiece jam, the "Rock and Roll" goes off in an "evil Storage Jam" direction that seems completely new for the time and, to my knowledge, hasn't really been revisited since.
The first set is mostly a typical 2011-strong opening set. Sprinkled in there, though, are some hints at what's to come. "Gin" gets a little "Type 1.5," as does "Taste." "Roggae" spends a few minutes in a legitimately murky, weird jam space, and "Bowie" is a little more on-rails, but still probably the best version so far this year.
Phish - 8/5/11 "Roggae" from Phish on Vimeo.
Then the "Rock and Roll" hits. You really should just listen to how effortlessly it switches from a great rock peak, to some flowing spacey interplay, to a really, really dark Storage Jam-style space, and finally into an eerie, theremin-driven mode. Oh, and then it segues perfectly into "Meatstick," which segues perfectly into "Boogie On." That's all.
If there's one thing that's a bummer about this show (and there is), it's that the fourth quarter is pretty much a complete cop-out. "Farmhouse" works well as a landing pad for the previous forty minutes of mastery, but to follow it with "Show of Life," > "Julius" > "Zero" just seems unfair.
That said, it's still the best show of the year so far for my money. And things are finally looking up!
The Live Review:
8/5/11: Kill Devil Falls. Such a screechy opener for such a great show.
8/5/11: Also, that was my 9,000th tweet.
8/5/11: Trey is unleashing some serious 2011 shredding on this KDF.
8/5/11: Trey starts The Wedge in the wrong key and Page HAMMERS the chords in response until Trey catches on. That was hilarious.
8/5/11: Sort of a weird take on The Wedge. Never really recovered from that awkward start. But that's okay, because Gin is next.
8/5/11: Page and Trey sharing licks during the jam. Page on electric piano, interestingly.
8/5/11: Building now. Fish picking up steam.
8/5/11: Weirdly, Trey is the only one *not* in a hurry to rush to a dramatic peak.
8/5/11: Never really reached Full-On Peak Mode there, but a great Gin nonetheless.
8/5/11: Nellie Kane!
8/5/11: > MFMF
8/5/11: Sort of a rough version of MFMF, there. Certainly loud, though.
8/5/11: Cavern.
8/5/11: Taste next. Sort of a weird series of songs, though they're all good songs individually.
8/5/11: Page taking the lead in the Taste jam. Trey chording like he does in Maze.
8/5/11: Trey getting a little more creative than usual in his Taste jam.
8/5/11: *solo
8/5/11: Great, old-school peak at the end.
8/5/11: Peak slides nicely into Roggae.
8/5/11: Mike going super-spacey in the middle of this.
8/5/11: Uh-oh. Here comes the whale pedal. Haven't heard that guy in awhile!
8/5/11: Working really well with what Mike is laying down, though.
8/5/11: Well, we're halfway through S1 and we've already got two legit jams. Welcome to the Gorge :)
8/5/11: Nice return to the Roggae outro.
8/5/11: Walk Away!
8/5/11: Superpowered Walk Away > Funky Bitch.
8/5/11: Roses is next.
8/5/11: Raucous ending to Roses > Bowie.
8/5/11: Pretty high-tempo Bowie, but so far so good.
8/5/11: Trey starts off the jam with a really interesting little riff.
8/5/11: But since it's not the 90s, he plays with it for a few beats instead of for fifteen minutes.
8/5/11: Fish is all over the place during this jam. In a good way.
8/5/11: That was about as serious a Type I Bowie as you're going to get in 3.0. Nice version.
8/5/11: End set.
8/5/11: S2 kicks off with Number Line.
8/5/11: Short Number Line with the newer fast-chording outro at the end.
8/5/11: And here we go with The Rock and Roll.
8/5/11: This was my fourth Phish show, but the first time I was exposed to IT in all its face-melting glory.
8/5/11: That's not to downplay the 6/12/10 Number Line or the 8/7/09 Sally or Gin > Hood.
8/5/11: I'm really just typing random shit to pass the time before we get to the jam.
8/5/11: Nutso rock soloing from Trey up until the 7:00 mark. He fades back a little here and Page's piano and Mike take over.
8/5/11: Trey deploying a dirtier tone now.
8/5/11: Super-murky space already. Mike leading the way still. Page on the No Quarter Organ.
8/5/11: Trey flirting with the whale pedal.
8/5/11: Trey taking a pitch-shifted solo now.
8/5/11: Major pitch-shifting happening now at 11:00.
8/5/11: Cosmic screams are starting. Chanting from Fish.
8/5/11: 'It's aaaaaaalllllll riiiiiiiiight.' Never noticed that before, but it's fucking terrifying.
8/5/11: I think the theremin is officially in play.
8/5/11: Oddly, if you take the theremin out, this section would sound a bit like the 6/12/10 Number Line.
8/5/11: Definitely some Floyd-like bass coming from Mike.
8/5/11: Swells of loops and theremin from Page and Trey.
8/5/11: Fish picks up the beat and the jam heads in a more purposeful (though still evil) direction.
8/5/11: And there's that *perfect* -> Meatstick.
8/5/11: Some weird syncopation action going on at the end of the Meatstick jam.
8/5/11: Even if this hadn't come after an enormous Rock and Roll jam, this would be a standout version of Meatstick.
8/5/11: Now Trey is adding some ethereal loops.
8/5/11: -> Boogie On.
8/5/11: I can say with authority now that Rock and Roll -> Meatstick -> Boogie On is the best Phish of 2011 so far, without a doubt.
8/5/11: Mike is taking the lead to bring the sequence to an end. Page contributing some plinko action.
8/5/11: The crazy sequence winds up landing in Farmhouse, a great choice for a cooldown song.
8/5/11: Okay, Farmhouse is a nice landing pad song, but Farmhouse > Show of Life > Julius > Zero is about the exact opposite of...
8/5/11: ...the first half of the set.
8/5/11: I remember thinking even at the time that this would have been a basically perfect show had they played a stronger Q4.
8/5/11: I still feel that way. Weird S1 pacing aside, Q1-Q3 are just about perfect.
8/5/11: Okay, to be fair, this version of Julius is pretty rippin'.
8/5/11: But Zero at the Gorge no longer counts unless they turn the lights off and we all howl at the moon :)
8/5/11: Loving Cup encore. Always a great choice!
8/5/11: Aside from the epic Rock and Roll in this show, it's great to feel like RealPhish is back after the mid-summer break.
8/5/11: Hopefully this isn't a temporary boost in quality a la 5/28-6/4.
The first Gorge show is easily my favorite show of the summer so far. After the break, the band has immediately come back with a new purpose, it seems, where long-form improv is a thing again, and it isn't all about feel-good renditions of well-known tunes tempered by the occasional bust-out.
I guess the guys played a few shows like this, very early during Leg 1, but really you haven't heard Phish music like this since maybe 6/4. Not to mention the fact that the show's centerpiece jam, the "Rock and Roll" goes off in an "evil Storage Jam" direction that seems completely new for the time and, to my knowledge, hasn't really been revisited since.
The first set is mostly a typical 2011-strong opening set. Sprinkled in there, though, are some hints at what's to come. "Gin" gets a little "Type 1.5," as does "Taste." "Roggae" spends a few minutes in a legitimately murky, weird jam space, and "Bowie" is a little more on-rails, but still probably the best version so far this year.
Phish - 8/5/11 "Roggae" from Phish on Vimeo.
Then the "Rock and Roll" hits. You really should just listen to how effortlessly it switches from a great rock peak, to some flowing spacey interplay, to a really, really dark Storage Jam-style space, and finally into an eerie, theremin-driven mode. Oh, and then it segues perfectly into "Meatstick," which segues perfectly into "Boogie On." That's all.
If there's one thing that's a bummer about this show (and there is), it's that the fourth quarter is pretty much a complete cop-out. "Farmhouse" works well as a landing pad for the previous forty minutes of mastery, but to follow it with "Show of Life," > "Julius" > "Zero" just seems unfair.
That said, it's still the best show of the year so far for my money. And things are finally looking up!
The Live Review:
8/5/11: Kill Devil Falls. Such a screechy opener for such a great show.
8/5/11: Also, that was my 9,000th tweet.
8/5/11: Trey is unleashing some serious 2011 shredding on this KDF.
8/5/11: Trey starts The Wedge in the wrong key and Page HAMMERS the chords in response until Trey catches on. That was hilarious.
8/5/11: Sort of a weird take on The Wedge. Never really recovered from that awkward start. But that's okay, because Gin is next.
8/5/11: Page and Trey sharing licks during the jam. Page on electric piano, interestingly.
8/5/11: Building now. Fish picking up steam.
8/5/11: Weirdly, Trey is the only one *not* in a hurry to rush to a dramatic peak.
8/5/11: Never really reached Full-On Peak Mode there, but a great Gin nonetheless.
8/5/11: Nellie Kane!
8/5/11: > MFMF
8/5/11: Sort of a rough version of MFMF, there. Certainly loud, though.
8/5/11: Cavern.
8/5/11: Taste next. Sort of a weird series of songs, though they're all good songs individually.
8/5/11: Page taking the lead in the Taste jam. Trey chording like he does in Maze.
8/5/11: Trey getting a little more creative than usual in his Taste jam.
8/5/11: *solo
8/5/11: Great, old-school peak at the end.
8/5/11: Peak slides nicely into Roggae.
8/5/11: Mike going super-spacey in the middle of this.
8/5/11: Uh-oh. Here comes the whale pedal. Haven't heard that guy in awhile!
8/5/11: Working really well with what Mike is laying down, though.
8/5/11: Well, we're halfway through S1 and we've already got two legit jams. Welcome to the Gorge :)
8/5/11: Nice return to the Roggae outro.
8/5/11: Walk Away!
8/5/11: Superpowered Walk Away > Funky Bitch.
8/5/11: Roses is next.
8/5/11: Raucous ending to Roses > Bowie.
8/5/11: Pretty high-tempo Bowie, but so far so good.
8/5/11: Trey starts off the jam with a really interesting little riff.
8/5/11: But since it's not the 90s, he plays with it for a few beats instead of for fifteen minutes.
8/5/11: Fish is all over the place during this jam. In a good way.
8/5/11: That was about as serious a Type I Bowie as you're going to get in 3.0. Nice version.
8/5/11: End set.
8/5/11: S2 kicks off with Number Line.
8/5/11: Short Number Line with the newer fast-chording outro at the end.
8/5/11: And here we go with The Rock and Roll.
8/5/11: This was my fourth Phish show, but the first time I was exposed to IT in all its face-melting glory.
8/5/11: That's not to downplay the 6/12/10 Number Line or the 8/7/09 Sally or Gin > Hood.
