Whoop here it is. A few final and very brief thoughts on each show from this leg. I'm already two shows into Late Summer Tour '09, and if it continues in the vein it's in now, none of Early Summer Tour will ever matter again because Red Rocks is blowing away any of the shows I've heard in 3.0 so far. But, for posterity, here's a brief series of thoughts on stuff and things.
3/6: Good for the historic opening "Fluffhead," a spacey, whale-y "Stash," and a seriously top-shelf "Tweezer."
3/7: Great song choice and flow for this one. Highlights are "Rock and Roll" > "Limb by Limb" and "Ghost."
3/8: Best show of the run, combining the strengths of the first two nights. "Disease" > "Seven Below," "Twist" > "Piper."
5/31: Workmanlike. Nothing to see here but a suddenly stellar "Tweezer."
6/2: Wrote in my notes: "really bad." "If I Could" and and ambient "Hood" are the only highlights.
6/4: Great first set, but not much else. "Ghost" and "Drowned" > "Meatstick."
6/5: Meh. "Twist" > "Piper" is the only highlight.
6/6: Just a nice rock and roll show. No songs worth mentioning.
6/7: Best show of the run, almost for sure. "Fee" and "The Wedge" have outro jams, "Sand" is a monster, "Suzy," "Tweezer" are also highlights.
6/9: Consistent but not amazing. "Number Line" > "Ghost."
6/10: Workmanlike. Nothin'.
6/12: 'Roo 1-set show. "Disease," "Kill Devil Falls," and "YEM" > "Wilson" > "YEM" sandwich are highlights.
6/14: Long, energetic show with no real jams. "Tweezer" > "Horse" > "Silent" and "Rock and Roll" > "Light" are highlights.
6/16: Great, song-based playing. "Halley's" jam!
6/18: Same, but "Tube" jam, and a good "Piper."
6/19: Second best, only bested by Camden. "ASIHTOS" > "Drowned", "Tweezer" > "2001" are highlights.
6/20: Meh. "Ghost" > "The Lizards" and a truncated "YEM" > "NICU" are neat.
6/21: Equal to 6/19 in quality. Great tour closer. "Crosseyed" > "Disease" and "Piper" are awesome (especially "Piper"!). "Frankenstein" ends the tour on a great note.
Showing posts with label 2009 Summer I. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2009 Summer I. Show all posts
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 19, 2013
2009-06-21 Alpine II
Well, here we are at the end of Summer Tour '09 Leg One. Honestly, I'd figured when I started listening at Hampton that I'd get bored and give up within a few shows, but this has been legitimately interesting, both from a musical perspective and an historical one, and I'm hoping to make it through the rest of '09 at least before this year's summer tour kicks off and I get inundated by listening to Phish music that hasn't actually happened yet. If anything, this listening project has made it clear to me for the first time exactly how fucking much Phish there is out there to listen to, and it's fun to imagine going through the '10 tours next, and then '11 and '12, and then maybe going through all of 2.0, and a bunch of the archival LivePhish releases that I haven't heard yet. Then, once I've exhausted all of the soundboards I have, I could dive into The Spreadsheet and start listening to some of the more well-known runs of Phish (summer '94, fall '97, etc.) in their entirety for the first time...
Even listening at the rate I've been listening lately (and I think I'm going to have to back off a bit from that as I am getting a bit burnt out and wanting to listen to other music more often), we're talking years and years of entirely new music, and that's not even counting the times I could skim back over my show notes and say "Aha! I really would like to hear that Hampton "Tweezer" again!" This shit is huge, guys. And it appears I'm just getting started.
Speaking of beginnings, here's where the boys' first leg of their reunion tour ends. Alpine II, judged by many to be one of the best if not the best of the leg, though to me it's probably on par with Deer Creek and a few notches below Camden. Here's why!
I love "Brother," and having here as the opener is excellent. It's not a particularly unique or noteworthy reading, but it's "Brother," and it's awesome. The "Wolfman's" that follows is straightforward and surprisingly unfunky. Trey unloads a lot of typical guitar-god shredding, and we move on. Thankfully, someone apparently requested "Funky Bitch," because Page and Mike really jump on the funk here. Page makes this version, and I love it. There's a nice segue into "Divided Sky," but it's another of those momentum-killing early-first-set "Divided Sky"s that I love to bitch about. Bitch bitch (funky) bitch. This version does include a rather extended "jam" section at the end, featuring a brief bit of Treynnihilation that sounds almost like '93 or '94 instead of '09. "Joy" is a terrible follow-up to "Divided Sky," but it's a good song as long as its not overplayed...so I guess I'm ambivalent about its appearance here. You can pretty much guess at the content of the middle section of this song-stuffed first set by looking at the setlist, but things start to get interesting again with a brief but gorgeous "TMWSIY" > "Avenu Malkenu" > "TMWSIY" sandwich...aaaand then there's "TTE" to close out the set. Almost like a "really old song/really new song" thing going on there at the end. Overall, the first set is one of those "Let's see how many songs we can fit into 80 minutes" sets, and as a result, the flow suffers quite a bit. Nothing really careens around outside of its usual structure, and so the result is a set that's hardly nothing to be ashamed of from a technical standpoint but hardly anything to be excited about from a listener's standpoint.
The second set, on the other hand, makes up quite a bit for the shortcomings of the first. We open with "Crosseyed and Painless," another of my favorite Phish covers and one that often leads to deep space. This particular "Crosseyed" follows the now-blueprint of some of the better jams of this leg: Type I soloing from Trey all the way until the final 3-4 minutes of the song, when there's a sudden left turn into a spacey-ambienty sort of place, followed by a brilliant segue. The requisite spaciness at the end of the "Crosseyed" jam is extra abstract, featuring a lot of droning and arrhythmic chording, but, like many of these jams so far in 3.0, not featuring any overall theme or momentum or coherent structure. To me, this is the difference between these early 3.0 space jams and ones like the '11 Gorge "Rock and Roll": whereas that jam lasts nearly 20 minutes and moves through a number of clearly stated ideas while still succeeding in being abstract and at times ambient, these earlier jams don't have that trajectory, so while they're fun to listen to, they're fun for about 2-3 minutes. Then the novelty wears off and you're waiting for the next song to begin. Fortunately, the band seems to realize this (unlike in some of the worse 2.0 jams), and right when these jams are starting to fizzle, they often transition into a new song. That happens here, with a beautiful segue into "Disease."
"Disease" follows the same pattern as "Crosseyed": it rides on Trey's powerful soloing for 11 minutes of its 13 minute length, then turns a sudden corner and spends a few minutes almost reprising the space jam at the end of "Crosseyed." It's neat to see Phish doing such abstract improvisation this early in their return, but at this point I'm also feeling a bit like "Yeah, we get it. Can you do something else now, please?". Though I imagine if I weren't listening to all of these shows back-to-back-to-back over the course of a few weeks I might feel differently. Anyway, Mike and Page finish off "Disease," Mike with that extra-sticky swamp bass and Page with some organ that recalls Zep's "No Quarter." Then we slam into a standard reading of "Bug," which turns into a "Piper" which, for my money, is the best jam of the second half of this leg (if not of the leg in its entirety).
The "Piper" jam is really what elevates this show from good to great. Everything else that comes out of this show we've already heard before, and often in more inspired incarnations. But this is new, and awesome. The jam almost immediately moves into space-funk territory, with Trey's Story of a Ghost-style strumming overlaying a driving beat from Fish. After a bit, Page starts putting some very low organ notes underneath this template, raising the Sinister Level from 0 to about 75. Things get more and more dissonant, tonally and otherwise, until the wheels come off completely in the most beautiful way possible. This "Piper" sounds like the breakthrough that the band repeatedly wasn't reaching in all those previous space jams that sputtered out at the 3-4 minute mark for the last few weeks. This is a great note to end the tour on because it feels like a sonic breakthrough...plus, it's just a damn great jam that's worth a few relistens.
The rest of the show, honestly, is just filler, albeit strong filler. There's a patient, building "Slave" in the vein of many of the "Hood"s we've heard lately, a proto-plinko "Boogie On," and the tour closing "Frankenstein," with a lot of extra Wall of Noise, which actually makes this one of my favorite versions. But it's that "Piper" that really matters, that really makes me excited for what's going to happen in leg two.
But not so excited that I'm going to listen right now. There's other music in the world, folks!
Even listening at the rate I've been listening lately (and I think I'm going to have to back off a bit from that as I am getting a bit burnt out and wanting to listen to other music more often), we're talking years and years of entirely new music, and that's not even counting the times I could skim back over my show notes and say "Aha! I really would like to hear that Hampton "Tweezer" again!" This shit is huge, guys. And it appears I'm just getting started.
Speaking of beginnings, here's where the boys' first leg of their reunion tour ends. Alpine II, judged by many to be one of the best if not the best of the leg, though to me it's probably on par with Deer Creek and a few notches below Camden. Here's why!
I love "Brother," and having here as the opener is excellent. It's not a particularly unique or noteworthy reading, but it's "Brother," and it's awesome. The "Wolfman's" that follows is straightforward and surprisingly unfunky. Trey unloads a lot of typical guitar-god shredding, and we move on. Thankfully, someone apparently requested "Funky Bitch," because Page and Mike really jump on the funk here. Page makes this version, and I love it. There's a nice segue into "Divided Sky," but it's another of those momentum-killing early-first-set "Divided Sky"s that I love to bitch about. Bitch bitch (funky) bitch. This version does include a rather extended "jam" section at the end, featuring a brief bit of Treynnihilation that sounds almost like '93 or '94 instead of '09. "Joy" is a terrible follow-up to "Divided Sky," but it's a good song as long as its not overplayed...so I guess I'm ambivalent about its appearance here. You can pretty much guess at the content of the middle section of this song-stuffed first set by looking at the setlist, but things start to get interesting again with a brief but gorgeous "TMWSIY" > "Avenu Malkenu" > "TMWSIY" sandwich...aaaand then there's "TTE" to close out the set. Almost like a "really old song/really new song" thing going on there at the end. Overall, the first set is one of those "Let's see how many songs we can fit into 80 minutes" sets, and as a result, the flow suffers quite a bit. Nothing really careens around outside of its usual structure, and so the result is a set that's hardly nothing to be ashamed of from a technical standpoint but hardly anything to be excited about from a listener's standpoint.
The second set, on the other hand, makes up quite a bit for the shortcomings of the first. We open with "Crosseyed and Painless," another of my favorite Phish covers and one that often leads to deep space. This particular "Crosseyed" follows the now-blueprint of some of the better jams of this leg: Type I soloing from Trey all the way until the final 3-4 minutes of the song, when there's a sudden left turn into a spacey-ambienty sort of place, followed by a brilliant segue. The requisite spaciness at the end of the "Crosseyed" jam is extra abstract, featuring a lot of droning and arrhythmic chording, but, like many of these jams so far in 3.0, not featuring any overall theme or momentum or coherent structure. To me, this is the difference between these early 3.0 space jams and ones like the '11 Gorge "Rock and Roll": whereas that jam lasts nearly 20 minutes and moves through a number of clearly stated ideas while still succeeding in being abstract and at times ambient, these earlier jams don't have that trajectory, so while they're fun to listen to, they're fun for about 2-3 minutes. Then the novelty wears off and you're waiting for the next song to begin. Fortunately, the band seems to realize this (unlike in some of the worse 2.0 jams), and right when these jams are starting to fizzle, they often transition into a new song. That happens here, with a beautiful segue into "Disease."
