2009-07-31 Red Rocks II

So, clearly I was a bit excited by Red Rocks I. Well, it turns out that Red Rocks II takes everything that was great about the first night and makes it better. It's sort of nuts how quickly it happens: as I mentioned in the last review, it was sort of incredible to listen to the first night of the run and have it blow away everything that came before. Well, it was even more exciting to listen to the second night and have that blow everything that came before that away. But it happened.

We get some well-played, choice openers off the bat with "Jim" and "Chalkdust," but things get cranking in earnest with "Bathtub Gin." I've explained my frustration with long "Gin" jams in the current era before: they are generally just Trey wankfests and nothing worth getting excited about. This version, though, is the rare 3.0 "Gin" where everybody's in on the fun, and the result is a lot more satisfying...and then there's "Time Turns Elastic."

Honestly, the rest of the set before the ending "Melt" isn't worth saying much about. It's a run-of-the-mill series of songs that get average versions, none of which are a song that I typically get excited about in the first place. Actually, for as great as this show's second set is, there's not much in the first set worth recommending. It's a good setup for what's to come, but I feel like 3.0 so far has actually featured a lot of legitimately great first sets...and this isn't one of those. The "Melt," though...the "Melt" I like, for once. The jam is abstract and noisy, at times just plain shrieky, and actually recalls some of Wilco's weirder noise-rock jams (which might be why I like it so much). Near the end, there's even some strange yelling (probably from Fishman) a la "Sanity." So, which this isn't a groundbreaking first set by any means, I suppose it's interesting in that it got me to enjoy two of the songs I usually sort of roll my eyes at.

The second set is so damn good that it just doesn't make any sense. I'm convinced they through the "Joy" in the middle just to keep from killing the audience via high-temperature facemelt.

Anytime you see a setlist that starts with "Drowned" > "Crosseyed and Painless," you know that I just screamed for joy somewhere in America. The "Drowned" here is pretty much straight Type I jamming throughout, but it's solid and multilayered...however, the highlight is really the perfect segue into "Crosseyed." The "Crosseyed" itself, maybe the highlight of the set (or the year, or the universe), can be summed up with one word: momentum. This is like an old-school Phish jam: there are no obvious "movement" changes, nor is there any particular feel (funk, ambient, etc.) throughout. Instead, every single moment of the jam seems create at that moment, yet somehow it all fits together to turn into one careening train of adrenaline. I wouldn't call this the most experimental jam of 3.0 so far, but it's one of the most cohesive, and, again, it recalls the Phish of yore in the way that everyone just keeps throwing ingredients into the pot until it seems like it has to overflow, but it never quite does. There's a nice Mike and Page led segue into "Joy" at the end, but then "Joy" is just "Joy."

Then there's maybe my favorite "Tweezer" in a year's worth of good "Tweezer"s (sort of like the "Ghost" last night). Here's what I wrote as I listened:

extra funky, loose intro to tweeeeeze. this is great, too. total funk weirdness built around page and his spook-noise machines. the riff they take off on after the spook segment is great. this is just goddamn retarded. this is probably better than the ghost and the C+P jam put together, which are each better than all of fucking early summer. wow.

The "Tweezer" then features another perfect segue into "Number Line," which doesn't go anywhere special, but is a barn burner and a fitting companion to its monster-jam brother.


But we're not done yet. There's a late-set "Fluffhead" that is played as tightly as can be, and the outro jam suddenly and unexpectedly breaks up into a bunch of tension-building guitar fuckery from Trey before relieving the tension by YET ANOTHER perfect segue into "Piper"!

Here's what I wrote about the "Piper":

piper morphs from the tension and release stuff that's been happening for most of the night's serious jams into a rock and roll showcase about halfway through. great stuff (again). great piano outro into a day in the life. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL

The "Suzy" > "Tweeprise" encore is just the icing on the cake here. If you allow a little slack for the uninspired first set, this second set is easily the best set of music I've heard since Hampton (including Camden and Alpine II and Red Rocks I, which were all amazing). Word on the street is that Red Rocks III is better than this, but I can't imagine how...