8/5/11: I'm really just typing random shit to pass the time before we get to the jam.
8/5/11: Nutso rock soloing from Trey up until the 7:00 mark. He fades back a little here and Page's piano and Mike take over.
8/5/11: Trey deploying a dirtier tone now.
8/5/11: Super-murky space already. Mike leading the way still. Page on the No Quarter Organ.
8/5/11: Trey flirting with the whale pedal.
8/5/11: Trey taking a pitch-shifted solo now.
8/5/11: Major pitch-shifting happening now at 11:00.
8/5/11: Cosmic screams are starting. Chanting from Fish.
8/5/11: 'It's aaaaaaalllllll riiiiiiiiight.' Never noticed that before, but it's fucking terrifying.
8/5/11: I think the theremin is officially in play.
8/5/11: Oddly, if you take the theremin out, this section would sound a bit like the 6/12/10 Number Line.
8/5/11: Definitely some Floyd-like bass coming from Mike.
8/5/11: Swells of loops and theremin from Page and Trey.
8/5/11: Fish picks up the beat and the jam heads in a more purposeful (though still evil) direction.
8/5/11: And there's that *perfect* -> Meatstick.
8/5/11: Some weird syncopation action going on at the end of the Meatstick jam.
8/5/11: Even if this hadn't come after an enormous Rock and Roll jam, this would be a standout version of Meatstick.
8/5/11: Now Trey is adding some ethereal loops.
8/5/11: -> Boogie On.
8/5/11: I can say with authority now that Rock and Roll -> Meatstick -> Boogie On is the best Phish of 2011 so far, without a doubt.
8/5/11: Mike is taking the lead to bring the sequence to an end. Page contributing some plinko action.
8/5/11: The crazy sequence winds up landing in Farmhouse, a great choice for a cooldown song.
8/5/11: Okay, Farmhouse is a nice landing pad song, but Farmhouse > Show of Life > Julius > Zero is about the exact opposite of...
8/5/11: ...the first half of the set.
8/5/11: I remember thinking even at the time that this would have been a basically perfect show had they played a stronger Q4.
8/5/11: I still feel that way. Weird S1 pacing aside, Q1-Q3 are just about perfect.
8/5/11: Okay, to be fair, this version of Julius is pretty rippin'.
8/5/11: But Zero at the Gorge no longer counts unless they turn the lights off and we all howl at the moon :)
8/5/11: Loving Cup encore. Always a great choice!
8/5/11: Aside from the epic Rock and Roll in this show, it's great to feel like RealPhish is back after the mid-summer break.
8/5/11: Hopefully this isn't a temporary boost in quality a la 5/28-6/4.
May 17, 2016
2011-07-03 Super Ball IX III
The Verdict:
Well, even the Super Ball IX closer fails to reach the heights of the great late-May/early-June 2011 shows (which are looking increasingly more and more like an anomaly as the summer stretches on). However, it's closer to them than most shows since, and the most cohesive show of the entire festival.
The opening set features a "Soul Shakedown" opener, and a lot of old-school tunes, including a "Forbin's" > "Mockingbird" featuring a bonkers narration from Trey about the Storage Jam being a manifestation of a jam from 1988 that we're all living in still...or whatever the fuck. It's fun, and it's clear that the band is having a great time. "Destiny Unbound" shows up too, and then as we ease out of the all-1.0-songs-all-the-time portion of the show, Trey extends "Mound" a bit with an uncharacteristically driving guitar solo.
Then, wonder of wonders, a first-set "ASIHTOS" goes deep. Yes, you read that right. It gets Storage Jam-y a few minutes in and just runs with it, becoming the clear highlight of the set, if not the show. "Reba" follows, and despite a rough start, actually becomes a pretty unique version, with some Trey/Mike dueling midway through that's worth a listen.
The second set opens with the fun (and obligatory) "Big Balls" cover before moving to a "Disease" that stays pretty in-the-box before ending on an ambient note that sets up a great -> "No Quarter." This is probably the strongest version of Phish's Zeppelin cover that I've heard, though the head-scratching "Party Time" follow-up seems to send the band scrambling for direction for most of the rest of the show.
Though much of the rest of the show is a jumble (including a sadly tossed-off "Ghost"), there is another highlight in the last-second "Waves" -> "What's the Use?" sequence. "Waves" starts off as a standard Type I jam before pretty much just...stopping...and then starting again as a very minimal ambient space. This slowly, slooooowly builds over a few minutes before reaching the requisite boil, after which Trey transitions to the "What's the Use?" riff. It's patient, in-synch, interesting, and unexpected. Which, unfortunately, is the exact opposite of what most of the festival that took place outside the storage shed was like. But hey, 7/3 ain't bad by the standards of a 2011 show.
On to the Gorge and that monster "Rock and Roll"!
The Live Review:
7/3/11: Opens with a Soul Shakedown Party.
7/3/11: Uptempo Bag in the two-slot.
7/3/11: The Curtain!
7/3/11: The Curtain ends before the jam section. > Forbin's.
7/3/11: Absolutely nuts narration from Trey about being trapped with the band in a storage unit in 1988 and how we're all still there.
7/3/11: Love it, but am not even going to attempt to summarize it.
7/3/11: > Mockingbird.
7/3/11: Destiny Unbound! This set is taking a seriously old-school direction.
7/3/11: Mike taking a solo of sorts after the lyrics.
7/3/11: BBFCFM.
7/3/11: Old-school-ness continues with Wilson.
7/3/11: Nice, slightly-extended Wilson fades into Mound.
7/3/11: Trey just laid down a really cool solo at the end of Mound. I feel like that doesn't happen all the time.
7/3/11: ASIHTOS is next!
7/3/11: ASIHTOS heading into a rhythm-y, bass-led place.
7/3/11: Bit of a callback to the more structured bits of the Storage Jam here.
7/3/11: A more lighthearted variation on the Storage Jam style now.
7/3/11: Weird space jam eventually fades out. Time Loves a Hero is next. Great choice!
7/3/11: Reba.
7/3/11: It sounded to me like Trey was struggling to find the right key through a bit of that Reba composition.
7/3/11: Really dexterous, atypical Reba jam. Dueling between Mike and Trey.
7/3/11: Some 2015-ish chording now.
7/3/11: Great Reba with the whistling outro.
7/3/11: Trey is doing that thing where he confuses whistling with laughing.
7/3/11: Weird, Storage Jam-y bit after the whistling outro.
7/3/11: -> Bowie.
7/3/11: Though, really, it was Reba (whistling outro), Jam -> Bowie.
7/3/11: Nice uptempo Bowie to maybe close the set.
7/3/11: Fish mixing up the beat a little bit going into the jam.
7/3/11: Circular tension jam starting about ten minutes in.
7/3/11: Smoothly into the song's peak from there.
7/3/11: End set.
7/3/11: Probably my favorite S1 since very early June. Curtain > Forbin's > Mockingbird sequence was great, Destiny was a strong take.
7/3/11: Wilson and Mound both got a little weird, ASIHTOS went full Storage Jam, and Reba and Bowie were both great versions.
7/3/11: Second set opens with Big Balls, with Fish on vocals.
7/3/11: 'Super balls' lyric changes in Big Balls.
7/3/11: > Disease.
7/3/11: Typical Type I solo leading into a mellower space.
7/3/11: Slowly working its way to Plinkotown.
7/3/11: Sort of a slow-tempo, eerie space jam now.
7/3/11: Nice, slow -> No Quarter.
7/3/11: No Quarter jam reminds me of the awesome bit of jamming about halfway through the Storage Jam last night.
7/3/11: Great version of No Quarter. Next, oddly, is Party Time.
7/3/11: Great organ solo from Page during Party Time.
7/3/11: Weird choice aside, the guys are rocking Party Time.
7/3/11: Probably my favorite version, in case that matters.
7/3/11: Ghost!
7/3/11: Mostly standard Type I Ghost jam with a wind-down ending that lands in...Jibboo? Okay, that's weird.
7/3/11: Jibboo getting extended a bit, with more distortion than usual.
7/3/11: > Light.
7/3/11: So far Light jam is just a procession of furious arpeggios, as usual.
7/3/11: Rest of the band comes down a bit and Fish switches up the beat in an attempt to break Trey out of the zone.
7/3/11: It's sort of working. Almost a Manteca-style jam now.
7/3/11: Okay, so far except for Mike's bass drone, this is basically just a normal Type I Light jam, but quieter.
7/3/11: A little bit of stop-start noodling now.
7/3/11: And the third stop was just a full stop. Song over.
7/3/11: Well, that was weird.
7/3/11: Waves is next.
7/3/11: Extended vocal outro to Waves ends up in an extremely mellow ambient space.
7/3/11: As much as I'm generally bored reviewing this year, I've been loving the occasional flashes of '99 and '00 sound that pop up.
7/3/11: The fuzz is getting louder.
7/3/11: Potential for a perfect -> 2001, but Trey goes for the perfect -> WTU? instead.
7/3/11: This is a nice late Q4 sequence to cap off a festival I've been mostly underwhelmed by (except for Storage Jam!).
7/3/11: Meatsucke!
7/3/11: Looks like Stealing Time is going to close S2. Welp, that's my least favorite thing ever.
7/3/11: In Trey's defense, he just shredded the shit out of that solo.
7/3/11: A capella Star Spangled Banner.
7/3/11: Trey thanking the crew now.
7/3/11: First Tube to close the Super Ball!
Well, even the Super Ball IX closer fails to reach the heights of the great late-May/early-June 2011 shows (which are looking increasingly more and more like an anomaly as the summer stretches on). However, it's closer to them than most shows since, and the most cohesive show of the entire festival.
The opening set features a "Soul Shakedown" opener, and a lot of old-school tunes, including a "Forbin's" > "Mockingbird" featuring a bonkers narration from Trey about the Storage Jam being a manifestation of a jam from 1988 that we're all living in still...or whatever the fuck. It's fun, and it's clear that the band is having a great time. "Destiny Unbound" shows up too, and then as we ease out of the all-1.0-songs-all-the-time portion of the show, Trey extends "Mound" a bit with an uncharacteristically driving guitar solo.
Then, wonder of wonders, a first-set "ASIHTOS" goes deep. Yes, you read that right. It gets Storage Jam-y a few minutes in and just runs with it, becoming the clear highlight of the set, if not the show. "Reba" follows, and despite a rough start, actually becomes a pretty unique version, with some Trey/Mike dueling midway through that's worth a listen.
