2012-06-23 Burgettstown

The Verdict:
If my one complaint about the reemergence of jam-heavy Phish during 6/22's show was that the jams weren't allowed to develop (and it was), 6/23's show goes a long way toward addressing that complaint.

The first set is perfectly delivered summer-lawn Phish. The setlist flows perfectly, the playing is high-energy throughout, and the set ends with a "YEM" that pretty much caused my feet to want to burst into flames six years after the fact, while I was standing at my desk at work. Notably, "Scent of a Mule" gets weird during the duel section, and Page busts out the theremin briefly...other than that, though, it's just a really fun set with no particular highlights but a constant enthusiasm that made me smile a lot while listening.

Sure, the second set opens up with "Jibboo," but things really get rolling after that. The sequence starting with "Mike's Song" and ending with "Seven Below" is quite possibly my favorite bit of music from this year so far. Trey goes so rock and roll during "Mike's" that the band can't decide when to wrap the song up, but when they do, it's to move into a "Simple" that features a more-beautiful-than-usual outro jam and then an ambient space that develops briefly before moving into "Light." "Light" is the clear highlight here, with a minor-key Floydian jam leading to a plinko space. It feels like it's abandoned for the return to "Groove" too soon, but then "Groove" itself rides a series of teases and some off-kilter (in a good way) playing into a standard ending, and then a totally bizarre and abstract after-song jam that fades after two or so minutes into "Seven Below." It, too, gets this semi-deconstructed treatment, and the result is nearly an hour of extremely experimental playing from the band after a series of shows where they seemed to be content to stay in the box. No more box, says I!

An particularly delicate take on "Slave" and a "Lizards" encore is the icing on the cake of what I'm going to call the first truly great show of 2012.

The Live Review:
6/23/12: Funky Bitch opener. Can't argue with that.  
6/23/12: Whole band just killing this version. Great opener.  
6/23/12: > Number Line
6/23/12: Yeah! What happened to playing this at the *beginning* of a show?! Much better than ten minutes into a thirty minute Tweezer...  
6/23/12: Gumbo next. Great song choices so far.  
6/23/12: > Maze. High-energy set so far.
6/23/12: Is Maze never not just pretty great?  
6/23/12: Finally a slight breather after a huge Maze ending.  
6/23/12: Torn and Frayed.  
6/23/12: A bit more mustard on the outro solo than usual here.  
6/23/12: Another brief break, then Moma Dance.  
6/23/12: I think if I was trying to give someone who'd never heard Phish before the less-than-seven minute introduc… https://t.co/Mwn5MVivqz  
6/23/12: I would definitely not pick Scent of a Mule.  
6/23/12: Which, incidentally, is what's playing after Moma.  
6/23/12: Mule Duel section picking up the tempo.  
6/23/12: Things getting weird. Crescendo section got way extended, and now I believe Page is playing the theremin.  
6/23/12: After that weird Scent, Trey just lit into 46 Days like it killed his pa.  
6/23/12: YEM to close a great opening set.  
6/23/12: Well-placed Scent tease in the middle of the YEM jam.  
6/23/12: That was about as good as a Phish set gets without any 'real' jamming.  
6/23/12: Really...umm...'percussive' vocal jam.  
6/23/12: End set.  
6/23/12: Jibboo opens the second set.  
6/23/12: I think Trey forgetting the words to Jibboo is the funniest lyrical flub I've ever heard. The song literally has six words in it.  
6/23/12: Okay, maybe seven?  
6/23/12: Concise take on Jibboo > Mike's.
6/23/12: Trey almost accidentally second-jammed that, he was going so crazy on the gee-tar.  
6/23/12: Mike's > Simple.
6/23/12: Really pretty bass-led jam now.  
6/23/12: Ambient jam now. Page adding some great synth-y effects.  
6/23/12: A bit sinister.  
6/23/12: This reminds me of the noise jam at the end of the '09 Gorge Hood.  
6/23/12: > Light.
6/23/12: Trey using loops after the initial arpeggio-palooza. Eerie minor-key jam.  
6/23/12: Floyd-style jam happening now.  
6/23/12: Plinko is happening now. Great jam.  
6/23/12: This is so cool. Trey playing melody over the plinko jam now.  
6/23/12: At the peak of the chaos, jam segues into Weekapaug Groove.  
6/23/12: Loops and such still going in the background.  
6/23/12: Pretty sure Trey just teased Divided Sky in Groove.  
6/23/12: Slowing down the tempo, adding more loops. Surprisingly experimental Groove here.  
6/23/12: Weird, arrhythmic after-song jam.  
6/23/12: Weird Nothing Jam > Seven Below
6/23/12: Groove tease by Page in Seven Below.  
6/23/12: The delightful unhinged-ness of this set continues through Seven Below.  
6/23/12: Bouncing is next. I'm going to assume they'll play this straight. If Trey starts looping I'm just going to hit STOP.  
6/23/12: > Julius.
6/23/12: Solid take on Julius leads into Slave.  
6/23/12: If I had twelve minutes to introduce someone to Phish, I might choose Slave as my song.  
6/23/12: Excellent lead in to the jam from Mike on this version.  
6/23/12: End second set. Whew, that was pretty good, guys.  
6/23/12: Lizards encore! Great Scott!  
6/23/12: Trey forgot the second verse, but the audience reminded him.  
6/23/12: Crowdsourcing ftw.   
6/23/12: Page is annihilating his solo.  
6/23/12: Lizards is a really good encore song. I wish they'd use it in that position more often.  
6/23/12: Actually heard my first-ever live Lizards as an encore song on 9/2/17. Unfortunately the effect was a litt… https://t.co/loRECLh64a    