"Disease" follows the same pattern as "Crosseyed": it rides on Trey's powerful soloing for 11 minutes of its 13 minute length, then turns a sudden corner and spends a few minutes almost reprising the space jam at the end of "Crosseyed." It's neat to see Phish doing such abstract improvisation this early in their return, but at this point I'm also feeling a bit like "Yeah, we get it. Can you do something else now, please?". Though I imagine if I weren't listening to all of these shows back-to-back-to-back over the course of a few weeks I might feel differently. Anyway, Mike and Page finish off "Disease," Mike with that extra-sticky swamp bass and Page with some organ that recalls Zep's "No Quarter." Then we slam into a standard reading of "Bug," which turns into a "Piper" which, for my money, is the best jam of the second half of this leg (if not of the leg in its entirety).
The "Piper" jam is really what elevates this show from good to great. Everything else that comes out of this show we've already heard before, and often in more inspired incarnations. But this is new, and awesome. The jam almost immediately moves into space-funk territory, with Trey's Story of a Ghost-style strumming overlaying a driving beat from Fish. After a bit, Page starts putting some very low organ notes underneath this template, raising the Sinister Level from 0 to about 75. Things get more and more dissonant, tonally and otherwise, until the wheels come off completely in the most beautiful way possible. This "Piper" sounds like the breakthrough that the band repeatedly wasn't reaching in all those previous space jams that sputtered out at the 3-4 minute mark for the last few weeks. This is a great note to end the tour on because it feels like a sonic breakthrough...plus, it's just a damn great jam that's worth a few relistens.
The rest of the show, honestly, is just filler, albeit strong filler. There's a patient, building "Slave" in the vein of many of the "Hood"s we've heard lately, a proto-plinko "Boogie On," and the tour closing "Frankenstein," with a lot of extra Wall of Noise, which actually makes this one of my favorite versions. But it's that "Piper" that really matters, that really makes me excited for what's going to happen in leg two.
But not so excited that I'm going to listen right now. There's other music in the world, folks!
Feb 17, 2013
2009-06-20 Alpine I
After the awesome-but-not-totally-awesome near-best of early summer tour that was Deer Creek, Alpine I fell a little flat for me. It's a neat show, with high energy that permeates the playing all the way through, but where song selection and good-though-not-great improv elevated a similar show a night before, neither of those things really come into play here, so the result is yet another solid summer 2009 show that really isn't worth a backward glance in 2013 unless "Ghost" > "The Lizards" puts a smile on your face (and it should).
We kick off the first set with an oddly fiery and well-played "PYITE" (I love this song to death, but how often is it played live nowadays minus a lot of stops and starts?). There's a "Jim" that's equally high-energy, but then a loooooong "Stash" that just features a lot of aimless Trey wanking (I mean that negatively, in case that isn't obvious) and sort of stunts the momentum the first two songs built up. I love "Ya Mar" next, and Mike serious works this version over, but then "Gin" falls victim to the same problem as "Stash": too much Trey, not enough exploration. Between these two songs, the first half of this set is burdened with 25 minutes of "jamming" that's more or less a lot of Type I noodling that never coalesces around anything. I like "Train Song," and finally we get a version of "Farmhouse" where everyone remembers the chords, but that's about all worth mentioning in the rest of this set.
The second set opens with a well-played, if uninteresting, "Waves" > "Sample" pair and then a "Maze" that features some interesting work from Page (but then again, what "Maze" doesn't?). The centerpiece of this show is, arguably, the mid-set "Ghost" > "The Lizards" pairing. I had high hopes for the "Ghost," considering the "Ghost"s of early summer 2009 past, and while this one doesn't necessarily reach the heights of the others, it's a decently engaging long jam, which is something we haven't seem from the band at this point in the run for quite some time. Sadly, we don't get another multi-movement improvisational masterpiece from this "Ghost," but it's well-played and not just a simple Trey-shred-fest...and it features a hell of a segue into "The Lizards."
I also appreciate the novelty of the brief "YEM," which suddenly and smoothly moves into "NICU" at the 12:00 mark (shortly after the trampolines). This works well not just as a gimmick, and it's nice to see something interesting done with the usually monolithic (though admittedly always-enjoyable) "YEM," much like the "YEM" > "Wilson" > "YEM" sandwich we saw a few shows ago. I wish the band would still mess with these compositional sacred cows nowadays, honestly.
"NICU" has a bass solo instead of the usual "Leo" solo, and Mike rips it in his typical fashion. That in and of itself makes this a version worth mentioning. The follow-up "Caspian" is oddly euphoric and energetic, with Trey going straight into the blissed-out high-fretboard stuff and not letting up. To me, this is sort of against the spirit of the song, so it rubbed me a bit the wrong way (I like darker, murkier "Caspian" jams), but hey, it's their song, not mine...
"Fire" and "Character Zero" pair up to close the show with some guitar pyrotechnics, but this late in the run, neither is anything we haven't already heard (though, technically speaking, I suppose this is the first "Fire" of 2009).
Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed by this show, but word on the street is the Alpine II tour closer is way better, so, I suppose I should go find out...
We kick off the first set with an oddly fiery and well-played "PYITE" (I love this song to death, but how often is it played live nowadays minus a lot of stops and starts?). There's a "Jim" that's equally high-energy, but then a loooooong "Stash" that just features a lot of aimless Trey wanking (I mean that negatively, in case that isn't obvious) and sort of stunts the momentum the first two songs built up. I love "Ya Mar" next, and Mike serious works this version over, but then "Gin" falls victim to the same problem as "Stash": too much Trey, not enough exploration. Between these two songs, the first half of this set is burdened with 25 minutes of "jamming" that's more or less a lot of Type I noodling that never coalesces around anything. I like "Train Song," and finally we get a version of "Farmhouse" where everyone remembers the chords, but that's about all worth mentioning in the rest of this set.
The second set opens with a well-played, if uninteresting, "Waves" > "Sample" pair and then a "Maze" that features some interesting work from Page (but then again, what "Maze" doesn't?). The centerpiece of this show is, arguably, the mid-set "Ghost" > "The Lizards" pairing. I had high hopes for the "Ghost," considering the "Ghost"s of early summer 2009 past, and while this one doesn't necessarily reach the heights of the others, it's a decently engaging long jam, which is something we haven't seem from the band at this point in the run for quite some time. Sadly, we don't get another multi-movement improvisational masterpiece from this "Ghost," but it's well-played and not just a simple Trey-shred-fest...and it features a hell of a segue into "The Lizards."
I also appreciate the novelty of the brief "YEM," which suddenly and smoothly moves into "NICU" at the 12:00 mark (shortly after the trampolines). This works well not just as a gimmick, and it's nice to see something interesting done with the usually monolithic (though admittedly always-enjoyable) "YEM," much like the "YEM" > "Wilson" > "YEM" sandwich we saw a few shows ago. I wish the band would still mess with these compositional sacred cows nowadays, honestly.
"NICU" has a bass solo instead of the usual "Leo" solo, and Mike rips it in his typical fashion. That in and of itself makes this a version worth mentioning. The follow-up "Caspian" is oddly euphoric and energetic, with Trey going straight into the blissed-out high-fretboard stuff and not letting up. To me, this is sort of against the spirit of the song, so it rubbed me a bit the wrong way (I like darker, murkier "Caspian" jams), but hey, it's their song, not mine...
"Fire" and "Character Zero" pair up to close the show with some guitar pyrotechnics, but this late in the run, neither is anything we haven't already heard (though, technically speaking, I suppose this is the first "Fire" of 2009).
Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed by this show, but word on the street is the Alpine II tour closer is way better, so, I suppose I should go find out...
2009-06-19 Deer Creek
So, reading through others' reviews of this initial 3.0 run, the final three shows (starting with Deer Creek) were often touted as a breakthrough of sorts for the band, the point at which the quality of their playing skyrocketed and set the tone for the rest of the year. Well, I've listened to the Deer Creek show and while it certainly isn't a wall-to-wall powerhouse like Camden and it's missing a singular "deep" jam worth mentioned like Hampton III and a few of the other, earlier shows featured, it's still one of the better shows of the run thanks to its Camden-lite overall appeal.
To start, the first set just crackles with energy. It's one of those sets that just sounds like the band is having fun, and while there's no space-funk hook to hang your jam hat on, I sat through the whole thing with a huge smile on my face. "Number Line" is a great opener when played with energy, and it's a scorcher here. In fact, everything up until "Melt" pretty much crackles. Even "Water in the Sky" is a fast-tempo version that rides Page's arpeggios into foot-tapping territory. I've talked about "Melt" before, but I'll say it again: I've never heard a "Melt" jam that I like. I'm pretty sure this is on me, that it's really a good song, and the type of jamming the band goes in for on "Melt" is just a type I don't get, but on any given night I'd rather hear almost any Phish song than "Melt." The jam on this version is murky as all hell, with Trey distorting the shit out of his guitar and stretching his notes like strands of half-dried glue...it's probably badass, I'd just never know because I'm racist against "Melt" innately.
There's a little extra shredding on "The Wedge," we get a bouncy version of "The Connection" (I love me some Undermind), and the set closes with "Fluffhead," which in my mind is one of the better first set closers in the band's catalog. In a run packed with surprisingly decent first sets, this one's still a keeper, for the song choice and for the energy. I wrote this in my notes near the end of the set: "this is even a good ocelot, which is when you should start worrying that you might be losing objectivity."
The second set kicks off with "ASIHTOS," which is likely one of my top five Phish songs, so I had high hopes for the jam potential. Trey completely botches the lyrics right off the bat and never seems to satisfactorily rememeber them; however, the jam is pretty satisfying. There's some basic guitar-solo-led action up until the 8:00 mark, when suddenly Pink Floyd makes an appearance and things get much spacier. The band only stays in this space for a minute or so before Trey moves back into some high-register noodling, but the rest of the band stays in a sinister-sounding space beneath him, which makes for an interesting effect. Eventually there's a perfect Page-led segue into "Drowned," which is one of my favorite Phish covers and a perfect thematic complement to "ASIHTOS." For those reasons alone, this pair-up would be one of my favorite of the run; however, the jam out of "Drowned" is satisfyingly weird. The band starts with a little of the typical space-funk they've been playing with all summer, but then Page bridges the gap between the funk and a section that features Trey soloing over the keys with an extremely fat, oddball guitar tone while Mike brings up the back end with some sticky-sounding syrup-bass. The whole thing is just really weird and maybe doesn't "work" in a cohesive sense, but I really enjoyed it.