The second set opens with the fun (and obligatory) "Big Balls" cover before moving to a "Disease" that stays pretty in-the-box before ending on an ambient note that sets up a great -> "No Quarter." This is probably the strongest version of Phish's Zeppelin cover that I've heard, though the head-scratching "Party Time" follow-up seems to send the band scrambling for direction for most of the rest of the show.
Though much of the rest of the show is a jumble (including a sadly tossed-off "Ghost"), there is another highlight in the last-second "Waves" -> "What's the Use?" sequence. "Waves" starts off as a standard Type I jam before pretty much just...stopping...and then starting again as a very minimal ambient space. This slowly, slooooowly builds over a few minutes before reaching the requisite boil, after which Trey transitions to the "What's the Use?" riff. It's patient, in-synch, interesting, and unexpected. Which, unfortunately, is the exact opposite of what most of the festival that took place outside the storage shed was like. But hey, 7/3 ain't bad by the standards of a 2011 show.
On to the Gorge and that monster "Rock and Roll"!
The Live Review:
7/3/11: Opens with a Soul Shakedown Party.
7/3/11: Uptempo Bag in the two-slot.
7/3/11: The Curtain!
7/3/11: The Curtain ends before the jam section. > Forbin's.
7/3/11: Absolutely nuts narration from Trey about being trapped with the band in a storage unit in 1988 and how we're all still there.
7/3/11: Love it, but am not even going to attempt to summarize it.
7/3/11: > Mockingbird.
7/3/11: Destiny Unbound! This set is taking a seriously old-school direction.
7/3/11: Mike taking a solo of sorts after the lyrics.
7/3/11: BBFCFM.
7/3/11: Old-school-ness continues with Wilson.
7/3/11: Nice, slightly-extended Wilson fades into Mound.
7/3/11: Trey just laid down a really cool solo at the end of Mound. I feel like that doesn't happen all the time.
7/3/11: ASIHTOS is next!
7/3/11: ASIHTOS heading into a rhythm-y, bass-led place.
7/3/11: Bit of a callback to the more structured bits of the Storage Jam here.
7/3/11: A more lighthearted variation on the Storage Jam style now.
7/3/11: Weird space jam eventually fades out. Time Loves a Hero is next. Great choice!
7/3/11: Reba.
7/3/11: It sounded to me like Trey was struggling to find the right key through a bit of that Reba composition.
7/3/11: Really dexterous, atypical Reba jam. Dueling between Mike and Trey.
7/3/11: Some 2015-ish chording now.
7/3/11: Great Reba with the whistling outro.
7/3/11: Trey is doing that thing where he confuses whistling with laughing.
7/3/11: Weird, Storage Jam-y bit after the whistling outro.
7/3/11: -> Bowie.
7/3/11: Though, really, it was Reba (whistling outro), Jam -> Bowie.
7/3/11: Nice uptempo Bowie to maybe close the set.
7/3/11: Fish mixing up the beat a little bit going into the jam.
7/3/11: Circular tension jam starting about ten minutes in.
7/3/11: Smoothly into the song's peak from there.
7/3/11: End set.
7/3/11: Probably my favorite S1 since very early June. Curtain > Forbin's > Mockingbird sequence was great, Destiny was a strong take.
7/3/11: Wilson and Mound both got a little weird, ASIHTOS went full Storage Jam, and Reba and Bowie were both great versions.
7/3/11: Second set opens with Big Balls, with Fish on vocals.
7/3/11: 'Super balls' lyric changes in Big Balls.
7/3/11: > Disease.
7/3/11: Typical Type I solo leading into a mellower space.
7/3/11: Slowly working its way to Plinkotown.
7/3/11: Sort of a slow-tempo, eerie space jam now.
7/3/11: Nice, slow -> No Quarter.
7/3/11: No Quarter jam reminds me of the awesome bit of jamming about halfway through the Storage Jam last night.
7/3/11: Great version of No Quarter. Next, oddly, is Party Time.
7/3/11: Great organ solo from Page during Party Time.
7/3/11: Weird choice aside, the guys are rocking Party Time.
7/3/11: Probably my favorite version, in case that matters.
7/3/11: Ghost!
7/3/11: Mostly standard Type I Ghost jam with a wind-down ending that lands in...Jibboo? Okay, that's weird.
7/3/11: Jibboo getting extended a bit, with more distortion than usual.
7/3/11: > Light.
7/3/11: So far Light jam is just a procession of furious arpeggios, as usual.
7/3/11: Rest of the band comes down a bit and Fish switches up the beat in an attempt to break Trey out of the zone.
7/3/11: It's sort of working. Almost a Manteca-style jam now.
7/3/11: Okay, so far except for Mike's bass drone, this is basically just a normal Type I Light jam, but quieter.
7/3/11: A little bit of stop-start noodling now.
7/3/11: And the third stop was just a full stop. Song over.
7/3/11: Well, that was weird.
7/3/11: Waves is next.
7/3/11: Extended vocal outro to Waves ends up in an extremely mellow ambient space.
7/3/11: As much as I'm generally bored reviewing this year, I've been loving the occasional flashes of '99 and '00 sound that pop up.
7/3/11: The fuzz is getting louder.
7/3/11: Potential for a perfect -> 2001, but Trey goes for the perfect -> WTU? instead.
7/3/11: This is a nice late Q4 sequence to cap off a festival I've been mostly underwhelmed by (except for Storage Jam!).
7/3/11: Meatsucke!
7/3/11: Looks like Stealing Time is going to close S2. Welp, that's my least favorite thing ever.
7/3/11: In Trey's defense, he just shredded the shit out of that solo.
7/3/11: A capella Star Spangled Banner.
7/3/11: Trey thanking the crew now.
7/3/11: First Tube to close the Super Ball!
2011-07-02 Super Ball IX II
The Verdict:
So I read somewhere recently that even with the "Storage Jam" fourth set included, 7/2 is one of the longest shows Phish has ever played. Listening back, it sure felt like it.
The first three sets of this show are an ode to the last two summers of boilerplate, no-jams-here Phish. There are a lot of songs, and by looking at the setlist for the show you can imagine how pretty much all of it sounds. S1 ends with a standout cover of "Monkey Man" with Page on vocals.
There's a Simpson's signal after a hot "Birds" early in the second set, and a solid take on "Stash." If you want to hear a rare "Scents" basically morph into a "Hood" jam near the end (which is actually pretty cool), you can.
S3 comes the closest of all the Super Ball IX sets to being an actual Phish set, with a "Golden Age" > "Caspian" > "Piper" > "Tweezer" sequence before the band falls back into Jukebox Mode. "Golden Age" actually gets way out there, as a sort of prelude to the Storage Jam, "Caspian" gets an interesting breakdown near the end, setting up a solid segue into "Piper," and "Piper"'s "Maze"-style chording jam moves into a "Tweezer" that's all about harmonics and the wah pedal. It's a really cool sequence, and not even "just for 2011."
Obviously, the real story during this show is the Storage Jam, but nonetheless even I was surprised by how underwhelming the rest of it was. Getting that first half of S3 felt like being thrown a bone, but that's about it. For Phish to play the central show of a three-day fest as a five-and-a-half-hour show with maybe forty-five minutes of meat to it (if I'm being generous) just feels weird.
But hey, if all the negativity is getting you down, just watch the Storage Jam! It's fucking awesome!
The Live Review:
7/2/11: Tube opener.
7/2/11: Just got back from Kill Devil Falls / Hearing that riff is like getting kicked in the balls
7/2/11: KDF had a nice little organ solo from Page. Ocelot is next.
7/2/11: So far, so 2011 first set. Ocelot, Lawn Boy, DSky.
7/2/11: Super-long pause in DSky.
7/2/11: Strong take on Boogie On. Going almost-plinko near the end.
7/2/11: Camel Walk, and now a nice, laid-back Cities.
7/2/11: Suskind Hotel! Fish is playing a different beat than Mike's band uses for this song. Makes it a bit more rock-and-roll.
7/2/11: Hearing Suskind was pretty sweet. A particularly soulful Circus follows.
7/2/11: Trey shredding Timber now. Loving the attention that Timber is getting on this tour.
7/2/11: Extremely short BOTT > and extremely energetic Suzy.
7/2/11: Monkey Man! Give me a standard-ass S1 with Monkey Man in it and I can't complain.
7/2/11: Page is having some serious fun with these vocals.
7/2/11: End set.
7/2/11: Jim starts off the second set.
7/2/11: S1 was a good mix of tunes, but nothing to get excited about except for Monkey Man. Maybe Suskind, too, if you dig that song.
7/2/11: The most interesting part of that Jim was when Trey introduced the winners of the 5K.
7/2/11: The > McGrupp helps, though.
7/2/11: Trey struggles a bit with McGrupp, but they Page takes over with a great piano solo.
7/2/11: Axilla I.
7/2/11: Trey forgets the chords and the lyrics to Axilla at the exact same time.
7/2/11: Maybe jamming more is a good idea just so Trey doesn't have to remember 25 songs a night?
7/2/11: At this rate, they're probably going to play 50 songs tonight.
7/2/11: Trey going to town on Birds in a weird scale. It's mostly working.
7/2/11: Simpsons signal after Birds. Now *that's* old school.
7/2/11: Now Stash.
7/2/11: Trey and Fish working together on a particularly tension-filled Stash jam.
7/2/11: Bam! Huge peak after the jam. Usually not big into Stash, but this is a solid version.
7/2/11: > Sample.
7/2/11: Heavy Things.
7/2/11: Nice piano solo in this Heavy Things.
7/2/11: The hits just keep on coming. Horn.
7/2/11: And thus Super Ball IX continues to be the epitome of 2010-2011 Phish.
7/2/11: If you wanted to have the best chance of safely playing 2 hours of Phish on pop radio, these two sets would be the way to go.
7/2/11: Really liking the It's Ice > Mango Song duo, even if it's all Type I stuff.
7/2/11: Trey takes an extended break after turning The Mango Song into The Mangled Song. Yuk yuk.
7/2/11: Mango > Rift.
7/2/11: The end of Rift gets slammed directly into the Scents intro. Now that's cool.
7/2/11: Hood-like noodling starting off the Scents jam proper.
7/2/11: That was basically a Hood jam, just over a different progression. Not that I'm complaining.
7/2/11: Antelope to close the second set.
7/2/11: If you really like Type I Antelopes, that one was pretty damn wild.
7/2/11: End S2.
7/2/11: S3 starts with Golden Age.
7/2/11: Golden Age heading into a funk jam almost right away.
7/2/11: Plinko time!
7/2/11: Trey adding some pitch-shifted soloing to the mix.
7/2/11: Is almost an evolution of the plinko sound. Busier.
7/2/11: Totally abstract now. No beat. Maybe warmup for S4?