2012-06-22 Cincinnati

The Verdict:
In the midst of the Riverbend show, the band hits a groove they've been sort of stumbling around outside of since...DCU, maybe? The tour opener? I dunno. All I know is that I like this show a lot.

For the first few songs, the band has some trouble finding its collective rhythm; on the other hand, in terms of song choice and energy they come out of the gates blazing and never really let up. "Wolfman's" > "Peaches" is just a great pairing, and the "Shaggy Dog" > "Jim" > "Light Up..." > "Wilson" sequence just keeps things rolling. "Light Up Or Leave Me Alone" in particular features Trey absolutely throwing down as the brief take morphs into a Type II jam.

After the breather that is "Alaska," the rest of the set proceeds with a series of rare tunes instigated by Fish and Trey trying to think of songs that start with Fish's drums before closing things with an extended but somewhat wandering "Bowie."

Set two is a frustrating, stop-start affair that nonetheless hints at improvisational brilliance at a number of points. Of course, the most frustrating ripcords are the ones that abort promising jams. And that happens a lot here.

"Disease" starts off with a beautifully propulsive jam that develops into something mellower just before getting aborted for "Guelah." A "KDF" with an ambient ending sets up a gorgeous "Twist" jam that starts dark and then modulates into a proto-2015-bliss jam before sputtering and getting cut in favor of "Halley's."

"Sand" finds a rock-solid groove but then crashes awkwardly into "Roggae" instead of continuing to explore it. And, finally, "Carini" launches into a deconstruction-style jam...that is quickly "resolved" by another car-crash segue into "Chalkdust."

Overall, these hints at improvisational brilliance are more satisfying than a show like 6/19's straightforwardness...it's just frustrating to see them get cut short one after another, and in such obvious out-of-sync fashion. 