Right when things seems about to go off the deep end (either in a good or bad way), Trey launches into "Twist" out of nowhere (I wrote in my notes "proto-ripcord?!"). It's a decent "Twist," (ha!) with the jam leading basically right back to where the "Drowned" jam took off from. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as interesting the second time around: Trey hooks on to an interesting riff early on but doesn't stick with it, and then everyone seems to flounder for a few minutes before Trey suddenly pulls the train back into the station. It's as if things didn't quite cohere in "Drowned," so they wanted to try again, but they had less luck getting their footing on the second attempt.
It's neat to hear "Let Me Lie," in an early, Phish-y arrangement here, but it's nothing exciting.
Then there's a late-set "Tweezer"! Whoo! Page hits on a catchy piano riff right away here and everyone else adds some flourishes to it for a bit, then the final few minutes fades out into a semi-ambient space anchored by Mike's bass...then there's a great segue into "2001." The "2001" is standard for 2009 (read: it doesn't go off the deep end, but it's still way fuller and funkier than most 2011 and 2012 versions).
The second set keeps on going with an energetic segue into a "Suzy" that's like the minecart chase in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and then a "Possum" that features another one of those "quiet" jam sections. I love me some "Possum" (yes, even after all of 3.0 thus far), but I hate it in the second-set-closing spot. Whose idea was this?! Shoot them!
The show's "Sleeping Monkey" > "Tweeprise" finish is just as awesome as it looks.
I wrote a shit of a lot about this show, it appears. But that's because it's pretty damn good. Solid, energetic first set, second set with a lot of good song choices, smooth segues, and interesting little jam bits...if you're into that sort of Phish (which I am), then you'll like it a lot, I think, compared to most of this run. If you need 20 minute orbital jams to get off, this show's gonna leave you with blue balls. It actually reminds me quite a bit of an inferior version of Tahoe II from 2011, a show I loved but was apparently a huge disappointment to most "serious" Phish fans. Eh, on to Alpine!
To start, the first set just crackles with energy. It's one of those sets that just sounds like the band is having fun, and while there's no space-funk hook to hang your jam hat on, I sat through the whole thing with a huge smile on my face. "Number Line" is a great opener when played with energy, and it's a scorcher here. In fact, everything up until "Melt" pretty much crackles. Even "Water in the Sky" is a fast-tempo version that rides Page's arpeggios into foot-tapping territory. I've talked about "Melt" before, but I'll say it again: I've never heard a "Melt" jam that I like. I'm pretty sure this is on me, that it's really a good song, and the type of jamming the band goes in for on "Melt" is just a type I don't get, but on any given night I'd rather hear almost any Phish song than "Melt." The jam on this version is murky as all hell, with Trey distorting the shit out of his guitar and stretching his notes like strands of half-dried glue...it's probably badass, I'd just never know because I'm racist against "Melt" innately.
There's a little extra shredding on "The Wedge," we get a bouncy version of "The Connection" (I love me some Undermind), and the set closes with "Fluffhead," which in my mind is one of the better first set closers in the band's catalog. In a run packed with surprisingly decent first sets, this one's still a keeper, for the song choice and for the energy. I wrote this in my notes near the end of the set: "this is even a good ocelot, which is when you should start worrying that you might be losing objectivity."
The second set kicks off with "ASIHTOS," which is likely one of my top five Phish songs, so I had high hopes for the jam potential. Trey completely botches the lyrics right off the bat and never seems to satisfactorily rememeber them; however, the jam is pretty satisfying. There's some basic guitar-solo-led action up until the 8:00 mark, when suddenly Pink Floyd makes an appearance and things get much spacier. The band only stays in this space for a minute or so before Trey moves back into some high-register noodling, but the rest of the band stays in a sinister-sounding space beneath him, which makes for an interesting effect. Eventually there's a perfect Page-led segue into "Drowned," which is one of my favorite Phish covers and a perfect thematic complement to "ASIHTOS." For those reasons alone, this pair-up would be one of my favorite of the run; however, the jam out of "Drowned" is satisfyingly weird. The band starts with a little of the typical space-funk they've been playing with all summer, but then Page bridges the gap between the funk and a section that features Trey soloing over the keys with an extremely fat, oddball guitar tone while Mike brings up the back end with some sticky-sounding syrup-bass. The whole thing is just really weird and maybe doesn't "work" in a cohesive sense, but I really enjoyed it.
Right when things seems about to go off the deep end (either in a good or bad way), Trey launches into "Twist" out of nowhere (I wrote in my notes "proto-ripcord?!"). It's a decent "Twist," (ha!) with the jam leading basically right back to where the "Drowned" jam took off from. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as interesting the second time around: Trey hooks on to an interesting riff early on but doesn't stick with it, and then everyone seems to flounder for a few minutes before Trey suddenly pulls the train back into the station. It's as if things didn't quite cohere in "Drowned," so they wanted to try again, but they had less luck getting their footing on the second attempt.
It's neat to hear "Let Me Lie," in an early, Phish-y arrangement here, but it's nothing exciting.
Then there's a late-set "Tweezer"! Whoo! Page hits on a catchy piano riff right away here and everyone else adds some flourishes to it for a bit, then the final few minutes fades out into a semi-ambient space anchored by Mike's bass...then there's a great segue into "2001." The "2001" is standard for 2009 (read: it doesn't go off the deep end, but it's still way fuller and funkier than most 2011 and 2012 versions).
The second set keeps on going with an energetic segue into a "Suzy" that's like the minecart chase in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and then a "Possum" that features another one of those "quiet" jam sections. I love me some "Possum" (yes, even after all of 3.0 thus far), but I hate it in the second-set-closing spot. Whose idea was this?! Shoot them!
The show's "Sleeping Monkey" > "Tweeprise" finish is just as awesome as it looks.
I wrote a shit of a lot about this show, it appears. But that's because it's pretty damn good. Solid, energetic first set, second set with a lot of good song choices, smooth segues, and interesting little jam bits...if you're into that sort of Phish (which I am), then you'll like it a lot, I think, compared to most of this run. If you need 20 minute orbital jams to get off, this show's gonna leave you with blue balls. It actually reminds me quite a bit of an inferior version of Tahoe II from 2011, a show I loved but was apparently a huge disappointment to most "serious" Phish fans. Eh, on to Alpine!
Feb 10, 2013
2009-06-18 Star Lake
So, word on the street is that the last three shows of this first leg of 2009 summer tour are a pretty dramatic transition for the band in terms of improvisational quality. If that's the case, then the fourth-to-last show is by no means a sign of things to come.
As I feel like I've been saying a lot lately, it's by no means a bad show, but it doesn't really offer up anything (save a surprisingly fun, goof-off encore, maybe) that makes it worth coming back to over three years after the fact.
We start off, as seems par for the course lately, a few high-energy song-y songs: fun, but nothing special. The "Wolfman's" has a little extra mustard on it thanks to a serious keys workout from Page in the first half and some follow-up shredding from Trey in the second half.
I don't know what's up with the early first-set "Divided Sky"s, but I wish they would stop. I love this song, but playing it at this point in the show is a killer...in a bad way.
"Sky" is followed by a weird "Heavy Things," where it sort of sounds like Trey is trying to solo his way off the beaten path, but fails at it and reins things in for a standard jam for the last few minutes of the song. Fortunately, next we get the rare, non-segued "Walk Away." This is one of my favorite Phish covers, and this is an excellent version.
Here's what I wrote about the "Tube" in my notes: "this tube is the real deal, super-funk madness good. seriously. holy shit mike and page...holy shit everybody." I'm a happy guy when there's a good "Halley's" or "Tube" jam, and now there've been both two nights in a row. This "Tube" is another one of those great examples of why you don't need a 20 minute version of a song to build a good jam. We're under 10 minutes here, and there's more to dig into than there often is in much longer jams. Unfortunately, "Tube" is followed by a "Bowie" that is just absolutely butchered. Like, the band just leaves out an entire chunk of the song because they get so out of sync. I've never heard this happen before in years of listening to Phish. They recover okay, with a little ambient washout that leads into the song's main jam passage, but this "Bowie" is pretty much disqualified from being anything anyone might ever care about.
The second-set-opening "DwD" is a weird one. It makes a lot of the same stylistic moves as some of the better jams of this early run of 3.0 (blissed-out Trey shredding, spacey, proto-plinko action, and ambient washout) but nothing in it really grabbed me. I've already heard a few versions of Phish's jam vehicles ("Disease," "Tweezer," and a few others) that have used these styles to captivating effect throughout June '09, but this just fell flat for me. There's probably someone out there who thinks this is the best jam of the first leg of the '09 tour, and they're probably not wrong for them. For me, it was all dressed up and nowhere to go. There's a nice segue into "Free," but "Free" is just "Free," so who cares?
Even though I just slammed this "Disease," I'm going to post a video, because there's a decent video of it, and there's been a serious dearth of videos in these posts lately.
"Guyute" starts out with some extra precision and fire at the beginning, but falls apart a bit at the end, with everyone contributing a few gaffes.
There's a long "Piper," but much like the "Disease," it feels like the steps are there, but nobody's having any fun connecting the dots.
There are late-set highlights with yet another patient, ethereal June '09 "Hood" and a "YEM" that features some manic Mike action near the very end, but this is generally one of the flatter second sets of the year so far for me.
The encore, with its botched a capella song that leads to a Fish "HYHU" > "Bike" > "HYHU" sandwich, is just so much fun to listen to. Fish, at one point, jokes "Welcome to the trainwreck portion of the show," which is funny to me because this is probably the best part of the show for me. "Loving Cup" is an unremarkable but fitting closer.
On to what's apparently going to be a magical, transformative experience as I round out Summer Tour '09 Leg One!
As I feel like I've been saying a lot lately, it's by no means a bad show, but it doesn't really offer up anything (save a surprisingly fun, goof-off encore, maybe) that makes it worth coming back to over three years after the fact.
We start off, as seems par for the course lately, a few high-energy song-y songs: fun, but nothing special. The "Wolfman's" has a little extra mustard on it thanks to a serious keys workout from Page in the first half and some follow-up shredding from Trey in the second half.
I don't know what's up with the early first-set "Divided Sky"s, but I wish they would stop. I love this song, but playing it at this point in the show is a killer...in a bad way.
"Sky" is followed by a weird "Heavy Things," where it sort of sounds like Trey is trying to solo his way off the beaten path, but fails at it and reins things in for a standard jam for the last few minutes of the song. Fortunately, next we get the rare, non-segued "Walk Away." This is one of my favorite Phish covers, and this is an excellent version.