7/2/11: > Caspian.
7/2/11: Caspian is pretty standard but has a really nice breakdown near the end.
7/2/11: Caspian is unfinished. > Piper.
7/2/11: Trey chording in Piper jam. Almost Maze-like jam.
7/2/11: Now becoming a more straightforward Type I jam.
7/2/11: Literally as I tweeted that, they switched to space funk. Page on organ.
7/2/11: Heavy wall-of-noise guitar comes in and pulls of a sort-of -> Tweezer.
7/2/11: People losing MINDS
7/2/11: Trey using harmonics like crazy in this jam.
7/2/11: Now he's on the wah like crazy. Really interesting Tweezer jam so far.
7/2/11: Not technically Type II, but still interesting.
7/2/11: Breakdown featuring Trey, then a breakdown featuring Mike.
7/2/11: Plinko bit and now a big rock ending.
7/2/11: Forced > Julius.
7/2/11: I know I joke about this a lot, but this show *actually* feels like they're under orders to play as many songs as possible.
7/2/11: Which is difficult, because to me at least that's the total opposite of the purpose of Phish.
7/2/11: Julius crashes into Number Line.
7/2/11: Pretty standard Number Line, though there was a little of the 2015-style chording jamming going on.
7/2/11: Twist.
7/2/11: Very slow tempo. Maybe it'll lead to a good jam.
7/2/11: Mellow blues soloing from Trey. Page on electric piano.
7/2/11: Fish bringing back 'What?!' yell during mellow electric piano breakdown.
7/2/11: Interesting build happening now.
7/2/11: Wind-down ending > 2001
7/2/11: Short 2001 > Hood.
7/2/11: Neat soloing from Trey during this Hood build.
7/2/11: > Cavern.
7/2/11: Thought that would be end set for sure, but they cram in yet another song. Golgi.
7/2/11: Nope, more songs. Golgi ends on a Page piano solo and > Day In The Life.
7/2/11: Finally end set.
7/2/11: Loving Cup > Tweeprise encore.
7/2/11: End show.
7/2/11: S4 coming up in a bit. As for the first three sets...meh.
7/2/11: I'd hoped maybe the festival setting would tease out more of the Phish we saw briefly at the beginning of this tour, but no.
7/2/11: This was pure, standard 2010-2011, by-the-books Phish, for an incredible amount of time.
7/2/11: They played 46 songs over three sets. Almost five and a half hours of music.
7/2/11: In that time, there was one jam (Golden Age), and maybe three songs (Stash, Tweezer, and Twist) worth a relisten.
7/2/11: That leaves nearly four hours and forty-five minutes of jukebox Phish in one show. Which is way more than too much for me.
7/2/11: I'm excited to listen to the Storage Jam, but man, reviewing these shows is getting rough.
7/2/11: Alright, it's Storage Jam time.
7/2/11: Distorted, echo-y guitar and bass to start. Very Floyd.
7/2/11: Echoing and loopy weirdness continuing for about five minutes at this point. Seems mostly Trey and Mike playing.
7/2/11: Fish comes in with a shuffling sort of beat, then reach a peak and then fade out again.
7/2/11: Now whispering vocals from the band.
7/2/11: Sort of like a YEM vocal jam but with instruments.
7/2/11: Now this is sort of like Floyd but with numerous bass meatballs.
7/2/11: Siren-y tynths now coming from Page (I assume).
7/2/11: I'm so glad I'm not high while I'm listening to this.
7/2/11: Super creepy, very little rhythm.
7/2/11: Really weird, haunted-house synth noises now and lots of screaming. What sounds like hand drums from Fish?
7/2/11: Something that sounds like a whistle now. Maybe Page using samples pre-Haunted House Set?
7/2/11: More ambient groaning now. Mike mumbling something.
7/2/11: I totally get where the Gorge Rock and Roll came from now.
7/2/11: At the time, I'd never heard anything like it.
7/2/11: At about 31:00, Mike starts playing the closest thing to a melody I've heard yet. Fish joins in on drums.
7/2/11: Okay, this part is friggin' awesome.
7/2/11: This sounds like a lost No Quarter jam from the 70s.
7/2/11: The tone/effects Trey has on his guitar are just perfect.
7/2/11: Clock-like ticking wearing down this part of the jam.
7/2/11: Incidentally, that was the best five minutes of Phish I've heard in a really, really long time.
7/2/11: Some 80s-sounding beats from Fish while the rest of the band returns to the more amorphous, synth-driven sound.
7/2/11: Page laying down some synth beats. Now that's weird to hear from a Phish jam.
7/2/11: This is probably the closest Phish will ever get to playing NES game music.
7/2/11: Jam fades out again and then Trey comes back in with a progression that sounds sort of like Albuquerque or Sleeping Monkey.
7/2/11: Oh shit, that's because it's Sleeping Monkey.
7/2/11: Trey singing lyrics. The rest of the band keeping up the Storage Jam sound.
7/2/11: Chorus of 'What?!'s from the band during the outro jam. Lots of synth and distortion.
7/2/11: Back into another ambient space after Sleeping Monkey. Winding down.
7/2/11: That was one of the weirdest Phish shows I've listened to so far. Nearly five hours of rote, jukebox-style playing...
7/2/11: ...followed by an hour of absolutely weird, Floyd-then-Zep-then-chiptune-style jamming and a Sleeping Monkey to cap it off.
So I read somewhere recently that even with the "Storage Jam" fourth set included, 7/2 is one of the longest shows Phish has ever played. Listening back, it sure felt like it.
The first three sets of this show are an ode to the last two summers of boilerplate, no-jams-here Phish. There are a lot of songs, and by looking at the setlist for the show you can imagine how pretty much all of it sounds. S1 ends with a standout cover of "Monkey Man" with Page on vocals.
There's a Simpson's signal after a hot "Birds" early in the second set, and a solid take on "Stash." If you want to hear a rare "Scents" basically morph into a "Hood" jam near the end (which is actually pretty cool), you can.
S3 comes the closest of all the Super Ball IX sets to being an actual Phish set, with a "Golden Age" > "Caspian" > "Piper" > "Tweezer" sequence before the band falls back into Jukebox Mode. "Golden Age" actually gets way out there, as a sort of prelude to the Storage Jam, "Caspian" gets an interesting breakdown near the end, setting up a solid segue into "Piper," and "Piper"'s "Maze"-style chording jam moves into a "Tweezer" that's all about harmonics and the wah pedal. It's a really cool sequence, and not even "just for 2011."
Obviously, the real story during this show is the Storage Jam, but nonetheless even I was surprised by how underwhelming the rest of it was. Getting that first half of S3 felt like being thrown a bone, but that's about it. For Phish to play the central show of a three-day fest as a five-and-a-half-hour show with maybe forty-five minutes of meat to it (if I'm being generous) just feels weird.
But hey, if all the negativity is getting you down, just watch the Storage Jam! It's fucking awesome!
The Live Review:
7/2/11: Tube opener.
7/2/11: Just got back from Kill Devil Falls / Hearing that riff is like getting kicked in the balls
7/2/11: KDF had a nice little organ solo from Page. Ocelot is next.
7/2/11: So far, so 2011 first set. Ocelot, Lawn Boy, DSky.
7/2/11: Super-long pause in DSky.
7/2/11: Strong take on Boogie On. Going almost-plinko near the end.
7/2/11: Camel Walk, and now a nice, laid-back Cities.
7/2/11: Suskind Hotel! Fish is playing a different beat than Mike's band uses for this song. Makes it a bit more rock-and-roll.
7/2/11: Hearing Suskind was pretty sweet. A particularly soulful Circus follows.
7/2/11: Trey shredding Timber now. Loving the attention that Timber is getting on this tour.
7/2/11: Extremely short BOTT > and extremely energetic Suzy.
7/2/11: Monkey Man! Give me a standard-ass S1 with Monkey Man in it and I can't complain.
7/2/11: Page is having some serious fun with these vocals.
7/2/11: End set.
7/2/11: Jim starts off the second set.
7/2/11: S1 was a good mix of tunes, but nothing to get excited about except for Monkey Man. Maybe Suskind, too, if you dig that song.
7/2/11: The most interesting part of that Jim was when Trey introduced the winners of the 5K.
7/2/11: The > McGrupp helps, though.
7/2/11: Trey struggles a bit with McGrupp, but they Page takes over with a great piano solo.
7/2/11: Axilla I.
7/2/11: Trey forgets the chords and the lyrics to Axilla at the exact same time.
7/2/11: Maybe jamming more is a good idea just so Trey doesn't have to remember 25 songs a night?
7/2/11: At this rate, they're probably going to play 50 songs tonight.
7/2/11: Trey going to town on Birds in a weird scale. It's mostly working.
7/2/11: Simpsons signal after Birds. Now *that's* old school.
7/2/11: Now Stash.
7/2/11: Trey and Fish working together on a particularly tension-filled Stash jam.
7/2/11: Bam! Huge peak after the jam. Usually not big into Stash, but this is a solid version.
7/2/11: > Sample.
7/2/11: Heavy Things.
7/2/11: Nice piano solo in this Heavy Things.
7/2/11: The hits just keep on coming. Horn.
7/2/11: And thus Super Ball IX continues to be the epitome of 2010-2011 Phish.
7/2/11: If you wanted to have the best chance of safely playing 2 hours of Phish on pop radio, these two sets would be the way to go.
7/2/11: Really liking the It's Ice > Mango Song duo, even if it's all Type I stuff.
7/2/11: Trey takes an extended break after turning The Mango Song into The Mangled Song. Yuk yuk.
7/2/11: Mango > Rift.
7/2/11: The end of Rift gets slammed directly into the Scents intro. Now that's cool.
7/2/11: Hood-like noodling starting off the Scents jam proper.
7/2/11: That was basically a Hood jam, just over a different progression. Not that I'm complaining.
7/2/11: Antelope to close the second set.
7/2/11: If you really like Type I Antelopes, that one was pretty damn wild.
7/2/11: End S2.
7/2/11: S3 starts with Golden Age.
7/2/11: Golden Age heading into a funk jam almost right away.
7/2/11: Plinko time!
7/2/11: Trey adding some pitch-shifted soloing to the mix.
7/2/11: Is almost an evolution of the plinko sound. Busier.
7/2/11: Totally abstract now. No beat. Maybe warmup for S4?
7/2/11: > Caspian.
7/2/11: Caspian is pretty standard but has a really nice breakdown near the end.
7/2/11: Caspian is unfinished. > Piper.
7/2/11: Trey chording in Piper jam. Almost Maze-like jam.
