2009-09-05 Shoreline

So before listening to this show, I was imagining it as a pleasant but uninteresting placeholder between the (mostly) incredible Red Rocks run and the great Gorge run. I don't know if it was a case of self-fulfilling prophecy, but that's pretty much what the Shoreline show turned out to be.

"Golgi" is a great choice for an opener, but here it's rough, as if everyone can't quite get in sync. The following "Halley's" > "Chalkdust" is better, and the "Chalkdust" has a neat (though brief) dark-toned, circular-sounding jam like many of the better jams of the Red Rocks run. Then we get another mid-first-set "Divided Sky," which as you know by now is my favorite fucking thing (actually, it's the opposite of that). Following "Sky" is a rough "When the Circus Comes" and an even rougher "TTE." This is followed by a mellow but satisfying "Ya Mar" and then things finally get back to the "Chalkdust" level of fire with "Stealing Time." Fortunately, the momentum continues through a Page-led "Suzy" (which features Fishman exclaiming during his usual part: "I really loved that solo, Page!") and a very tension-y, fast "Bowie."

Basically, this first set is weird. It starts off sloppy, then there's a bit of rock momentum built up, which is immediately killed after "Chalkdust." Then we have a mellow-jam type of mid-set that reaches its peak with "Ya Mar," only to immediately get dropped in favor of more rock. I feel like this set could have worked as a rock set or a mellow set, but as an in-between, it's ultimately pretty unsatisfying (though seriously check out the "Chalkdust").

The second set is an improvement, with a few bits of improv worth sinking one's proverbial teeth into. "Number Line" is a satisfying shred-fest, and the long "Disease" starts much the same way. Things get really minimalist at about the 12 minute mark, though, and there's some really interesting atonal, weirdly arrhythmic stuff happening for a few minutes. For the last 2-3 minutes of the jam, too, things get spooky, with Page playing a very "No Quarter"-style organ tone while Trey plays a heavily distorted, shrieky guitar tone over top of it. Neat stuff, though I wish that there's been more. "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" is always welcome on a setlist, though this one is mellow to a surprising degree. It works really well to set up the "Cities" > "Maze" sandwich that follows, though. This combination features a standard "Cities" which ends with a pretty amazing plinko-y segue into "Maze," which takes a tension-and-release cue from the first set's "Bowie." This is yet another '09 "Maze" that's making me a believer in a song that I've never really had much time for traditionally.

"Mike's Song" is up next, and it is absolutely the most filthy, disgusting version so far in 3.0. I mean this in terms of Trey's tone, of course, which is just dirty. He shreds the shit out of "Mike's" for a few minutes, but then botches the ending, which sets up a really bumpy and standard "Simple" and a generic "Weekapaug." Oddly the boys choose to close the set with "Let Me Lie," which is still neat to hear as a Phish (instead of TAB) song, but not as a fucking show closer.

"Axis" features some extra guitar heroics, but not enough to make this any more than an average show in the context of the last few Leg 1 shows and the Red Rocks run. If you like weird soundscapes, check out the "Disease," and if reading "Cities" > "Maze" makes you raise an eyebrow, give that a listen too. Otherwise, there isn't much here that we haven't heard already.

I'm excited because next up is the '09 Gorge run, my first ever Phish shows. I haven't listened to the tapes since probably '10, so I'm interested to see how they stack up to the rest of Summer '09.

2009-08-02 Red Rocks IV

Just like night 3, I love night 4's first set for the song selection. "Roses" is basically the perfect opener, and the energy continues through a "Reba" that features a lot of organ washes from Page underneath some very melodic Trey soloing. "Grind" is a bit random, and everyone sort of takes a turn botching "Beauty of a Broken Heart," which hurts because I love that Page song. The band flips reality on its head next, though, absolutely nailing "Sugar Shack." The set ends with a better-than-average "Waste" and a barely controlled "KDF." If this setlist doesn't jump off the page, the playing isn't going to do anything for you, but it's mostly solid playing with a few rarities. Unfortunately, it leads to a slight train-wreck of an eighth Red Rocks frame.