Here's what I wrote about the "Tube" in my notes: "this tube is the real deal, super-funk madness good. seriously. holy shit mike and page...holy shit everybody." I'm a happy guy when there's a good "Halley's" or "Tube" jam, and now there've been both two nights in a row. This "Tube" is another one of those great examples of why you don't need a 20 minute version of a song to build a good jam. We're under 10 minutes here, and there's more to dig into than there often is in much longer jams. Unfortunately, "Tube" is followed by a "Bowie" that is just absolutely butchered. Like, the band just leaves out an entire chunk of the song because they get so out of sync. I've never heard this happen before in years of listening to Phish. They recover okay, with a little ambient washout that leads into the song's main jam passage, but this "Bowie" is pretty much disqualified from being anything anyone might ever care about.
The second-set-opening "DwD" is a weird one. It makes a lot of the same stylistic moves as some of the better jams of this early run of 3.0 (blissed-out Trey shredding, spacey, proto-plinko action, and ambient washout) but nothing in it really grabbed me. I've already heard a few versions of Phish's jam vehicles ("Disease," "Tweezer," and a few others) that have used these styles to captivating effect throughout June '09, but this just fell flat for me. There's probably someone out there who thinks this is the best jam of the first leg of the '09 tour, and they're probably not wrong for them. For me, it was all dressed up and nowhere to go. There's a nice segue into "Free," but "Free" is just "Free," so who cares?
Even though I just slammed this "Disease," I'm going to post a video, because there's a decent video of it, and there's been a serious dearth of videos in these posts lately.
There's a long "Piper," but much like the "Disease," it feels like the steps are there, but nobody's having any fun connecting the dots.
The encore, with its botched a capella song that leads to a Fish "HYHU" > "Bike" > "HYHU" sandwich, is just so much fun to listen to. Fish, at one point, jokes "Welcome to the trainwreck portion of the show," which is funny to me because this is probably the best part of the show for me. "Loving Cup" is an unremarkable but fitting closer.
On to what's apparently going to be a magical, transformative experience as I round out Summer Tour '09 Leg One!
Feb 8, 2013
2009-06-16 The Fox
Well, this was a fun one.
As you've probably come to realize by now, when I say "fun" I generally mean "lots of good, song-based playing, some neat setlist choices, but no serious improvisation or jamming." That pretty much sums up the Fox show.
Things kick off with a great "KDF" (I have to keep reminding myself that this is really only the second or third play for a lot of these Joy songs). "Ocelot" is "Ocelot" (or is it "Alaska"?), but in the three slot is "Brian and Robert," the first of this show's interesting setlist choices. I love this song, so I was happy to hear it. The great first set song choices continue through "Sample," "Rift," and then a "Ya Mar" that's exceptional for its Page and Mike interplay, plus a rare Fishman mini-solo. The "Reba" is well-played but is nothing really noteworthy, and the mellowness continues with a welcome "Train Song" and "Horn." Really with the exception of "Sample," "Rift," and "Possum," this first set is surprisingly laid-back, but somehow it really works. By the time the "Slave" closer hits, you've got a pretty cohesive if not terribly energetic first frame of music.
The second set never ventures into bizarro-world territory, but it opens with a 13-minute HALLEY'S JAM. And it's pretty good. There's a lot of fluid Type I shredding from Trey and the last few minutes is the sort of ambient washout that the band is starting to get so good at. Definitely the highlight of the show, and more evidence (if we needed more beyond 1997) that "Halley's" needs more chances to stretch its legs. What phish.net calls a "->" into "Runaway Jim" is sort of less-than-spectacular, and "Jim" stays within its normal boundaries, though there's a little extra fire on this version. You can read the setlist for most of the rest of the set and know pretty much how it goes down. I loved hearing "Frankie Says," though pairing it with "TTE" and "Sleep" made for maybe the weirdest 3-song run I've ever heard from a Phish show. "Mike's" is a top-notch version, though the rest of the Groove is nothing special. The encore is a bit of a surprise in terms of song choices ("Star Spangled Banner," "McGrupp," and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"), but again it's more notable for its novelty than any of the actual playing (sans some epic Trey shredding at the end of "WMGGW").
Overall, a fun show for the oddball setlist construction and a few rarities, but nothing really worth a relisten minus maybe the "Halley's."
As you've probably come to realize by now, when I say "fun" I generally mean "lots of good, song-based playing, some neat setlist choices, but no serious improvisation or jamming." That pretty much sums up the Fox show.
Things kick off with a great "KDF" (I have to keep reminding myself that this is really only the second or third play for a lot of these Joy songs). "Ocelot" is "Ocelot" (or is it "Alaska"?), but in the three slot is "Brian and Robert," the first of this show's interesting setlist choices. I love this song, so I was happy to hear it. The great first set song choices continue through "Sample," "Rift," and then a "Ya Mar" that's exceptional for its Page and Mike interplay, plus a rare Fishman mini-solo. The "Reba" is well-played but is nothing really noteworthy, and the mellowness continues with a welcome "Train Song" and "Horn." Really with the exception of "Sample," "Rift," and "Possum," this first set is surprisingly laid-back, but somehow it really works. By the time the "Slave" closer hits, you've got a pretty cohesive if not terribly energetic first frame of music.
The second set never ventures into bizarro-world territory, but it opens with a 13-minute HALLEY'S JAM. And it's pretty good. There's a lot of fluid Type I shredding from Trey and the last few minutes is the sort of ambient washout that the band is starting to get so good at. Definitely the highlight of the show, and more evidence (if we needed more beyond 1997) that "Halley's" needs more chances to stretch its legs. What phish.net calls a "->" into "Runaway Jim" is sort of less-than-spectacular, and "Jim" stays within its normal boundaries, though there's a little extra fire on this version. You can read the setlist for most of the rest of the set and know pretty much how it goes down. I loved hearing "Frankie Says," though pairing it with "TTE" and "Sleep" made for maybe the weirdest 3-song run I've ever heard from a Phish show. "Mike's" is a top-notch version, though the rest of the Groove is nothing special. The encore is a bit of a surprise in terms of song choices ("Star Spangled Banner," "McGrupp," and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"), but again it's more notable for its novelty than any of the actual playing (sans some epic Trey shredding at the end of "WMGGW").
Overall, a fun show for the oddball setlist construction and a few rarities, but nothing really worth a relisten minus maybe the "Halley's."
Feb 6, 2013
2009-06-14 Bonnaroo
So, the band's real two-setter at 'Roo 2009 is just a big, long, fun show. There aren't really any marquee moments (except maybe one), though, so if you're looking for something really unique, this won't be your bag. Rather, it's just a well-played show almost front-to-back, and one that actually seems to gain energy as it goes instead of losing it, as is often the case with 3.0 shows.
The opening run of songs up to "Gin" has excellent flow and features a few neat moments: "Bag" features another one of those "quiet" full-band mini-jams that have been prominent lately, Fishman has a lot of fun in "NICU," and the "Jibboo" jam is a bit different than usual (I'm lacking the musical vocabulary to explain how, exactly, but if you're a fan of the song, check this version out).
"Gin" clocks in at 12 minutes, and features a lot of Trey-shredding, but never really goes anywhere interesting enough to make it worth the time. That said, it's still a solid rocker in the first set.
The always-welcome first set "Tweezer" starts off with some absolutely chunky funk before fuzzing out into some more abstract spaces and ending (too soon!) with a surprisingly nice segue into "Horse." The first set proper ends with a ripping "Antelope" (early 3.0 Phish seems to love shredding this song...what happened?), and then, of course, Springsteen comes out for three songs, which is a nice moment, but not really anything musically memorable (except for Bruce calling Page "Mr. Keyboard Man," which made me kind of sad).
The second set is a bit more consistent and seems to just gain momentum as it goes. "Rock and Roll" is a great start, as its jam (labeled "Manchester Jam" on my recording) moves through a few different types of musical space in its brief existence. Things start off with some Trey-led Type I fire, then a bit of dissonance as Trey starts pulling at the edges of the song's structure while everyone else plays it straight still, then a total collapse into all-out spacey weirdness for the last few minutes. It is, as I wrote in my notes, "worth a goddamn listen."
As if that wasn't enough, there's a great segue into "Light," which features a lot of Treypeggios and a great Mike and Page section that starts around 9:30. There's a neat segue into "46 Days" from here, but the song stays in the arena-rock ballpark. Fishman's on fire here, as well as during the ensuing "Limb by Limb," which I marked in my notes as "very good": high praise for a song whose live versions normally don't do much for me.
The guys sort of remember how to play "Farmhouse" this time, but it's not much better than the Hampton version. Fortunately, the ending triplet of "Number Line," "Caspian," and "First Tube" is a constant, driving thing that propels you right into the Page-gasm of the "Suzy" encore.
Like I said above, minus the "Rock and Roll" > "Light," there's nothing here to really sink your teeth into, but for a consistent show with some great setlist choices, there aren't many better than 'Roo so far in 3.0.
Note: There's not much good video footage on YouTube for the 'Roo run, but this Pro-Shot compilation features a few of the better songs from the first night and the "Manchester Jam" > "Light" > "46 Days" run from 6/14:
The opening run of songs up to "Gin" has excellent flow and features a few neat moments: "Bag" features another one of those "quiet" full-band mini-jams that have been prominent lately, Fishman has a lot of fun in "NICU," and the "Jibboo" jam is a bit different than usual (I'm lacking the musical vocabulary to explain how, exactly, but if you're a fan of the song, check this version out).
"Gin" clocks in at 12 minutes, and features a lot of Trey-shredding, but never really goes anywhere interesting enough to make it worth the time. That said, it's still a solid rocker in the first set.
The always-welcome first set "Tweezer" starts off with some absolutely chunky funk before fuzzing out into some more abstract spaces and ending (too soon!) with a surprisingly nice segue into "Horse." The first set proper ends with a ripping "Antelope" (early 3.0 Phish seems to love shredding this song...what happened?), and then, of course, Springsteen comes out for three songs, which is a nice moment, but not really anything musically memorable (except for Bruce calling Page "Mr. Keyboard Man," which made me kind of sad).
The second set is a bit more consistent and seems to just gain momentum as it goes. "Rock and Roll" is a great start, as its jam (labeled "Manchester Jam" on my recording) moves through a few different types of musical space in its brief existence. Things start off with some Trey-led Type I fire, then a bit of dissonance as Trey starts pulling at the edges of the song's structure while everyone else plays it straight still, then a total collapse into all-out spacey weirdness for the last few minutes. It is, as I wrote in my notes, "worth a goddamn listen."
As if that wasn't enough, there's a great segue into "Light," which features a lot of Treypeggios and a great Mike and Page section that starts around 9:30. There's a neat segue into "46 Days" from here, but the song stays in the arena-rock ballpark. Fishman's on fire here, as well as during the ensuing "Limb by Limb," which I marked in my notes as "very good": high praise for a song whose live versions normally don't do much for me.
The guys sort of remember how to play "Farmhouse" this time, but it's not much better than the Hampton version. Fortunately, the ending triplet of "Number Line," "Caspian," and "First Tube" is a constant, driving thing that propels you right into the Page-gasm of the "Suzy" encore.
Like I said above, minus the "Rock and Roll" > "Light," there's nothing here to really sink your teeth into, but for a consistent show with some great setlist choices, there aren't many better than 'Roo so far in 3.0.