7/2/11: Now becoming a more straightforward Type I jam.
7/2/11: Literally as I tweeted that, they switched to space funk. Page on organ.
7/2/11: Heavy wall-of-noise guitar comes in and pulls of a sort-of -> Tweezer.
7/2/11: People losing MINDS
7/2/11: Trey using harmonics like crazy in this jam.
7/2/11: Now he's on the wah like crazy. Really interesting Tweezer jam so far.
7/2/11: Not technically Type II, but still interesting.
7/2/11: Breakdown featuring Trey, then a breakdown featuring Mike.
7/2/11: Plinko bit and now a big rock ending.
7/2/11: Forced > Julius.
7/2/11: I know I joke about this a lot, but this show *actually* feels like they're under orders to play as many songs as possible.
7/2/11: Which is difficult, because to me at least that's the total opposite of the purpose of Phish.
7/2/11: Julius crashes into Number Line.
7/2/11: Pretty standard Number Line, though there was a little of the 2015-style chording jamming going on.
7/2/11: Twist.
7/2/11: Very slow tempo. Maybe it'll lead to a good jam.
7/2/11: Mellow blues soloing from Trey. Page on electric piano.
7/2/11: Fish bringing back 'What?!' yell during mellow electric piano breakdown.
7/2/11: Interesting build happening now.
7/2/11: Wind-down ending > 2001
7/2/11: Short 2001 > Hood.
7/2/11: Neat soloing from Trey during this Hood build.
7/2/11: > Cavern.
7/2/11: Thought that would be end set for sure, but they cram in yet another song. Golgi.
7/2/11: Nope, more songs. Golgi ends on a Page piano solo and > Day In The Life.
7/2/11: Finally end set.
7/2/11: Loving Cup > Tweeprise encore.
7/2/11: End show.
7/2/11: S4 coming up in a bit. As for the first three sets...meh.
7/2/11: I'd hoped maybe the festival setting would tease out more of the Phish we saw briefly at the beginning of this tour, but no.
7/2/11: This was pure, standard 2010-2011, by-the-books Phish, for an incredible amount of time.
7/2/11: They played 46 songs over three sets. Almost five and a half hours of music.
7/2/11: In that time, there was one jam (Golden Age), and maybe three songs (Stash, Tweezer, and Twist) worth a relisten.
7/2/11: That leaves nearly four hours and forty-five minutes of jukebox Phish in one show. Which is way more than too much for me.
7/2/11: I'm excited to listen to the Storage Jam, but man, reviewing these shows is getting rough.
7/2/11: Alright, it's Storage Jam time.
7/2/11: Distorted, echo-y guitar and bass to start. Very Floyd.
7/2/11: Echoing and loopy weirdness continuing for about five minutes at this point. Seems mostly Trey and Mike playing.
7/2/11: Fish comes in with a shuffling sort of beat, then reach a peak and then fade out again.
7/2/11: Now whispering vocals from the band.
7/2/11: Sort of like a YEM vocal jam but with instruments.
7/2/11: Now this is sort of like Floyd but with numerous bass meatballs.
7/2/11: Siren-y tynths now coming from Page (I assume).
7/2/11: I'm so glad I'm not high while I'm listening to this.
7/2/11: Super creepy, very little rhythm.
7/2/11: Really weird, haunted-house synth noises now and lots of screaming. What sounds like hand drums from Fish?
7/2/11: Something that sounds like a whistle now. Maybe Page using samples pre-Haunted House Set?
7/2/11: More ambient groaning now. Mike mumbling something.
7/2/11: I totally get where the Gorge Rock and Roll came from now.
7/2/11: At the time, I'd never heard anything like it.
7/2/11: At about 31:00, Mike starts playing the closest thing to a melody I've heard yet. Fish joins in on drums.
7/2/11: Okay, this part is friggin' awesome.
7/2/11: This sounds like a lost No Quarter jam from the 70s.
7/2/11: The tone/effects Trey has on his guitar are just perfect.
7/2/11: Clock-like ticking wearing down this part of the jam.
7/2/11: Incidentally, that was the best five minutes of Phish I've heard in a really, really long time.
7/2/11: Some 80s-sounding beats from Fish while the rest of the band returns to the more amorphous, synth-driven sound.
7/2/11: Page laying down some synth beats. Now that's weird to hear from a Phish jam.
7/2/11: This is probably the closest Phish will ever get to playing NES game music.
7/2/11: Jam fades out again and then Trey comes back in with a progression that sounds sort of like Albuquerque or Sleeping Monkey.
7/2/11: Oh shit, that's because it's Sleeping Monkey.
7/2/11: Trey singing lyrics. The rest of the band keeping up the Storage Jam sound.
7/2/11: Chorus of 'What?!'s from the band during the outro jam. Lots of synth and distortion.
7/2/11: Back into another ambient space after Sleeping Monkey. Winding down.
7/2/11: That was one of the weirdest Phish shows I've listened to so far. Nearly five hours of rote, jukebox-style playing...
7/2/11: ...followed by an hour of absolutely weird, Floyd-then-Zep-then-chiptune-style jamming and a Sleeping Monkey to cap it off.
May 5, 2016
2011-07-01 Super Ball IX I
The Verdict:
During the first of three days at Watkins Glen for Super Ball IX, the band throws down the epitome of a fun 2010-2011 opening set. Great song choices, high energy, and Trey absolutely brings the guitar in a way that should please all but the most jaded of fans of the earlier, one-man-band era(s) of Phish. "Gin" and "Wolfman's" are particularly great examples of Trey blowing things through the roof.
The problem, at least for me, is that the band continues to take this tack throughout the entire show before leaving us with a "Joy," "Zero," "Show of Life" trifecta to close. After a first set like that, I definitely went into the second set with the feeling that something big was about to happen. Especially when S2 opens with a murky, lyricless, improvised jam from nowhere that slams effortlessly into "Crosseyed" after a few minutes. Unfortunately, the rest of the set really settles into yet another content, Type I groove, with not much on either side of "Simple" worth recommending minus maybe a low-tempo "Sand" that starts off interesting but nonetheless coalesces into the tenth or twelfth rock and roll peak of the show.
The "Simple" is flat-out weird. And yet, in a desert of improv like this tour has been, I still appreciate it. Surrounded as it is by three or so hours of Trey steamrolling through song after song in full-on rock god style, it's especially jarring when the jam suddenly drops off into a very 1999-esque ambient jam, propelled along after a few minutes by some heavy "Third Stone From The Sun" teasing. It's really cool, despite seeming out of place, and hopefully points to some more interesting moments during the rest of the fest.
Phish - 7/1/11 "Simple" > "Bug" from Phish on Vimeo.
The Live Review:
7/1/11: Alright, time to finally (hopefully) switch into a higher gear, guys.
7/1/11: Though even if Super Ball isn't great, I know the Gorge run is, because I was there :)
7/1/11: Possum opener.
7/1/11: Quality Possum to start things up.
7/1/11: > Peaches!!!
7/1/11: Great, high-tempo run-through. Moma is next.
7/1/11: Trey pushing at the edges of the usual Moma solo a little bit.
7/1/11: Okay, ended up being pretty standard in the end.
7/1/11: Torn and Frayed! Love it.
7/1/11: Trey playing Keith Richards leads just makes me happy.
7/1/11: Sort of rough take. NICU next.
7/1/11: NICU > Gin. This could get interesting.
7/1/11: Trey is RIPPING INTO this Gin. Holy shit.
7/1/11: I'll have what he's having.
7/1/11: So that didn't go anywhere terribly interesting, but man, it was a heater.
7/1/11: Long break after Gin, but then Life On Mars. So cool.
7/1/11: One of those covers that I forget how much I love until I hear it again (because it's so rare these days).
7/1/11: Speaking of rare, standalone MFMF is next.
7/1/11: Wolfman's. Maybe another chance to go deep early?
7/1/11: Wolfman's jam is headed in a seriously old-school funk direction.
7/1/11: Wolfman's ultimately goes the Gin-shredding route. Nice version, though. Roses is next.
7/1/11: High-energy Roses > Funky Bitch.
7/1/11: Trey is on fire again. I really hope he can turn this energy into something fun in the second half.
7/1/11: Slow-tempo take on Quinn, probably to close the set.
7/1/11: Trey taking the Quinn solo a little bit deep.
7/1/11: End set.
7/1/11: Second set starting with some Mike noodling.
7/1/11: Fish joining in now.
7/1/11: Dark, weird, arrhythmic-type jam. Band laughing.
7/1/11: We are trapped inside a circus of evil.
7/1/11: Weird circus jam suddenly explodes into Crosseyed. Huh.
7/1/11: Just like Gin and Wolfman's in the first set, Trey is unleashing on this Crosseyed.
7/1/11: Back into a vocal refrain, and my audio visualization is doing some weird shit on monitor two.
7/1/11: Outro jam is ambient...maybe a callback to the set-opening jam?
7/1/11: Mike leading again.
7/1/11: CDT slowly fades in in a nice transition.
7/1/11: Trey playing with scales a bit now like he did with Moma in the first set.
7/1/11: Suuuuuper slow version of Sand coming up.
7/1/11: Sand builds up to a rolling boil, too. Lots of great rock guitar in this show. The Wedge is ne
7/1/11: Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike's
7/1/11: Mike's -B Simple. Haven't gotten to use the 'buttslam segue' icon in awhile.
7/1/11: Breakdown into Simple jam. My visualizer is doing some pretty trippy shit.
7/1/11: Trey is unleashing some serious melodic beauty here. Now Mike and Page's electric piano taking over.
7/1/11: Super-swampy ambient zone, now. Whoa.
7/1/11: Page on synth.
7/1/11: This is like serious 1999-2000 ambient jamming. No immediate ripcord.
7/1/11: Trey playing some heavily distorted lead over the top now. Almost sounds like WTU? but not quite.
7/1/11: Oh, shit, he's playing Third Stone From the Sun, that's what it is.
7/1/11: Total fade-out at the end. Then, Bug.
7/1/11: Heavy ending to Bug goes directly into The Horse.
7/1/11: > Silent.
7/1/11: > Groove.
7/1/11: Short but fiery version of Groove to close out the Mike's sandwich.
7/1/11: Joy, Zero, Show of Life.
7/1/11: Weird show. Lots of huge Trey shredding moments. Lots of good tunes. A free-form jam opens the second set.
7/1/11: And yet nothing particularly interesting happens except for the 1999-style jam out of nowhere in Simple.
7/1/11: It definitely feels like an 'Almost there' show. Maybe this bodes well for 7/2.