The Live Review:
6/22/12: Cincinnati show kicks off with Wolfman's Brother.  
6/22/12: Nice, clav-led groove established early on.  
6/22/12: Some deft soloing from Trey makes that a great take on Wolfman's to open the show. > Peaches.
6/22/12: Shaggy Dog!  
6/22/12: > Jim. Band sounding oddly out of sync on a few songs so far.
6/22/12: Page was off time a bit for a chunk of Peaches, and now everyone's struggling with Jim.  
6/22/12: Syncing up a bit better as the song goes on.  
6/22/12: Some more fantastic playing from Trey as the band works Jim up to a boil.  
6/22/12: Timing issues aside, this is a heck of a way to open a set, especially for 2012.  
6/22/12: Light Up Or Leave Me Alone!  
6/22/12: Light Up pretty much immediately morphs into a pretty Type II jam. Wow.  
6/22/12: Page laying down a great canvas with the electric piano.  
6/22/12: On-a-dime > Wilson.
6/22/12: Alaska.  
6/22/12: Particularly languid jam in Alaska. So languid that I apparently stopped listening for like 90 minutes.  
6/22/12: Stash is next.   
6/22/12: Nice little tension section in the middle of Stash there.  
6/22/12: After Stash, a false start on what sounds like it was supposed to be Poor Heart.  
6/22/12: Now Trey starts up Moma Dance then stops it, apparently to give Fishman shit.  
6/22/12: Fishman starts with Llama, and the rest of the band (messily) jumps in.  
6/22/12: 'Another one that starts with the drums' is Buffalo Bill.  
6/22/12: Streak of drum-led songs continues with Saw It Again.  
6/22/12: Streak continues yet further with Bowie, possibly to close the set.  
6/22/12: Bowie is being played well, but is wandering a bit in the middle. Band picking up the intensity a bit at a… https://t.co/HQQdOxC1zr  
6/22/12: End set.  
6/22/12: That set was a great mix of Type I jams and a lot of neat rarities. Felt like a quintessential summer lawn opening set.  
6/22/12: Set two starts with Disease.  
6/22/12: Trey kicks off the Disease jam with a great lick and then a bunch of awesome building guitar work. Damn.  
6/22/12: Bass-led section now. Mellowing out a little.  
6/22/12: Jam gets oddly cut by Guelah Papyrus.  
6/22/12: KDF after Guelah.  
6/22/12: Standard KDF ends with a nonstandard (though brief) loops-and-noise jam. > Twist.
6/22/12: Twist gets weird almost right away. That's a good sign.  
6/22/12: Band still dancing around the song's main progression, but doing so in really interesting ways.  
6/22/12: Page's organ signals the end of Type I. Trey now mirroring his own riff using loops.  
6/22/12: Really dark jam unfolding now.  
6/22/12: Dark jam building up to a poppy chord progression...holy shit did we just time travel to 2015?!  
6/22/12: Great jam. Fizzled kind of suddenly. Halley's next.  
6/22/12: Nice, quick Halley's > Sand segue.  
6/22/12: Solid funk groove happening here.  
6/22/12: Plinko-leaning now.  
6/22/12: I've neglected to mention just how nuts Fishman has been during this show. Destroying Sand right now.  
6/22/12: Trey hijacks the Sand groove for a sort-of -> Roggae.
6/22/12: So, as I'm often saying about these mid-3.0 shows: great segue, but also there was literally nothing wrong… https://t.co/RsAnPhgoiY  
6/22/12: Carini after Roggae is a weird choice.  
6/22/12: Carini jam getting a little out of sync...  
6/22/12: Awkwardness is 'resolved' by a really sudden move into Chalkdust. Huh.  
6/22/12: Looks like Golgi will round out set two.  
6/22/12: Great run of songs in the second set by 2012 standards. Some interesting bits of improvisation here and th… https://t.co/zDFNVprkj4  
6/22/12: Show would likely get ripped apart these days, though, for the ripcord out of Disease, the aborted ambient… https://t.co/VeTCUcPx2g  
6/22/12: If you prefer to see those as segues, then it's a much better set :)  
6/22/12: Fluffhead encore doesn't hurt, either.    

2012-06-20 Portsmouth II

The Verdict:
The second Portsmouth show is similar to the first. If you can get over the lack of sustained, long-form improvisation, there's a solid Type I Phish show buried in here somewhere.

The first set is a well-paced and nicely rarity-laden thing ("Sparkle," "Ha Ha Ha," "Dog Log," "Bold As Love"). The songs that aren't as much of a surprise are still played well, and the "Cities" -> "Ya Mar" segue is notably smooth.

The second set doesn't really get any deeper, but there's a lot of good playing nonetheless. There's a tension-filled jam out of "Rock and Roll" followed by a similar tension-heavy bit of improv in "Tweezer" if you're into that sort of thing. I'd recommend giving both a listen.