Note: There's not much good video footage on YouTube for the 'Roo run, but this Pro-Shot compilation features a few of the better songs from the first night and the "Manchester Jam" > "Light" > "46 Days" run from 6/14:
Jan 31, 2013
2009-06-12 Bonnaroo
So this single-set Bonnaroo show is just weird. And generally not in a good way, either (though there are a few exceptions).
The first few songs are on point, but none of them are particularly special. The early "Divided Sky" is an eyebrow-raiser as a setlist choice, but it's hardly a unique or top-shelf take on the song. A decent "Possum" leads into an early 17-minute "Disease," but while the jam features a sudden left turn into Funk City around the 9:00 mark, nothing much happens of note afterward, sans some nice texture-y playing from Page. It's one of the few (and maybe only) long jams of 3.0 so far that really just fell flat for me, which is unfortunate because it would have been great to hear another Hampton III-esque "Disease" here.
The 14-minute "Stash" that comes shortly after falls into a similar trap: rather than getting all fun and exploratory or patient and build-y like the first few "Stash"s of 3.0, this one is just Trey whale-ing away for about ten minutes, and about six minutes too long. It's not at the playing is bad, mind you, it's just that it's boring, and they've already shown in the few shows since March that they can do a lot better.
The "KDF" that follows shortly after the "Stash" is one of those fence-straddlers for me. I've listened to it a number of times, and half the time I think it's a brilliant piece of improv while the other half of the time I think it's an over-abstract piece of noise-garbage that never coalesces around anything long enough to be meaningful. This listen didn't clear anything up for me: Trey drives the song off a Type 2 cliff around the 9:00 mark, the rest of the band refuses to follow immediately, but eventually gives in, and Something Happens afterward, but again, I'm not certain if it's bad or good. The song ends in an ambient washout and a nice segue into "Free," but of course "Free" is "Free." Seriously, is there a single good live version of this song in existence?
The "Hood" is nice, though it more or less directly channels the "Hood" from 6/10, and the "Highway To Hell"/"2001" pairing is just weird, but oddly satisfying.
Maybe the highlight of the set is the "YEM" > "Wilson" > "YEM" sandwich, which sounds gimmicky as all hell, but actually features two well-executed segues and some great "Foxy Lady"-esque action from Trey in the short "Wilson" jam. I really can't stress enough how nice the second segue is here: the band goes off into "Wilson" just as the main "YEM" funk jam is about to start, and when "Wilson" ends, they melt right back into the jam as if nothing ever happened. It's so seamless that it imparts a sort-of dream quality to the "Wilson." Did it actually happen? Was it just spliced in from some other tape?
Aside from the novelty of this closing sandwich and the (maybe) rewarding weirdness of the "KDF," though, there's not much here worth a relisten. I'm oddly looking forward to 6/14, though...
The first few songs are on point, but none of them are particularly special. The early "Divided Sky" is an eyebrow-raiser as a setlist choice, but it's hardly a unique or top-shelf take on the song. A decent "Possum" leads into an early 17-minute "Disease," but while the jam features a sudden left turn into Funk City around the 9:00 mark, nothing much happens of note afterward, sans some nice texture-y playing from Page. It's one of the few (and maybe only) long jams of 3.0 so far that really just fell flat for me, which is unfortunate because it would have been great to hear another Hampton III-esque "Disease" here.
The 14-minute "Stash" that comes shortly after falls into a similar trap: rather than getting all fun and exploratory or patient and build-y like the first few "Stash"s of 3.0, this one is just Trey whale-ing away for about ten minutes, and about six minutes too long. It's not at the playing is bad, mind you, it's just that it's boring, and they've already shown in the few shows since March that they can do a lot better.
The "KDF" that follows shortly after the "Stash" is one of those fence-straddlers for me. I've listened to it a number of times, and half the time I think it's a brilliant piece of improv while the other half of the time I think it's an over-abstract piece of noise-garbage that never coalesces around anything long enough to be meaningful. This listen didn't clear anything up for me: Trey drives the song off a Type 2 cliff around the 9:00 mark, the rest of the band refuses to follow immediately, but eventually gives in, and Something Happens afterward, but again, I'm not certain if it's bad or good. The song ends in an ambient washout and a nice segue into "Free," but of course "Free" is "Free." Seriously, is there a single good live version of this song in existence?
The "Hood" is nice, though it more or less directly channels the "Hood" from 6/10, and the "Highway To Hell"/"2001" pairing is just weird, but oddly satisfying.
Maybe the highlight of the set is the "YEM" > "Wilson" > "YEM" sandwich, which sounds gimmicky as all hell, but actually features two well-executed segues and some great "Foxy Lady"-esque action from Trey in the short "Wilson" jam. I really can't stress enough how nice the second segue is here: the band goes off into "Wilson" just as the main "YEM" funk jam is about to start, and when "Wilson" ends, they melt right back into the jam as if nothing ever happened. It's so seamless that it imparts a sort-of dream quality to the "Wilson." Did it actually happen? Was it just spliced in from some other tape?
Aside from the novelty of this closing sandwich and the (maybe) rewarding weirdness of the "KDF," though, there's not much here worth a relisten. I'm oddly looking forward to 6/14, though...
Jan 30, 2013
2009-06-10 Thompson-Boling Arena
If 6/9 was characterized by strange song choices and setlist flow that were eventually overpowered by the band's sheer enthusaism, 6/10 is its opposite: a pretty much perfect setlist (by my standards, at least) that's dampened a bit by workmanlike-only playing throughout. I say "a bit" because this is still a decent show, but definitely 6/7 > 6/9 > 6/10.
We get a great set of opening songs right off in the first set, though none of them deviate much beyond what you'd expect, except for "Foam," which features a surprisingly minimalist middle section to its jam before spiraling back up into madness for the conclusion. Next is "Train Song," which is one of my favorite short, sweet Phish songs, and the version of "Undermind" that follows is clever, with a really funky jam that features some strange Trey chording. The buns of the Mike's Groove sandwich aren't really anything to write home about, but the sloooooooowed down "Hydrogen" smushed in-between works really well. I don't know if the band was really going for something different here or Trey was just worried about playing the song too fast and missing notes; either way, though, this take is worth a listen if you like "Hydrogen."
Like the first set, the second looks magical on paper, but doesn't translate quite as well on tape. "Back on the Train" is a truncated version that features a full stop before the first "Waves" of 3.0. Most of "Waves" is straightforward, but the last few minutes feature a minimal outro jam with some harmonizing on the song's ending refrain. This turns into a neat segue into "ASIHTOS," which is probably the best moment of the show.
Unfortunately, "ASIHTOS" doesn't really follow through on the segue's promise, devolving into another generic guitar jam.
The setlist never ceases to be amazing, as there's a "Bowie," "Army Of One," "Reba," and "Hood" to come still, among others, but still, there's something missing here. The "Bowie" is solid and the "Army of One" is a nice surprise. The majority of the show remaining after these is a series of quiet, slowly building jams, each of which (throughout "Reba," "Julius," and "Hood") are primarily led with Trey noodling. If you're a big fan of the "patient"-style "Hood" jam, you'll probably love this part of the set. To me, the playing wasn't engaging enough to make the builds worthwhile (minus, maybe the "Hood," which is pretty awesome).
Overall, this show is pretty fun for the setlist (if you like all the same songs that i like), but you're not going to get a lot of mileage out of it beyond that.
On to Bonnaroo!
We get a great set of opening songs right off in the first set, though none of them deviate much beyond what you'd expect, except for "Foam," which features a surprisingly minimalist middle section to its jam before spiraling back up into madness for the conclusion. Next is "Train Song," which is one of my favorite short, sweet Phish songs, and the version of "Undermind" that follows is clever, with a really funky jam that features some strange Trey chording. The buns of the Mike's Groove sandwich aren't really anything to write home about, but the sloooooooowed down "Hydrogen" smushed in-between works really well. I don't know if the band was really going for something different here or Trey was just worried about playing the song too fast and missing notes; either way, though, this take is worth a listen if you like "Hydrogen."
Like the first set, the second looks magical on paper, but doesn't translate quite as well on tape. "Back on the Train" is a truncated version that features a full stop before the first "Waves" of 3.0. Most of "Waves" is straightforward, but the last few minutes feature a minimal outro jam with some harmonizing on the song's ending refrain. This turns into a neat segue into "ASIHTOS," which is probably the best moment of the show.
The setlist never ceases to be amazing, as there's a "Bowie," "Army Of One," "Reba," and "Hood" to come still, among others, but still, there's something missing here. The "Bowie" is solid and the "Army of One" is a nice surprise. The majority of the show remaining after these is a series of quiet, slowly building jams, each of which (throughout "Reba," "Julius," and "Hood") are primarily led with Trey noodling. If you're a big fan of the "patient"-style "Hood" jam, you'll probably love this part of the set. To me, the playing wasn't engaging enough to make the builds worthwhile (minus, maybe the "Hood," which is pretty awesome).
On to Bonnaroo!
Jan 28, 2013
2009-06-09 Asheville Civic Center
Well, coming right after my early contender for show of 2009, 6/9 was never going to emerge from Camden's shadow...but it still ended up being a better show than most of 3.0 before it (sans Camden, of course). I was surprised, and pleased to find that this was a surprisingly consistent show, and topped by the third of three excellent "Ghost"s since Hampton.
Considering it's an early version, the "KDF" that opens this show is punchier than it has any right to be. This momentum carries right through the first few songs and into a "Stash" that doesn't rewrite the rulebook by any means, but features a lot of nice tension-and-release action that resolves eventually into "Dog-Faced Boy." Afterward, Trey shares that he wrote the song based off of snooping around in Fish's journal when they were roommates, and that two more songs came from the same source: "Gumbo" and "Tube." The band proceeds to play both back-to-back. This is a fun, gimmicky first-set segment, and the mini-jam in "Tube" is actually top-tier stuff.
Fish closes his "journal segment" with an acapella version of "Lengthwise" that features some great audience assistance, even on the SBD. Back in serious-land, the band rips apart "Divided Sky," for an exceptional version, and then raps up the set with a Mike cover ("When the Cactus is in Bloom") and "Axis." All in all, it's a set that holds together better than it has any right to.
The second set opens with a brief but fiery "Number Line" that ends suddenly, then restarts in the form of a weird ambient jam (it's possible that the song doesn't actually stop here, but someone was still playing softly and I just didn't have the volume up high enough). The ambient passage quickly and smoothly transitions into "Ghost," and we're off on a space-funk rocket ride for the third time already in 3.0. The first few minutes of this jam are of the wacky, abstract variety (as per my notes: "Oh, yikes...this Ghost is on fucking droooogs"), but then things quickly take a turn toward Peak City and Trey keeps the song there for way longer than should actually be effective. Somehow, though, 6-7 minutes of this shredding is not too much, as the rest of the band builds on the back of Trey's hose-down. Think the Prague '98 "Ghost," but less "once in a lifetime" and more "2-3 times per tour." Same style, less genius, but ultimately a highlight of the tour so far. And someone has a video!