During the first of three days at Watkins Glen for Super Ball IX, the band throws down the epitome of a fun 2010-2011 opening set. Great song choices, high energy, and Trey absolutely brings the guitar in a way that should please all but the most jaded of fans of the earlier, one-man-band era(s) of Phish. "Gin" and "Wolfman's" are particularly great examples of Trey blowing things through the roof.
The problem, at least for me, is that the band continues to take this tack throughout the entire show before leaving us with a "Joy," "Zero," "Show of Life" trifecta to close. After a first set like that, I definitely went into the second set with the feeling that something big was about to happen. Especially when S2 opens with a murky, lyricless, improvised jam from nowhere that slams effortlessly into "Crosseyed" after a few minutes. Unfortunately, the rest of the set really settles into yet another content, Type I groove, with not much on either side of "Simple" worth recommending minus maybe a low-tempo "Sand" that starts off interesting but nonetheless coalesces into the tenth or twelfth rock and roll peak of the show.
The "Simple" is flat-out weird. And yet, in a desert of improv like this tour has been, I still appreciate it. Surrounded as it is by three or so hours of Trey steamrolling through song after song in full-on rock god style, it's especially jarring when the jam suddenly drops off into a very 1999-esque ambient jam, propelled along after a few minutes by some heavy "Third Stone From The Sun" teasing. It's really cool, despite seeming out of place, and hopefully points to some more interesting moments during the rest of the fest.
Phish - 7/1/11 "Simple" > "Bug" from Phish on Vimeo.
The Live Review:
7/1/11: Alright, time to finally (hopefully) switch into a higher gear, guys.
7/1/11: Though even if Super Ball isn't great, I know the Gorge run is, because I was there :)
7/1/11: Possum opener.
7/1/11: Quality Possum to start things up.
7/1/11: > Peaches!!!
7/1/11: Great, high-tempo run-through. Moma is next.
7/1/11: Trey pushing at the edges of the usual Moma solo a little bit.
7/1/11: Okay, ended up being pretty standard in the end.
7/1/11: Torn and Frayed! Love it.
7/1/11: Trey playing Keith Richards leads just makes me happy.
7/1/11: Sort of rough take. NICU next.
7/1/11: NICU > Gin. This could get interesting.
7/1/11: Trey is RIPPING INTO this Gin. Holy shit.
7/1/11: I'll have what he's having.
7/1/11: So that didn't go anywhere terribly interesting, but man, it was a heater.
7/1/11: Long break after Gin, but then Life On Mars. So cool.
7/1/11: One of those covers that I forget how much I love until I hear it again (because it's so rare these days).
7/1/11: Speaking of rare, standalone MFMF is next.
7/1/11: Wolfman's. Maybe another chance to go deep early?
7/1/11: Wolfman's jam is headed in a seriously old-school funk direction.
7/1/11: Wolfman's ultimately goes the Gin-shredding route. Nice version, though. Roses is next.
7/1/11: High-energy Roses > Funky Bitch.
7/1/11: Trey is on fire again. I really hope he can turn this energy into something fun in the second half.
7/1/11: Slow-tempo take on Quinn, probably to close the set.
7/1/11: Trey taking the Quinn solo a little bit deep.
7/1/11: End set.
7/1/11: Second set starting with some Mike noodling.
7/1/11: Fish joining in now.
7/1/11: Dark, weird, arrhythmic-type jam. Band laughing.
7/1/11: We are trapped inside a circus of evil.
7/1/11: Weird circus jam suddenly explodes into Crosseyed. Huh.
7/1/11: Just like Gin and Wolfman's in the first set, Trey is unleashing on this Crosseyed.
7/1/11: Back into a vocal refrain, and my audio visualization is doing some weird shit on monitor two.
7/1/11: Outro jam is ambient...maybe a callback to the set-opening jam?
7/1/11: Mike leading again.
7/1/11: CDT slowly fades in in a nice transition.
7/1/11: Trey playing with scales a bit now like he did with Moma in the first set.
7/1/11: Suuuuuper slow version of Sand coming up.
7/1/11: Sand builds up to a rolling boil, too. Lots of great rock guitar in this show. The Wedge is ne
7/1/11: Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike's
7/1/11: Mike's -B Simple. Haven't gotten to use the 'buttslam segue' icon in awhile.
7/1/11: Breakdown into Simple jam. My visualizer is doing some pretty trippy shit.
7/1/11: Trey is unleashing some serious melodic beauty here. Now Mike and Page's electric piano taking over.
7/1/11: Super-swampy ambient zone, now. Whoa.
7/1/11: Page on synth.
7/1/11: This is like serious 1999-2000 ambient jamming. No immediate ripcord.
7/1/11: Trey playing some heavily distorted lead over the top now. Almost sounds like WTU? but not quite.
7/1/11: Oh, shit, he's playing Third Stone From the Sun, that's what it is.
7/1/11: Total fade-out at the end. Then, Bug.
7/1/11: Heavy ending to Bug goes directly into The Horse.
7/1/11: > Silent.
7/1/11: > Groove.
7/1/11: Short but fiery version of Groove to close out the Mike's sandwich.
7/1/11: Joy, Zero, Show of Life.
7/1/11: Weird show. Lots of huge Trey shredding moments. Lots of good tunes. A free-form jam opens the second set.
7/1/11: And yet nothing particularly interesting happens except for the 1999-style jam out of nowhere in Simple.
7/1/11: It definitely feels like an 'Almost there' show. Maybe this bodes well for 7/2.
2011-06-19 Portsmouth
The Verdict:
The final show before Super Ball IX strains a little bit at the seams, but never really quite breaks out into anything interesting. Probably the (goofy) highlight of the show is an opening "Harpua" with the band's dads on stage for Father's Day and the later "Brother" that features a tub full of the band's kids. It's great to hear both tunes, and the unique circumstances just add to the fun. There's also a spot-on cover of "Thunder Road" (with Trey on vocals!) in honor of Clarence Clemons.
Those surprises aside, though, most of the rest of the show settles firmly into 2010-2011 Phish territory. Nice song selection, but not much else going on.
The one major exception here is a surprise, late-show "Sand" that turns into a legitimate jam, one of the few since very early June. Definitely worth a listen, even if the band more or less falls back into old patterns immediately afterward, aside from a briefly weird "Light."
Oh, and the mid-S2-"Slave" won't surprise you, but if you really like to collect versions of the song, this is a great one, despite what you might guess from its running time.
The Live Review:
6/19/11: Alright, last show before Super Ball. Here we go!
6/19/11: Harpua opener! Alright, then!
6/19/11: I'm going to guess by the content of the narration and such that the band's dads are on stage for this.
6/19/11: Brother is next. Can someone explain the connection between the band's parents and Brother? Or is it just the title?
6/19/11: Yup, lots of parents and such on stage after the show.
6/19/11: Down With Disease in the three-spot.
6/19/11: S1-style Disease followed by BOTT.
6/19/11: Pretty standard BOTT, but then Trey just RIPS into Funky Bitch afterward.
6/19/11: Now Page is DESTROYING the organ. Is this Funky Bitch, or Maze?!
6/19/11: If they played like this more often, I wouldn't mind 'greatest-hits'-style S1s at all.
6/19/11: > Timber! Any set that has Brother *and* Timber in it is alright with me.
6/19/11: The Wedge, Moma Dance are next.
6/19/11: Holy shit, Thunder Road. Trey doing vocals.
6/19/11: Ah, they played it as a tribute to Clarence Clemons. That's awesome.
6/19/11: Tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuube
6/19/11: Super-quick version of Tube > Alaska.
6/19/11: David Bowie, presumably to close this loooooooooong S1.
6/19/11: End set with a pretty standard Bowie.
6/19/11: Weird 1st set. A combination of jukebox tunes and big, welcome surprises like Harpua, Brother, Timber, Thunder Road.
6/19/11: S2 opens with Crosseyed.
6/19/11: Pretty standard Type I Crosseyed, though Trey is getting in some good licks.
6/19/11: Going in a heavier rock direction now. Wall-of-sound thing happening. Page's organ sounding very No Quarter-y.
6/19/11: Drone > Walls of the Cave.
6/19/11: Trey soloing in a weird scale for a minute or so during the Walls outro.
6/19/11: Slowing down now. Page taking over as Trey fades out.
6/19/11: Again, that signals the end of the song instead of a jam transition, but it's till a pretty > Slave.
6/19/11: Mike running the show early on in this Slave jam.
6/19/11: Really liking this. Almost like a Simple jam. Super delicate and patient.
6/19/11: I just realized, I think that they're playing at an exceptionally slow tempo. Makes for a really interesting jam.
6/19/11: Under ten minutes, total, but a great version.
6/19/11: > Fluffhead. Seems like a weird choice, but okay.
6/19/11: Fluffhead seems to be at a *faster* tempo this time around.
6/19/11: Trey ends Fluffhead with a loop, and it carries over into the introduction to Sand.
6/19/11: I love me some Sand, lately.
6/19/11: Great little funky solo from Trey leading into something close to plinko jamming w/ pitch-shifted guitar.
6/19/11: Silent pause after a huge funk breakdown. Then Sand jam starts up again. Awesome.
6/19/11: Next stop/start starts with Sneakin' Sally instead!
6/19/11: Great segment. Sounds like a totally different, less on-rails band.
6/19/11: Sally goes into a vocal jam pretty much right away.
6/19/11: Trey sort of shoehorns in a transition to Light.
6/19/11: Light jam drops almost immediately into a dreamy sequence. Sort of Slave-like.
6/19/11: Trey bails out of an ambient fade with > Number Line.
6/19/11: Number Line is pretty mellow, too. I like all these quality jams that don't have to go all peaky to be good.
6/19/11: Short Number Line. Now Page is going to town on Suzy.
6/19/11: A hilarious amount of screaming at Mike, calls of 'Page's house!' and 'What?!' follow the conclusion of the song (and tour leg).
6/19/11: Story from Trey about his daughter Eliza beating him at Rock Band playing Wilson. Julius encore.
The final show before Super Ball IX strains a little bit at the seams, but never really quite breaks out into anything interesting. Probably the (goofy) highlight of the show is an opening "Harpua" with the band's dads on stage for Father's Day and the later "Brother" that features a tub full of the band's kids. It's great to hear both tunes, and the unique circumstances just add to the fun. There's also a spot-on cover of "Thunder Road" (with Trey on vocals!) in honor of Clarence Clemons.
Those surprises aside, though, most of the rest of the show settles firmly into 2010-2011 Phish territory. Nice song selection, but not much else going on.
The one major exception here is a surprise, late-show "Sand" that turns into a legitimate jam, one of the few since very early June. Definitely worth a listen, even if the band more or less falls back into old patterns immediately afterward, aside from a briefly weird "Light."