Full show below. Watch the second set if you care about Phish at all. It's just stupid good:

2009-07-30 Red Rocks I

There must be something in the water out west. I admit that after eight years of living in Washington state and loving it, I'm a little biased, but every time Phish 3.0 comes out and plays in Colorado or anywhere west of the Rockies, they blow anything they've done on the east coast away. '09 is no different: I'm two shows into the Red Rocks run, and the first show features a jam that blows away literally anything played during the first leg and the second show makes the first show look like a pile of shit. And apparently the third show is the highlight of the run, according to the internet. I can't wait. But first, here are my thoughts on night one.

While I don't really enjoy "Divided Sky" as an early-first-set block of composed music, I do quite like it as a show opener, especially to kick off a four-night run. This version is extra fiery, and hints at the energy that will run through the rest of the night. Trey absolutely shreds..."The Wedge" afterward; an odd choice for a fret-melting guitar workout, but subject-appropriate, considering the show's location. The next thing in my notes is the phrase "hot moma," so I'm going to guess this version of "Moma Dance" is first-set exceptional. "Horn" comes next, and while I can occasionally get sick of some of the band's oft-played shorter songs (like "Sample" and "Character Zero"), I never seem to get sick of "The Wedge" or "Horn." Go figure. In the following "Stash," the first real jam of the run, Trey starts working out some of the tension-y, circular riffs that have characterized a lot of the (very good) jamming at least throughout the first two shows. The jam starts a little subdued, with nice subtle interplay between Trey and Page, then there's a few minutes of what sounds like a major key switch-up before the song explodes into full-on bliss mode at 13:00. It's a decent warmup, but is pretty much nonessential when you consider what comes later. The set ends with a "Possum" that sees Trey launching himself into the jam with almost hilarious abandon, to great effect.

The second set starts off with an energetic Mike's Groove, but that doesn't matter because the "Ghost" that follows completely invalidates pretty much everything that's happened since March, including Alpine's transformative "Piper," and introduces a completely new improvisational direction (at least for 3.0) for the band. Admittedly expecting more the same when I kicked off this run, my jaw was on the floor at how fast things changed. First, I don't know if it's because I've been listening to the last few shows at home with the subwoofer turned up or what, but suddenly I can hear Mike and Fish a lot better than I could for most of early summer, and their work on the first few minutes of this "Ghost," even before the jam, hints at something exceptional coming. There's a space jam here, highlighted by Page's playing, a machine-gun Trey section, and then a bliss section that finally fades gently back into the funk that started the song. The switches between movements are a lot less turn-on-a-dime than earlier in the summer, which makes the entire jam seem a lot more organic, and gone is the ambient washout trick that they relied on a lot to transition between songs/jam sections regularly a month before. Near the end of the song, Page latches onto a riff that slowly morphs into a long "Windy City" tease. At the tail-end of a particularly amazing "Ghost" jam (one of my favorite songs), to get a "Windy City" tease (one of my favorite never-played-live songs) was just mind-blowing. Or, as I said in my notes: "i'm not sure what page started playing at 15:40, but it's fucking awesome. fucking windy city tease! this shit is just absolutely nuts. PERFECT page-only piano ending -> wolfman's. good christ."

"Wolfman's" is an above-average version that features some plinko-funk and later some Trey shredding, and while it's not on par with the "Ghost," it's a nice "outro."

Then, straight from my song-choice heaven comes "Billy Breathes." It's not exactly a perfect version, but I absolutely love the song, so it's nice to hear it played live.

The closing "Coil" > "Bowie" sandwich is also above-average: Page's outro on "Coil" gives him a chance to show off in a show that already has a lot of big Page moments, and the "Bowie" jam is a bit more patient and subtle than usual before building to the usual conclusion in an unexpected way. I'm often torn on "Bowie" jams (half the time they do nothing for me and half the time they're incredible), but this one is a keeper.

The highlight of this show (and likely one of the highlights of the year) is this "Ghost," but there's a lot of other good show here. If you like the song choice in the first set, it's a solid run, helped a lot by the guys' first-night energy. Pretty much everything in the second set except a pedestrian "Limb By Limb" is worth a listen...but for god's sake, at least listen to the "Ghost."

Oh, and someone has nicely uploaded the whole damn show to YouTube, so we're back to videos!

Hampton and Early Summer '09 Wrap-up

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.

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!

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...