After the "Ghost" ends, the rest of the set plays out much like the back end of set one: weird song choices, strange flow, but rather than sinking, the whole thing floats on the band's energy. "FEFY" is one of my favorite Phish ballads, and it oozes out of the end of "Ghost" beautifully here. Halley's is always welcome as well, and this one starts to actually take off into a pretty interesting jamspace for a minute or so after the song proper ends, but then...MAZE'D.
I don't normally get down on "ripcording" the way a lot of Phish fans do; I'm a fan of just as many 2-3 minute jams as I am 20-30 minute ones, and I think a balance of the two is best (unless we're talking '97 of course). Generally, I think that if the band aborts a jam, it's probably for good reason...they're probably out of ideas and want to move on. That's usually fine. Here, though, I actually yelped out loud at how suddenly the promise of a slowly unfolding "Halley's" jam turned into "Maze" in an instant. This was especially galling considering that "Maze" is one of the few Phish songs that I don't like that much. But, honestly, this version ain't bad. It features extra-clever work on the organ by Page, layered above some staccato chording from Trey and it builds to a good (if somewhat whale-y) peak. None of the rest of the songs on the setlist are barnburners by nature, but the boys do a number on each one (even "Golgi"!) and again, the back half of a set which shouldn't have really worked that well comes off as satisfying.
It's no Camden, but come for the "Number Line" > "Ghost" and stay for (pretty much all) the rest.
Note: I'm not sure if they've actually improved, or I've finally just hit an EQ goldmine, but the last few SBDs (Camden and Asheville) sound a lot better than the previous muddy, distant-sounding atrocities that I complained about awhile back.
Considering it's an early version, the "KDF" that opens this show is punchier than it has any right to be. This momentum carries right through the first few songs and into a "Stash" that doesn't rewrite the rulebook by any means, but features a lot of nice tension-and-release action that resolves eventually into "Dog-Faced Boy." Afterward, Trey shares that he wrote the song based off of snooping around in Fish's journal when they were roommates, and that two more songs came from the same source: "Gumbo" and "Tube." The band proceeds to play both back-to-back. This is a fun, gimmicky first-set segment, and the mini-jam in "Tube" is actually top-tier stuff.
The second set opens with a brief but fiery "Number Line" that ends suddenly, then restarts in the form of a weird ambient jam (it's possible that the song doesn't actually stop here, but someone was still playing softly and I just didn't have the volume up high enough). The ambient passage quickly and smoothly transitions into "Ghost," and we're off on a space-funk rocket ride for the third time already in 3.0. The first few minutes of this jam are of the wacky, abstract variety (as per my notes: "Oh, yikes...this Ghost is on fucking droooogs"), but then things quickly take a turn toward Peak City and Trey keeps the song there for way longer than should actually be effective. Somehow, though, 6-7 minutes of this shredding is not too much, as the rest of the band builds on the back of Trey's hose-down. Think the Prague '98 "Ghost," but less "once in a lifetime" and more "2-3 times per tour." Same style, less genius, but ultimately a highlight of the tour so far. And someone has a video!
It's no Camden, but come for the "Number Line" > "Ghost" and stay for (pretty much all) the rest.
Note: I'm not sure if they've actually improved, or I've finally just hit an EQ goldmine, but the last few SBDs (Camden and Asheville) sound a lot better than the previous muddy, distant-sounding atrocities that I complained about awhile back.
Jan 18, 2013
2009-06-07 Camden
This show is the super-megopticopolis. I do not know what that means, but it's still what this show is regardless.
This is a fucking PHISH show, fuckers. I'll sit here and wait while you go listen to it right now.
Now that you're back, let's talk details.
The first set is easily the best first set thus far of 3.0. Anytime since Hampton that the band has brought the improv in the first set, it's been a pleasant surprise, but here it really really works. After a average-great "Chalkdust" opener, we immediately get a "Fee" with an outro jam, and it's by no means just a novelty move: this jam is only a few minutes long, but it moves around a lot in those few minutes and actually reminds me a bit of the "Roses" outro jam from 6/8/12. "Wolfman's" is a strong (and long), funky version in the three spot, "Guyute" is played with more energy than usual, and "46 Days" and "Lizards" are both strong. "The Wedge" receives a surprising and satisfying outro jam a la "Fee," and then there's "Strange Design," which is one of my favorite Phish/Page ballad tunes. The set ends with a "Tube"/"First Tube" combo (Trey, after "Tube": I guess we'd better play this one next...") that serves as the perfect peak for a first set that's not just notable for its energy, but also for its song choice, flow, and quality improv that pops up mostly in unexpected places. I'd be happy with a mediocre second set after something like this, but "alas," it was not to be...
Okay, so first, there's a 22 minute "Sand" right off the bat. Now, granted, 22 minutes is a lot of space to move around in (or, if it's 2.0, play the same three notes over and over and over in, but I digress), but the boys still manage to fit more "movements" into this jam than seem possible. It's reminiscent of the JB "Ghost" in the way the entire band moves effortlessly through varied soundscapes that all add up in the end to a satisfying whole. There's a lot more tonal shifts and changes going on here, though, and it would take a bit too long to describe them all. Just go download the show and listen to it already. Again, if you listened to me the first time. Generally, we start off with some typical "Sand" funk highlighted by Mike's bass and Trey's surprisingly minimal, murky playing, then we veer into a bit of space funk, and right when it seems that the jam is going to devolve into the weird, neo-Floyd abstractness that's been the highlight of most of the early 3.0 jams so far, the whole band turns on a dime and bursts into a blissed-out section that finds Trey's playing in old-school form. Eventually, he latches on to an improvised riff and the rest of the band follows, and the results are just amazing. So amazing, in fact, that Trey teases the improvised riff at the beginning of "Suzy." Now they're just showing off.
"Suzy" is an especially strong version, as is "Limb By Limb." If there's a weak spot in the show, it's another shaky "Horse" > "Silent" pairing followed by the butchered debut of "Sugar Shack" (maybe my favorite song from "Joy"). That's over quickly enough, though, and then we're into a muddy, dirty, just flat-out disgusting "Character Zero" (and I mean that in a good way), which segues into..."Tweezer." Yeah. Nearly three hours into this show, the guys just start playing a fifteen-minute "Tweezer." On the tape, you can actually hear the crowd slowly realize that this isn't an accidental early "Reprise," but the real deal. And there's never any hesitation, either: the guys take it deep fast, with Trey picking out another improvised riff soon after, and again the results are incredible as everyone builds on the riff, as a group, for five or so minutes. This "Tweezer" is up there with the already-excellent "Tweezer"s from Hampton and Fenway, and it might even be better. And it's the last song of the second set. Then they come back for a four song encore. And one of them is "Antelope."
Early 3.0 is making me a believer in "Antelope" again. This version is pure fire from the onset, and it's hard to believe that these guys have already been playing for three hours at this point. They rip through it like nothing, and segue perfectly into Tweeprise, and by this point, listening at home on my shitty, tinny headphones, I was literally hopping up and down in my chair, air guitaring my ass off, without consciously realizing I'd started.
This show is so good it hypnotized me and convinced me to make an ass of myself in front of people whose opinions of me I deeply respect.
You should check it out at all costs. ALL COSTS
This is a fucking PHISH show, fuckers. I'll sit here and wait while you go listen to it right now.
Now that you're back, let's talk details.
The first set is easily the best first set thus far of 3.0. Anytime since Hampton that the band has brought the improv in the first set, it's been a pleasant surprise, but here it really really works. After a average-great "Chalkdust" opener, we immediately get a "Fee" with an outro jam, and it's by no means just a novelty move: this jam is only a few minutes long, but it moves around a lot in those few minutes and actually reminds me a bit of the "Roses" outro jam from 6/8/12. "Wolfman's" is a strong (and long), funky version in the three spot, "Guyute" is played with more energy than usual, and "46 Days" and "Lizards" are both strong. "The Wedge" receives a surprising and satisfying outro jam a la "Fee," and then there's "Strange Design," which is one of my favorite Phish/Page ballad tunes. The set ends with a "Tube"/"First Tube" combo (Trey, after "Tube": I guess we'd better play this one next...") that serves as the perfect peak for a first set that's not just notable for its energy, but also for its song choice, flow, and quality improv that pops up mostly in unexpected places. I'd be happy with a mediocre second set after something like this, but "alas," it was not to be...
Okay, so first, there's a 22 minute "Sand" right off the bat. Now, granted, 22 minutes is a lot of space to move around in (or, if it's 2.0, play the same three notes over and over and over in, but I digress), but the boys still manage to fit more "movements" into this jam than seem possible. It's reminiscent of the JB "Ghost" in the way the entire band moves effortlessly through varied soundscapes that all add up in the end to a satisfying whole. There's a lot more tonal shifts and changes going on here, though, and it would take a bit too long to describe them all. Just go download the show and listen to it already. Again, if you listened to me the first time. Generally, we start off with some typical "Sand" funk highlighted by Mike's bass and Trey's surprisingly minimal, murky playing, then we veer into a bit of space funk, and right when it seems that the jam is going to devolve into the weird, neo-Floyd abstractness that's been the highlight of most of the early 3.0 jams so far, the whole band turns on a dime and bursts into a blissed-out section that finds Trey's playing in old-school form. Eventually, he latches on to an improvised riff and the rest of the band follows, and the results are just amazing. So amazing, in fact, that Trey teases the improvised riff at the beginning of "Suzy." Now they're just showing off.
"Suzy" is an especially strong version, as is "Limb By Limb." If there's a weak spot in the show, it's another shaky "Horse" > "Silent" pairing followed by the butchered debut of "Sugar Shack" (maybe my favorite song from "Joy"). That's over quickly enough, though, and then we're into a muddy, dirty, just flat-out disgusting "Character Zero" (and I mean that in a good way), which segues into..."Tweezer." Yeah. Nearly three hours into this show, the guys just start playing a fifteen-minute "Tweezer." On the tape, you can actually hear the crowd slowly realize that this isn't an accidental early "Reprise," but the real deal. And there's never any hesitation, either: the guys take it deep fast, with Trey picking out another improvised riff soon after, and again the results are incredible as everyone builds on the riff, as a group, for five or so minutes. This "Tweezer" is up there with the already-excellent "Tweezer"s from Hampton and Fenway, and it might even be better. And it's the last song of the second set. Then they come back for a four song encore. And one of them is "Antelope."
Early 3.0 is making me a believer in "Antelope" again. This version is pure fire from the onset, and it's hard to believe that these guys have already been playing for three hours at this point. They rip through it like nothing, and segue perfectly into Tweeprise, and by this point, listening at home on my shitty, tinny headphones, I was literally hopping up and down in my chair, air guitaring my ass off, without consciously realizing I'd started.
This show is so good it hypnotized me and convinced me to make an ass of myself in front of people whose opinions of me I deeply respect.