Oh, and the mid-S2-"Slave" won't surprise you, but if you really like to collect versions of the song, this is a great one, despite what you might guess from its running time.
The Live Review:
6/19/11: Alright, last show before Super Ball. Here we go!
6/19/11: Harpua opener! Alright, then!
6/19/11: I'm going to guess by the content of the narration and such that the band's dads are on stage for this.
6/19/11: Brother is next. Can someone explain the connection between the band's parents and Brother? Or is it just the title?
6/19/11: Yup, lots of parents and such on stage after the show.
6/19/11: Down With Disease in the three-spot.
6/19/11: S1-style Disease followed by BOTT.
6/19/11: Pretty standard BOTT, but then Trey just RIPS into Funky Bitch afterward.
6/19/11: Now Page is DESTROYING the organ. Is this Funky Bitch, or Maze?!
6/19/11: If they played like this more often, I wouldn't mind 'greatest-hits'-style S1s at all.
6/19/11: > Timber! Any set that has Brother *and* Timber in it is alright with me.
6/19/11: The Wedge, Moma Dance are next.
6/19/11: Holy shit, Thunder Road. Trey doing vocals.
6/19/11: Ah, they played it as a tribute to Clarence Clemons. That's awesome.
6/19/11: Tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuube
6/19/11: Super-quick version of Tube > Alaska.
6/19/11: David Bowie, presumably to close this loooooooooong S1.
6/19/11: End set with a pretty standard Bowie.
6/19/11: Weird 1st set. A combination of jukebox tunes and big, welcome surprises like Harpua, Brother, Timber, Thunder Road.
6/19/11: S2 opens with Crosseyed.
6/19/11: Pretty standard Type I Crosseyed, though Trey is getting in some good licks.
6/19/11: Going in a heavier rock direction now. Wall-of-sound thing happening. Page's organ sounding very No Quarter-y.
6/19/11: Drone > Walls of the Cave.
6/19/11: Trey soloing in a weird scale for a minute or so during the Walls outro.
6/19/11: Slowing down now. Page taking over as Trey fades out.
6/19/11: Again, that signals the end of the song instead of a jam transition, but it's till a pretty > Slave.
6/19/11: Mike running the show early on in this Slave jam.
6/19/11: Really liking this. Almost like a Simple jam. Super delicate and patient.
6/19/11: I just realized, I think that they're playing at an exceptionally slow tempo. Makes for a really interesting jam.
6/19/11: Under ten minutes, total, but a great version.
6/19/11: > Fluffhead. Seems like a weird choice, but okay.
6/19/11: Fluffhead seems to be at a *faster* tempo this time around.
6/19/11: Trey ends Fluffhead with a loop, and it carries over into the introduction to Sand.
6/19/11: I love me some Sand, lately.
6/19/11: Great little funky solo from Trey leading into something close to plinko jamming w/ pitch-shifted guitar.
6/19/11: Silent pause after a huge funk breakdown. Then Sand jam starts up again. Awesome.
6/19/11: Next stop/start starts with Sneakin' Sally instead!
6/19/11: Great segment. Sounds like a totally different, less on-rails band.
6/19/11: Sally goes into a vocal jam pretty much right away.
6/19/11: Trey sort of shoehorns in a transition to Light.
6/19/11: Light jam drops almost immediately into a dreamy sequence. Sort of Slave-like.
6/19/11: Trey bails out of an ambient fade with > Number Line.
6/19/11: Number Line is pretty mellow, too. I like all these quality jams that don't have to go all peaky to be good.
6/19/11: Short Number Line. Now Page is going to town on Suzy.
6/19/11: A hilarious amount of screaming at Mike, calls of 'Page's house!' and 'What?!' follow the conclusion of the song (and tour leg).
6/19/11: Story from Trey about his daughter Eliza beating him at Rock Band playing Wilson. Julius encore.
May 2, 2016
2011-06-18 Raleigh
The Verdict:
The relative awesomeness of 6/17 and the one-two punch of "Cars, Trucks, Buses" and "Peaches" to open made it hard not to have high expectations for the rest of 6/18 in Raleigh. Most of the show, unfortunately, ends up treading tried-and-true 2011 territory. There are a few neat bits, though.
After the opening pair, the momentum continues with a great "Bag," then "Guyute," a machine-gun "Possum," and a great "Halley's" that starts to extend into some interesting places...before Trey guts it with a weird transition into "46 Days." It's a really strange call and seems to sort of throw off the rest of what starts as a really ripping first set.
Surprisingly, "Twist" opens the second set, and despite only running for about seven minutes before coasting to a natural death, it packs a lot of strangeness into its short running time. You're never going to see it on anyone's jam chart, but I recommend you give it a listen anyway. Maybe the highlight of the show, surprisingly, is a "Caspian" that goes the drone-jam route, before dissolving perfectly into "Esther," of all songs. Yes, that's "Caspian" -> "Esther."
"Been Caught Stealing" is a hilarious cover, and well done.
"Piper" goes the "Twist" route, packing a lot of interesting jamming into a very short space before getting segued into "MFMF." And, just when you think it's time to pack it in for the night, "SOAM" goes way deep, breaking down into a minimalist jam that's either really great or really aimless and boring. You choose.
Really, if you're not focused on running times, this show is consistently more interesting than 6/17, there just isn't that big double-jam sitting at the beginning of the second set here. Comparisons aside, though, it's just nice to see the band doing something other than what they've been doing for the last few weeks. I'm actually excited to listen to 6/19 before heading into Super Ball.
The Live Review:
6/18/11: So, 6/17 was actually a decent show. Not *great*, mind you, but worth a mention amidst the last ten shows or so.
6/18/11: Curious to see if the boys continue ramping up in preparation for Super Ball.
6/18/11: Cars, Trucks, Buses opener.
6/18/11: Peaches is next! Crowd goes nuts. Trey struggling a bit, though.
6/18/11: Bag next. Loving this setlist so far.
6/18/11: Neat trilling solo from Trey in Bag. Page echoing on piano.
6/18/11: Guyute!
6/18/11: Machine-gun Trey all over this Possum.
6/18/11: Halley's is next, and is stretching its legs a little bit in the jam.
6/18/11: Whoa, serious ripcord from Trey into 46 Days.
6/18/11: Pretty standard rock 46 Days > Divided Sky.
6/18/11: Great take on Divided Sky...followed by Curtis Loew!!
6/18/11: Looks like Antelope is going to close the set.
6/18/11: Set two opens with Twist. What is this, 2015?!
6/18/11: Slow, deliberate take on Twist. Developing slowly. Lots of good interplay.
6/18/11: That was just about as much quality Twist as you can pack into seven minutes. Rift is next.
6/18/11: Prince Caspian seems like an odd choice.
6/18/11: This one's getting extended a bit though, into what almost seems like a Simple jam, with Trey and Page paralleling each other.
6/18/11: Ambient drone now from Trey.
6/18/11: -> Esther! That was neat.
6/18/11: I always forget how creepy this song is.
6/18/11: Trey bringing Brian Brown out on stage after Esther.
6/18/11: Trey getting Mike to ring the fight bell now.
6/18/11: Okay, I have never heard this Been Caught Stealing cover before, but it is hilarious and awesome.
6/18/11: Piper is next.
6/18/11: Lots of pitch-shifted noodling from Trey in this Piper jam.
6/18/11: Page was just taking that jam to a pretty interesting place with his synth, but Trey pulled a -> MFMF. Which is cool, I guess.
6/18/11: MFMF > KDF.
6/18/11: A little extra mustard on that KDF, especially for late S2.
6/18/11: Late-set SOAM is opening up into a really melodic bliss jam, of all things.
6/18/11: Page keeping an ominous-sounding piano riff going in the background.
6/18/11: We've departed pretty much completely now from the SOAM structure and are Type II. Very rhythm-heavy.
6/18/11: A lot of Trey's soloing up to this point seemed sort of wandering and aimless, but maybe you're into that sort of thing.
6/18/11: Really grungy guitar now.
6/18/11: Return to the theme now. That was really weird, and possibly good. Will probably have to listen again.
6/18/11: Golgi.
6/18/11: Aaaand First Tube will close S2.
6/18/11: GTBT to close.
6/18/11: A weird show, but between 6/17 and this show, it at least feels like the band is *trying* to make something happen now.
The relative awesomeness of 6/17 and the one-two punch of "Cars, Trucks, Buses" and "Peaches" to open made it hard not to have high expectations for the rest of 6/18 in Raleigh. Most of the show, unfortunately, ends up treading tried-and-true 2011 territory. There are a few neat bits, though.
After the opening pair, the momentum continues with a great "Bag," then "Guyute," a machine-gun "Possum," and a great "Halley's" that starts to extend into some interesting places...before Trey guts it with a weird transition into "46 Days." It's a really strange call and seems to sort of throw off the rest of what starts as a really ripping first set.
Surprisingly, "Twist" opens the second set, and despite only running for about seven minutes before coasting to a natural death, it packs a lot of strangeness into its short running time. You're never going to see it on anyone's jam chart, but I recommend you give it a listen anyway. Maybe the highlight of the show, surprisingly, is a "Caspian" that goes the drone-jam route, before dissolving perfectly into "Esther," of all songs. Yes, that's "Caspian" -> "Esther."
"Been Caught Stealing" is a hilarious cover, and well done.
"Piper" goes the "Twist" route, packing a lot of interesting jamming into a very short space before getting segued into "MFMF." And, just when you think it's time to pack it in for the night, "SOAM" goes way deep, breaking down into a minimalist jam that's either really great or really aimless and boring. You choose.
Really, if you're not focused on running times, this show is consistently more interesting than 6/17, there just isn't that big double-jam sitting at the beginning of the second set here. Comparisons aside, though, it's just nice to see the band doing something other than what they've been doing for the last few weeks. I'm actually excited to listen to 6/19 before heading into Super Ball.
The Live Review:
6/18/11: So, 6/17 was actually a decent show. Not *great*, mind you, but worth a mention amidst the last ten shows or so.
6/18/11: Curious to see if the boys continue ramping up in preparation for Super Ball.
6/18/11: Cars, Trucks, Buses opener.
6/18/11: Peaches is next! Crowd goes nuts. Trey struggling a bit, though.
6/18/11: Bag next. Loving this setlist so far.
6/18/11: Neat trilling solo from Trey in Bag. Page echoing on piano.
6/18/11: Guyute!
6/18/11: Machine-gun Trey all over this Possum.
6/18/11: Halley's is next, and is stretching its legs a little bit in the jam.
6/18/11: Whoa, serious ripcord from Trey into 46 Days.