The rest of the set is solidly played and maintains a high level of energy, but for me the clear focus is the "Hood" -> "WTU?" sequence. I'd have loved to see this come back to finish "Hood," but the few minutes of angry, spacey, un-"Hood"-like ambiance that leads into the segue, the segue itself, and then the old-school, crashing take on "WTU?" is just fantastic.

Here, you can watch it (and the whole second set) if you want!

 

The Live Review:
6/20/12: Sparkle opener. How have I never thought of that before?  
6/20/12: Sparkle being played at 2017 tempo, oddly.  
6/20/12: Ha Ha Ha!  
6/20/12: Alright. After that weird start to the show, we settle into a more traditional AC/DC Bag.  
6/20/12: Some great interplay between Trey and Page during this outro jam.  
6/20/12: There might not be the '17-style monster jams in these '12 shows, but damn if 'typical' takes on songs lik… https://t.co/muXV5dPmvz  
6/20/12: Dear present-day Phish: please play more shows and practice more together.  
6/20/12: Trilling ending > Divided Sky.
6/20/12: Smooth DSky so far.  
6/20/12: Dog Log! Lots of rarities getting trotted out here (pun intended).  
6/20/12: Dog Log just segued into a little jazzy piano jam. Does that normally happen? I don't listen to Dog Log all that often...  
6/20/12: It was neat, regardless.  
6/20/12: Clav-heavy Undermind next.  
6/20/12: Is it fair to say that every version of Undermind should just be the UIC Undermind?  
6/20/12: This brief takes fades into Mike's Song.  
6/20/12: Every once in awhile, Trey will hit the wrong final chord right before Mike's drops into the bass-led intr… https://t.co/AjUox0XB3U  
6/20/12: Oh, and then sometimes he also missed the chord that ends the jam, which is even worse. Also also, > Hydrogen.  
6/20/12: Some legit Trey shredding on this version of Groove after a buildup featuring particularly sharp piano fills from Page.  
6/20/12: Cities!  
6/20/12: Unfortunately, it's the short version. But it's still always great to hear Cities.  
6/20/12: Neat riff from Trey during the outro, though.  
6/20/12: Riff sets up a *great* -> Ya Mar. Nice.
6/20/12: Bold As Love keeps the rarity train rolling.   
6/20/12: Looks like Julius will end the first set.  
6/20/12: I forgot just how many goddamn songs are in the first set of a 2012 show.  
6/20/12: Set two kicks off with Rock and Roll.  
6/20/12: Type I RnR jam fades out at around the ten minute mark and goes ambient, with Page playing the piano over noise.  
6/20/12: > Tweezer.
6/20/12: Great, tension-y Type I jam in Tweezer.  
6/20/12: > Free
6/20/12: I somewhat messy Free rolls right into Guyute.  
6/20/12: Trey is shredding the shit out of Birds right now.  
6/20/12: Mid-set Hood. Interesting choice.  
6/20/12: Really ghostly, echo-y Hood jam. Almost rhythmless.  
6/20/12: Lots of bass bombs and gauzy feedback now.  
6/20/12: -> What's the Use?
6/20/12: Fantastic segue. My only regret is that Hood likely won't ever be finished now.  
6/20/12: I vote that they finish it on 7/22/18.  
6/20/12: Page-led outro to WTU? segues into Velvet Sea.  
6/20/12: Really lively take on Possum late in the second set.  
6/20/12: And, apparently by 'late in the second set' I meant 'it's the last song of the second set.'  
6/20/12: Trey teasing the Star Wars theme before the encore. Sleeping Monkey now.  
6/20/12: HOW THE HELL DID THIS MONKEY GET ON THIS TRAIN IN THE FIRST PLACE TRAINS ARE NOT A PLACE FOR MONKEYS  
6/20/12: > Tweeprise
6/20/12: Fish demanding to go home on the train during the lead-in to Tweeprise.  
6/20/12: End show.  
6/20/12: Pretty typical early 2012 show, all told. No real sustained Type II jams at all.  
6/20/12: First set had some interesting rarities and the Cities -> Ya Mar segue was great.
6/20/12: Second set had some solid Type I jamming, with the easy highlight being the last few minutes of Hood up th… https://t.co/MBUqgwAb8j