You should check it out at all costs. ALL COSTS
Jan 17, 2013
2009-06-06 Comcast Center
The Good: I'm really ripping through these shows the last few days.
The Bad: None of them are really very good.
The Comcast Center show is, honestly, better in a lot of ways that nearly all of the Jones Beach run, but there's just nothing to sink your teeth into, and that's frustrating. And I'm not talking about 20-minute, multi-tiered space jams. There's not even any smaller bits of brilliance (a la JBIII's "Twist" > "Piper") to spice things up. It's just a nice rock show. Just.
I was happy to hear "Nothing" early on, but that's because it's one of my favorites. If this doesn't apply to you, you aren't missing a noteworthy version. "Train" through "Sparkle" are played with a lot of energy, and this is one of those sections where I can feel the dissonance between tape and what it was (probably) like to be there, in the June sun, while the boys ripped through these numbers. It was probably ecstatic. Here, it just sounds flat and a little faster than usual. "Jibboo" is a little extended, and easily the first set highlight, featuring some strange but strong soloing from Trey. Also: "Lawn Boy" and "Let Me Lie" is about the worst late-set song pairing in history, and I say that as someone who likes both songs.
The "Seven Below" opener for the second set got my hopes up quite a bit. This is one of my favorite jam songs and I loved the Hampton "DWD" > "Seven Below" pairing. This version doesn't do much but noodle around for 12 minutes, though. It's a solid Type 1 jam, and worth a listen, but if you come to it from the setlist imagining an abstract throwdown, you'll be disappointed. The highlight of the set (and possibly the show, oddly enough) is "Scent of a Mule." Page extends his piano solo section a bit, and in some really interesting ways, and when Trey comes in he adds to the fun by messing around a bit with his usual riff (this sounds like it starts as a mistake, but he builds off the mistake in a great way, and when he finally latches back onto the riff you know he was supposed to be playing in the first place, it's a great tension-releasing moment). "Heavy Things" actually packs quite a punch in its short running time, and I have to admit I love any show that brings a good "Heavy Things" and/or "Jibboo." I just do. And this show has both. The "Hood" is a long, patient, building version here, and really the last thing worth mentioning. It's not on the level of the JB version, but it's worth a listen, for sure. This is the second time in eight shows that the band has closed a mediocre show with a rather stratospheric "Hood." Hmm...
One more show before a night off. My hopes aren't that high at this point.
The Bad: None of them are really very good.
The Comcast Center show is, honestly, better in a lot of ways that nearly all of the Jones Beach run, but there's just nothing to sink your teeth into, and that's frustrating. And I'm not talking about 20-minute, multi-tiered space jams. There's not even any smaller bits of brilliance (a la JBIII's "Twist" > "Piper") to spice things up. It's just a nice rock show. Just.
I was happy to hear "Nothing" early on, but that's because it's one of my favorites. If this doesn't apply to you, you aren't missing a noteworthy version. "Train" through "Sparkle" are played with a lot of energy, and this is one of those sections where I can feel the dissonance between tape and what it was (probably) like to be there, in the June sun, while the boys ripped through these numbers. It was probably ecstatic. Here, it just sounds flat and a little faster than usual. "Jibboo" is a little extended, and easily the first set highlight, featuring some strange but strong soloing from Trey. Also: "Lawn Boy" and "Let Me Lie" is about the worst late-set song pairing in history, and I say that as someone who likes both songs.
One more show before a night off. My hopes aren't that high at this point.
Jan 16, 2013
2009-06-05 Jones Beach III
So far in my yet-brief review of 3.0, there have been three kinds of shows:
1. Average shows that, while solidly played, don't contain any moments that make them worthy of a relisten above any of Phish's many other average shows.
2. Shows that are like (1), except with the addition of a standout jam or two.
3. Shows that are legitimately unique and worth a relisten all the way through (with the possible exception of a song here or there).
Jones Beach III doesn't really fall into any of these categories. It sits somewhere between (1) and (3), with absolutely no movement toward (2) at all. In the end, I found it very dissatisfying, but there were a lot of well-played songs. Something didn't sit well with me, but at the same time I could easily see this being someone else's favorite show of early summer '09. It's weird.
Anyway, there's probably somebody who really likes this first set. I am not that person. "KDF" has a little extra mustard on it in the guitar area, but nothing worth tuning in for really happens until "Ya Mar," which is the seventh song. This is a really playful version of the song, with Trey improvising some fun lines introducing Leo's solo, and then doing the same for Mike. Mike steps up with a solid and suitably wacky bass solo, and things seem like they might finally be about to pick up. The band moves into "Theme" next, though, and unlike the Hampton version, this one is botched to high heaven, killing any leftover momentum. "Boogie On" is always a winner in 3.0, but this one doesn't do anything exceptionally interesting, and then we've got "SOaM" to close the set. One of my great failings as a Phish fan is, I'm certain, that I have almost never gotten the point of a "SOaM" jam. I love the song, but the jam almost always just loses me and tempts me with hitting the "Next" button. This version isn't any different: it's spacey, and dark, and abstract...and falls totally flat. Again, though, I could see this jam being the highlight of someone's summer...just not me.
Things are a bit better in the second set, though the highlights don't come from the part of the setlist you'd expect. They start off with "DWD," and based on the show's previous Hampton outing, it seems like we might be off on a magic carpet ride right away. Instead, the 12-minute version is mostly a Trey wankfest, albeit a solid one. It's in the smooth, brilliant segue into "Twist" that really gets things going, though. If you're a jam "purist" who needs something to be 20 minutes long to be worth your time, you can move along at this point, but I'm a firm believer in 3.0's mid-length jam brilliance, and here's a great early embodiment of it in the following "Twist" > "Piper" combination. Both songs cover a lot of ground in a short period, with "Twist" entering almost calypso/Caribbean territory and "Piper" blending the spaceyness and the funk of some of the bigger Hampton jams into an uptempo throwdown that's just 3-4 minutes of straight awesome. There's no real ">" to speak of from "Piper" to "Number Line," but this early "Number Line" is an interesting version, with some thoughtful and varied soloing from Trey. "Free" is "Free": it's one of the few Phish songs where the album version is always going to sound better than anything done live (more or less). This version does nothing to change my mind. I had high hopes for "Twenty Years" > "2001" > "Slave," but there's not much to say about it except another short and extra juicy "2001" a la the Hampton version and a little interesting whale-y action from Trey in the "Slave." "A Day In the Life" is one of my favorite Phish covers, so that was nice to hear at the end, I guess...
As you can probably tell, I'm less than enthused here. Plus, there's no real decent videos on YouTube of this show.
My favorite show of this run is the "Hood" and the "Ghost." Just those, over and over, for three hours. Nothing else, please. Moving on.
1. Average shows that, while solidly played, don't contain any moments that make them worthy of a relisten above any of Phish's many other average shows.
2. Shows that are like (1), except with the addition of a standout jam or two.
3. Shows that are legitimately unique and worth a relisten all the way through (with the possible exception of a song here or there).
Jones Beach III doesn't really fall into any of these categories. It sits somewhere between (1) and (3), with absolutely no movement toward (2) at all. In the end, I found it very dissatisfying, but there were a lot of well-played songs. Something didn't sit well with me, but at the same time I could easily see this being someone else's favorite show of early summer '09. It's weird.
Anyway, there's probably somebody who really likes this first set. I am not that person. "KDF" has a little extra mustard on it in the guitar area, but nothing worth tuning in for really happens until "Ya Mar," which is the seventh song. This is a really playful version of the song, with Trey improvising some fun lines introducing Leo's solo, and then doing the same for Mike. Mike steps up with a solid and suitably wacky bass solo, and things seem like they might finally be about to pick up. The band moves into "Theme" next, though, and unlike the Hampton version, this one is botched to high heaven, killing any leftover momentum. "Boogie On" is always a winner in 3.0, but this one doesn't do anything exceptionally interesting, and then we've got "SOaM" to close the set. One of my great failings as a Phish fan is, I'm certain, that I have almost never gotten the point of a "SOaM" jam. I love the song, but the jam almost always just loses me and tempts me with hitting the "Next" button. This version isn't any different: it's spacey, and dark, and abstract...and falls totally flat. Again, though, I could see this jam being the highlight of someone's summer...just not me.
Things are a bit better in the second set, though the highlights don't come from the part of the setlist you'd expect. They start off with "DWD," and based on the show's previous Hampton outing, it seems like we might be off on a magic carpet ride right away. Instead, the 12-minute version is mostly a Trey wankfest, albeit a solid one. It's in the smooth, brilliant segue into "Twist" that really gets things going, though. If you're a jam "purist" who needs something to be 20 minutes long to be worth your time, you can move along at this point, but I'm a firm believer in 3.0's mid-length jam brilliance, and here's a great early embodiment of it in the following "Twist" > "Piper" combination. Both songs cover a lot of ground in a short period, with "Twist" entering almost calypso/Caribbean territory and "Piper" blending the spaceyness and the funk of some of the bigger Hampton jams into an uptempo throwdown that's just 3-4 minutes of straight awesome. There's no real ">" to speak of from "Piper" to "Number Line," but this early "Number Line" is an interesting version, with some thoughtful and varied soloing from Trey. "Free" is "Free": it's one of the few Phish songs where the album version is always going to sound better than anything done live (more or less). This version does nothing to change my mind. I had high hopes for "Twenty Years" > "2001" > "Slave," but there's not much to say about it except another short and extra juicy "2001" a la the Hampton version and a little interesting whale-y action from Trey in the "Slave." "A Day In the Life" is one of my favorite Phish covers, so that was nice to hear at the end, I guess...
As you can probably tell, I'm less than enthused here. Plus, there's no real decent videos on YouTube of this show.
My favorite show of this run is the "Hood" and the "Ghost." Just those, over and over, for three hours. Nothing else, please. Moving on.
Jan 11, 2013
2009-06-04 Jones Beach II
Ah, a bit of redemption thanks to night two of Jones Beach after night one ran a flawless campaign for Worst Phish Show I've Listened To In Like Two Years.
Not only a breath of fresh air after two shitshows in a row, Jones Beach II is also the rare Phish show that has a better first set than a second set and yet still stands up as a great overall show that's worth a listen.
SO, HEY, THAT FIRST SET, HUH? "Grind" opener is always cute, especially when it runs right into a rip-roaring "Divided Sky" that even features a legitimately interesting mini-jam that rises above the "usual" outro treatment the band gives the song on most nights. "Ocelot" is, as I always say, just "Ocelot," but this version has a little extra fire, and this punch follows through into "Squirming Coil," which, like "Divided Sky" has an above-average outro jam. Trey (and everyone else) butchers "Punch You In the Eye," but they rumble through with aplomb and move on to a beautiful "Dirt," which is one of my favorite Phish songs. "NICU" is a bit of a mess, but the band is obviously having a great time, and so the flubs fly by with a smile this time. The ending combination of "Ghost" and "Antelope" is what really makes the set, though.