6/18/11: Pretty standard rock 46 Days > Divided Sky.
6/18/11: Great take on Divided Sky...followed by Curtis Loew!!
6/18/11: Looks like Antelope is going to close the set.
6/18/11: Set two opens with Twist. What is this, 2015?!
6/18/11: Slow, deliberate take on Twist. Developing slowly. Lots of good interplay.
6/18/11: That was just about as much quality Twist as you can pack into seven minutes. Rift is next.
6/18/11: Prince Caspian seems like an odd choice.
6/18/11: This one's getting extended a bit though, into what almost seems like a Simple jam, with Trey and Page paralleling each other.
6/18/11: Ambient drone now from Trey.
6/18/11: -> Esther! That was neat.
6/18/11: I always forget how creepy this song is.
6/18/11: Trey bringing Brian Brown out on stage after Esther.
6/18/11: Trey getting Mike to ring the fight bell now.
6/18/11: Okay, I have never heard this Been Caught Stealing cover before, but it is hilarious and awesome.
6/18/11: Piper is next.
6/18/11: Lots of pitch-shifted noodling from Trey in this Piper jam.
6/18/11: Page was just taking that jam to a pretty interesting place with his synth, but Trey pulled a -> MFMF. Which is cool, I guess.
6/18/11: MFMF > KDF.
6/18/11: A little extra mustard on that KDF, especially for late S2.
6/18/11: Late-set SOAM is opening up into a really melodic bliss jam, of all things.
6/18/11: Page keeping an ominous-sounding piano riff going in the background.
6/18/11: We've departed pretty much completely now from the SOAM structure and are Type II. Very rhythm-heavy.
6/18/11: A lot of Trey's soloing up to this point seemed sort of wandering and aimless, but maybe you're into that sort of thing.
6/18/11: Really grungy guitar now.
6/18/11: Return to the theme now. That was really weird, and possibly good. Will probably have to listen again.
6/18/11: Golgi.
6/18/11: Aaaand First Tube will close S2.
6/18/11: GTBT to close.
6/18/11: A weird show, but between 6/17 and this show, it at least feels like the band is *trying* to make something happen now.
2011-06-17 Charlotte
The Verdict:
In my opinion, this show is not nearly good enough to deserve the high praise it's apparently gotten elsewhere, but it is a step back in the right direction after some serious doldrums. Between this show and 6/18, I'm hoping we'll at least head into Super Ball with some momentum.
The first set starts off a bit rough, to be honest. Things get tighter further in (that's what she said), but really it's a typical 2011 first set: neat songs, but nothing to really sink your teeth into. Your mileage might vary if you really enjoy "Forbin's" > "Mockingbird," or if you're thrilled to hear the 300th average-great version of "Wolfman's."
Griping aside, though, things actually get mildly interesting in the second set. "Number Line" opens, and is actually a pretty ripping version. The highlight of the show, though, and I suspect the reason for much of the rejoicing, is the "Rock and Roll" > "Ghost" combo. Both of these get jammed out, and get to some interesting places, and while they would likely be considered run-of-the-mill jams anytime after 2012 or anytime before 2009, in this context they are awesome.
Phish - 6/17/11 "Jam > Ghost" from Phish on Vimeo.
The rest of the set is a little gaggy (as in, full of gags, not so bad you gag), with "Icculus" being followed by "HYHU" > "Bike" > "HYHU," but the "YEM" that ends the set is probably the best version in a tour that's been sort of choked with them so far.
So, yeah. It's a pretty good 2011 show with a few surprise Gamehendge tunes and a serious highlight in "Rock and Roll" > "Ghost," but nothing to lose your mind over. Unless you compare it to the last ten or so shows, in which case WOOOOOOW.
The Live Review:
6/17/11: Showtime! Mike's Song opener.
6/17/11: Mike's > Hydrogen.
6/17/11: Trey struggling a lot tonight. Big flubs already in Mike's and Hydrogen. > Groove.
6/17/11: Bouncin' is next. We're not exactly off to a raging start, here.
6/17/11: NICU > Sample. Is this a festival set?!
6/17/11: Ahh...Colonel Forbin's! Nice.
6/17/11: Super-short narration: 'I don't want to give it away...but I think you all know who this is...'
6/17/11: Mockingbird, then a quick breather before Axila I.
6/17/11: Wolfman's. Finally a chance for some leg-stretching. Maybe.
6/17/11: Nice little funk jam developing, actually.
6/17/11: Good ol' rock and roll peak to wrap it up.
6/17/11: Scent of a Mule is next. Weird start to the duel section.
6/17/11: Some extra mustard on that Mule. Stealing Time is next.
6/17/11: Pretty standard Stealing Time to end the set.
6/17/11: Only points of interest (and that's stretching it) in S1 were Wolfman's and Scent.
6/17/11: Unless you really like seeing Forbin's > Mockingbird show up, I guess.
6/17/11: S2 kicks off with Number Line. That can't be a good sign. :)
6/17/11: Okay, in his defense, Trey just went to fucking TOWN on Number Line.
6/17/11: Rock and Roll next. Seems to be a big favorite in second sets this summer.
6/17/11: Rock and Roll getting a little jammy now.
6/17/11: Page on electric piano.
6/17/11: Trey is way up on the pitch shifter and everyone else is dancing around him. Minimal drumming. Really cool.
6/17/11: Distorted build coming now.
6/17/11: Almost like the build to the Hood peak, but with a different progression.
6/17/11: Build trails off before peaking into an ambient fade-out.
6/17/11: GHOST
6/17/11: A bit of droning intro, and some tension-building bits, and we've got a real Ghost jam on our hands, folks.
6/17/11: Great move into a huge peak. Love it.
6/17/11: Page ripping up the organ now.
6/17/11: Fade-out leads to a standard Free. Reba next.
6/17/11: Pretty standard Reba...which, of course, means that it was an awesome Reba.
6/17/11: ICCULUS
6/17/11: After ordering us to 'Read the fucking book!' Icculus wraps up and HYHU starts.
6/17/11: Fish laying down a particularly hairy vacuum solo for Bike now.
6/17/11: HYHU > Bike > HYHU
6/17/11: A late-set, shred-heavy Chalkdust leads into YEM.
6/17/11: I know I've been griping a lot lately about mediocre shows ending with YEM, but this is a particularly strong version.
6/17/11: Even if the show itself was not particularly a rager.
6/17/11: Nice Wilson, Loving Cup encore.
In my opinion, this show is not nearly good enough to deserve the high praise it's apparently gotten elsewhere, but it is a step back in the right direction after some serious doldrums. Between this show and 6/18, I'm hoping we'll at least head into Super Ball with some momentum.
The first set starts off a bit rough, to be honest. Things get tighter further in (that's what she said), but really it's a typical 2011 first set: neat songs, but nothing to really sink your teeth into. Your mileage might vary if you really enjoy "Forbin's" > "Mockingbird," or if you're thrilled to hear the 300th average-great version of "Wolfman's."
Griping aside, though, things actually get mildly interesting in the second set. "Number Line" opens, and is actually a pretty ripping version. The highlight of the show, though, and I suspect the reason for much of the rejoicing, is the "Rock and Roll" > "Ghost" combo. Both of these get jammed out, and get to some interesting places, and while they would likely be considered run-of-the-mill jams anytime after 2012 or anytime before 2009, in this context they are awesome.
Phish - 6/17/11 "Jam > Ghost" from Phish on Vimeo.
The rest of the set is a little gaggy (as in, full of gags, not so bad you gag), with "Icculus" being followed by "HYHU" > "Bike" > "HYHU," but the "YEM" that ends the set is probably the best version in a tour that's been sort of choked with them so far.
So, yeah. It's a pretty good 2011 show with a few surprise Gamehendge tunes and a serious highlight in "Rock and Roll" > "Ghost," but nothing to lose your mind over. Unless you compare it to the last ten or so shows, in which case WOOOOOOW.
The Live Review:
6/17/11: Showtime! Mike's Song opener.
6/17/11: Mike's > Hydrogen.
6/17/11: Trey struggling a lot tonight. Big flubs already in Mike's and Hydrogen. > Groove.
6/17/11: Bouncin' is next. We're not exactly off to a raging start, here.
6/17/11: NICU > Sample. Is this a festival set?!
6/17/11: Ahh...Colonel Forbin's! Nice.
6/17/11: Super-short narration: 'I don't want to give it away...but I think you all know who this is...'
6/17/11: Mockingbird, then a quick breather before Axila I.
6/17/11: Wolfman's. Finally a chance for some leg-stretching. Maybe.
6/17/11: Nice little funk jam developing, actually.
6/17/11: Good ol' rock and roll peak to wrap it up.
6/17/11: Scent of a Mule is next. Weird start to the duel section.
6/17/11: Some extra mustard on that Mule. Stealing Time is next.
6/17/11: Pretty standard Stealing Time to end the set.
6/17/11: Only points of interest (and that's stretching it) in S1 were Wolfman's and Scent.
6/17/11: Unless you really like seeing Forbin's > Mockingbird show up, I guess.
6/17/11: S2 kicks off with Number Line. That can't be a good sign. :)
6/17/11: Okay, in his defense, Trey just went to fucking TOWN on Number Line.
6/17/11: Rock and Roll next. Seems to be a big favorite in second sets this summer.
6/17/11: Rock and Roll getting a little jammy now.
6/17/11: Page on electric piano.
6/17/11: Trey is way up on the pitch shifter and everyone else is dancing around him. Minimal drumming. Really cool.
6/17/11: Distorted build coming now.
6/17/11: Almost like the build to the Hood peak, but with a different progression.
6/17/11: Build trails off before peaking into an ambient fade-out.
6/17/11: GHOST
6/17/11: A bit of droning intro, and some tension-building bits, and we've got a real Ghost jam on our hands, folks.
6/17/11: Great move into a huge peak. Love it.
6/17/11: Page ripping up the organ now.
6/17/11: Fade-out leads to a standard Free. Reba next.
6/17/11: Pretty standard Reba...which, of course, means that it was an awesome Reba.
6/17/11: ICCULUS
6/17/11: After ordering us to 'Read the fucking book!' Icculus wraps up and HYHU starts.
6/17/11: Fish laying down a particularly hairy vacuum solo for Bike now.
6/17/11: HYHU > Bike > HYHU
6/17/11: A late-set, shred-heavy Chalkdust leads into YEM.
6/17/11: I know I've been griping a lot lately about mediocre shows ending with YEM, but this is a particularly strong version.
6/17/11: Even if the show itself was not particularly a rager.
6/17/11: Nice Wilson, Loving Cup encore.
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