"Ghost" isn't, by any means, in the upper echelon of "Ghost"s, but it's probably the fourth best jam of 3.0 so far after the Hampton I "Tweezer," Hampton II "Ghost," and Hampton III "Disease" > "Seven Below." It starts off with pretty imaginative funk highlighted by Mike banging away in the background, and the funk gets spacey fast. After a few great minutes of space-funk, around the 7:00 mark the jam opens up into that more melodic, blissful register that the band so excels at. After some legit Trey-machine-gun-action, the space-funk re-rears its ugly (not ugly) head around 11:30, only to splash away into a gorgeous ambient washout with a psychedelically-powered Mike-bass underneath...and finally the song wraps up with a return to the opening riff. There are a lot of sections to this jam, stuffed into a short amount of time, but somehow they all work and the transitions between the movements (especially at 7:00) have that creepy, telepathic quality that all good Phish has. In fact, now that I'm writing more about it, I might like this better than the Hampton "Ghost."
I don't like "Antelope" as much as most Phish fans do, but Trey plays around with this intro in a really engaging way, and the energy from the "Ghost" bleeds over to make the rest of this version 1.0-intense.
There's not as much to say about set two. There's a nice, lazy "Water In The Sky," "Drowned" is one of my favorite Phish covers and this version features a drawn-out jam at the end. Though somewhat uninspired for the first few minutes, it eventually evolves into a play on the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" riff and then into a more ambient space, again highlighted by Mike's space-bass and some Trey wah-action...and then an AMAZING, patient segue in "Meatstick," of all things. The downfall of this set is that "TTE" and "YEM" pairing AGAIN, this time separated by only one song ("Waste"). After filling most of the previous 60 minutes with some pretty impressive improv, it's a bummer to hear these two (great but composed) songs back-to-back for nearly 40 minutes, and then the show ends.
The "Rock and Roll" encore, though a unique choice, really isn't anything exciting and things end with a thud.
I'll still take Hampton II and III over anything since, but now I'm looking forward to hearing Jones Beach III, at least.
Not only a breath of fresh air after two shitshows in a row, Jones Beach II is also the rare Phish show that has a better first set than a second set and yet still stands up as a great overall show that's worth a listen.
SO, HEY, THAT FIRST SET, HUH? "Grind" opener is always cute, especially when it runs right into a rip-roaring "Divided Sky" that even features a legitimately interesting mini-jam that rises above the "usual" outro treatment the band gives the song on most nights. "Ocelot" is, as I always say, just "Ocelot," but this version has a little extra fire, and this punch follows through into "Squirming Coil," which, like "Divided Sky" has an above-average outro jam. Trey (and everyone else) butchers "Punch You In the Eye," but they rumble through with aplomb and move on to a beautiful "Dirt," which is one of my favorite Phish songs. "NICU" is a bit of a mess, but the band is obviously having a great time, and so the flubs fly by with a smile this time. The ending combination of "Ghost" and "Antelope" is what really makes the set, though.
There's not as much to say about set two. There's a nice, lazy "Water In The Sky," "Drowned" is one of my favorite Phish covers and this version features a drawn-out jam at the end. Though somewhat uninspired for the first few minutes, it eventually evolves into a play on the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" riff and then into a more ambient space, again highlighted by Mike's space-bass and some Trey wah-action...and then an AMAZING, patient segue in "Meatstick," of all things. The downfall of this set is that "TTE" and "YEM" pairing AGAIN, this time separated by only one song ("Waste"). After filling most of the previous 60 minutes with some pretty impressive improv, it's a bummer to hear these two (great but composed) songs back-to-back for nearly 40 minutes, and then the show ends.
I'll still take Hampton II and III over anything since, but now I'm looking forward to hearing Jones Beach III, at least.
2009-06-02 Jones Beach I
Well, this was just really bad. I hope nights two and three are better, because it actually hurt me to listen to this, I think. In fact, I'm so disgusted that instead of writing an actual review, I'm just going to paste my notes below:
runaway jim, foam pairing not as awesome as it looks. trey seems lost finding notes for solos
stealing time - meh, except for the fact that it's a debut
happy to hear timber here, but there are better versions.
cities devolves into a standard funk jam
i like driver!
trey totally mutilates the fugue section of reba, and not in a good way. the jam is really sparse for the first few minutes, might actually be interesting if you're into that sort of thing.
everyone forgets how to play farmhouse
weird version of if i could, with fishman playing a marching beat instead of the usual. song proper is played poorly, but the jam is maybe the show highlight.
mike's song has some decent shredding, but the segue into simple is fugly.
simple is kinda pretty.
nevermind, this mike's groove is an abortion.
amazing AMAZING ambient hood jam, why the hell did this have to close such a terrible show?! this should definitely go on some best-of '09 mix, if i make one.
Yes, the "Hood" is the business, and you should check it out at all costs. The "If I Could" is a curiosity, but otherwise...just stay away from this one.
runaway jim, foam pairing not as awesome as it looks. trey seems lost finding notes for solos
stealing time - meh, except for the fact that it's a debut
happy to hear timber here, but there are better versions.
cities devolves into a standard funk jam
i like driver!
trey totally mutilates the fugue section of reba, and not in a good way. the jam is really sparse for the first few minutes, might actually be interesting if you're into that sort of thing.
everyone forgets how to play farmhouse
weird version of if i could, with fishman playing a marching beat instead of the usual. song proper is played poorly, but the jam is maybe the show highlight.
mike's song has some decent shredding, but the segue into simple is fugly.
simple is kinda pretty.
nevermind, this mike's groove is an abortion.
amazing AMAZING ambient hood jam, why the hell did this have to close such a terrible show?! this should definitely go on some best-of '09 mix, if i make one.
Yes, the "Hood" is the business, and you should check it out at all costs. The "If I Could" is a curiosity, but otherwise...just stay away from this one.
Jan 8, 2013
2009-05-31 Fenway Park
I remember this show as having been very disappointing. On relisten, it's not so much "disappointing" as it is "mostly workmanlike." When you have a repertoire like Phish's "workmanlike" can be either praise or insult: their songs are so complex just plain good that a straightforward, by-the-numbers show is still better than most live music on earth; at the same time, there are so many Phish shows with brilliantly creative and unique musical moments in them, why would you ever settle for a "normal" one?
Thus, I probably won't be listening to the band's only Fenway Park show again any time soon, save for maybe the "Tweezer" > "Light" sequence.
As the seventh set of 3.0, the first set of Fenway is definitely the worst so far. Song selection and flow are not up to par with any of the Hampton nights, and most of the songs are, again, workmanlike. There's nothing terrible here, but you don't have to look far to find better versions of everything. The a capella "Star Spangled Banner" opener is fun, but the harmonies are also off in a few places, which makes the whole thing a little uncomfortable. As always, "Moma Dance" is a first set highlight, "Chalkdust" is maybe a little more fiery than usual, and "Ocelot" is, well, "Ocelot," even in its debut incarnation. "Limb by Limb" and a late-set "Disease" are slightly extended, but neither goes much beyond your basic Type I Trey-shredding, and his straightforward soloing is nowhere near as engaging as it was during Hampton II or III. "Destiny Unbound" is a nice bust-out, and features maybe the best playing (a little mini funk jam) of the set.
"Tweezer" > "Light" is easily this show's highlight. It's no Hampton I "Tweezer," but it's still a pretty fascinating beast, with some "Theme" elements wound up in the jam, and a few minutes of abstract soundscapes at the end that melt perfectly into the first-ever "Light." This is the old "Light," not the huge jam vehicle the song's become, and it's actually neat to hear it this way. There's a quick solo from Trey and then a vocals-only outro and then the song just ends, in just over five minutes. It works, even if it's weird to not hear a 20-minute version in the post-'11 era. It would actually be really fun if the band would occasionally truncate these jam vehicles like this nowadays, while elevating usual, non-jam songs to 10 or 15 minute heights from time to time ("Tube" or "Halley's" anyone?), but I digress.
The "Gin" is serviceable here and features Trey playing around with the outro melody a bit, to great effect, but again, it doesn't top the Hampton version. "Bowie" is the silver medal highlight of the night; it's well-played and the jam is a lot less dark than usual. The rest of the set is sort of bogged down by the one-two punch of "Time Turns Elastic" and "YEM," minus a nice "Curtis Loew," a song I've been a huge fan of since I saw the cover it at Blossom '10. Don't get me wrong here; I actually love both "TTE" and "YEM," but they're very long, very composed songs, and you really only want one of them at a time in a set or maybe even only one at a time in an entire show. Neither song is known for its improvisation or its jamming, and whenever either one starts, you've got a pretty good idea of what's going to happen for the next twenty or twenty-five minutes...so yeah, having them nearly back-to-back is not so good.
The triple encore is pretty fun, though.
Quick note: I remember hearing at the time that lots of people thought that the '09 Summer Tour LivePhish mixes were shit, and now that I'm listening to them again...yeah, they're shit. Hampton was great, but this Fenway show sounds like it was recorded in the parking lot, through a huge wall of wet sponges, and for some reason the vocals are pushed pretty dramatically to the fore. Because that's what we all see Phish for: the vocals.
Anyway, I'm really excited to move into '09 tour proper...for me, after Fenway this is pretty uncharted territory. I listened intently to the second leg of Summer '09, but everything else (including the Fall and Winter tours) is going to be mostly new. Whoo!
Thus, I probably won't be listening to the band's only Fenway Park show again any time soon, save for maybe the "Tweezer" > "Light" sequence.
As the seventh set of 3.0, the first set of Fenway is definitely the worst so far. Song selection and flow are not up to par with any of the Hampton nights, and most of the songs are, again, workmanlike. There's nothing terrible here, but you don't have to look far to find better versions of everything. The a capella "Star Spangled Banner" opener is fun, but the harmonies are also off in a few places, which makes the whole thing a little uncomfortable. As always, "Moma Dance" is a first set highlight, "Chalkdust" is maybe a little more fiery than usual, and "Ocelot" is, well, "Ocelot," even in its debut incarnation. "Limb by Limb" and a late-set "Disease" are slightly extended, but neither goes much beyond your basic Type I Trey-shredding, and his straightforward soloing is nowhere near as engaging as it was during Hampton II or III. "Destiny Unbound" is a nice bust-out, and features maybe the best playing (a little mini funk jam) of the set.
The triple encore is pretty fun, though.
Quick note: I remember hearing at the time that lots of people thought that the '09 Summer Tour LivePhish mixes were shit, and now that I'm listening to them again...yeah, they're shit. Hampton was great, but this Fenway show sounds like it was recorded in the parking lot, through a huge wall of wet sponges, and for some reason the vocals are pushed pretty dramatically to the fore. Because that's what we all see Phish for: the vocals.
Anyway, I'm really excited to move into '09 tour proper...for me, after Fenway this is pretty uncharted territory. I listened intently to the second leg of Summer '09, but everything else (including the Fall and Winter tours) is going to be mostly new. Whoo!
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