Before hearing this show, I'd been excited at the prospect of a legitimately solid four-night run of Phish...I mean, when does that ever happen? Obviously, there's the Island Tour, but there's a reason they call it "lightning in a bottle"...you're not going to catch something like that twice. Nonetheless, I'd hoped that even with an only good-great third night, this run could qualify for legitimate classic status with at least a good-great fourth night. I'd read that the second set Kreutzmann sit-in was a disappointment, but I refused to believe it. How could such a thing be bad? And look at that setlist! Well, folks...turns out the Kreutzmann sit-in really does suck. A lot.

The set opens with an extended, jammed-out "Boogie On" that's just awesome. This is probably the highlight of the show, if not of the last two shows: more stop/start jamming, a Trey shredfest, and ultimately some "Taxi-style jamming" from Page and Mike. Great stuff.



The "YEM" after feels a bit obligatory, but it actually has some strong momentum and an extra-fun vocal jam that features drums, oddly enough, since BK comes in during the outro. There's an awkward but charming segue into "Undermind" and we're off into the Straight Up Boring-Ass Rock Drummer part of the night.

"Undermind" is actually pretty solid, if nothing out of the ordinary, then there's a fun drum duel between Fishman and BK, but then the wheels really start to come off. Here's what I wrote while listening: "then seven below. not sure what kreutzman is trying to do with the drums...it sort of sounds like shit. seven below gets spacey around 730. k is still sort of ruining this with his ham-handed drumming. but otherwise, it's cool. trey's doing a lot of reverby-high-octave stuff."

Next, on the following "2001": "neat segue into 2001. page workin' it. this song might be more k's style...? nope. he can't lay off the rock fills on the peaks. is he fucking playing using a bunch of goddamn tree trunks?"

The following "Waves" is ultimately short, and pretty straightforward, while "Zero" is just "Zero," but brings a welcome reprieve from the fucking Ent who was banging away on animal skins somewhere back behind the band for the last few songs.

The encore sort of makes up for the previous few BK-blasted songs...sort of. The "Slave" especially is a perfect closer to a giant four-night run, but the second set proper is really frustrating, to me. Mostly because the jamming during the meat of the set is actually quite good, and would have likely been on par with some of the highlights of the previous three nights, were it not overwhelmed by BK's mad hammering on the drums. His playing definitely puts Fishman's delicate touches in perspective, and while I'm sure it was neat to have him out on stage with the band, I wish it wouldn't have happened at the very end of a run that might have been an absolute classic with one more stratospheric second set. Anyway, pretty much everything from Red Rocks beats the shit out of the entirety of Leg 1, still, so I'm excited to see what happens next (and to get to my first-ever shows at the Gorge!).

2009-08-01 Red Rocks III

Ah, it's good to be back in the saddle again. I've gotten behind on reviews on account of real-life things happening, but instead of blogging about those stupid Major Life Changes Things, I'm going to start posting more Phish reviews, because priorities. I'll probably write more about Things later, though. For now I have to post these reviews because if I don't, then I'm not allowed to listen ahead any further, and based on how incredible Leg Two has been so far, that's just a sacrifice I'm not willing to make.

By the way, I listened to Red Rocks III and IV a few weeks ago and took notes, but never typed up reviews. So, these reviews are slightly removed from the actual listening experience. Sorry.

First up is Red Rocks III. After the complete and utter mindfuck of night 2, night 3 opens with a fiery "Bag," which moves into a "Curtain With" about which I just wrote "great everything." The great setlist choices roll on with an excellent "Mound" and a standard-but-fun "Jibboo." "Guyute" is a bit sloppy, but played at a tempo more suited for '89 than '09, and the following "PYITE" had me writing "best first set song list ever?!" There's some extra rock-fiire infused in this "PYITE," and then Page funks your eardrums to death on "Tube," and there's a '09 standard-excellent "Antelope." Basically, if you look at the first set song choices on paper and like what you see, you're not going to be disappointed by much of the boys' work during this frame.

The "Rock and Roll" > "Disease" pairing to start the second set is about as monstrous as it sounds. The jamming never really reaches the heights of the first two nights, but there's a lot to like here, anyway: some type 1 fire on "RnR," some stop/start jamming on both songs, a nice, murky segue in-between, and a classic move into a "Free" that ain't so bad (my hatred for the song live aside). I suspect that if I'd reviewed this show right after listening, I'd have more to say about how this is a great pairing...but alas, my memory is dead.

The rest of the set is pretty straightforward: "Esther" is a nice surprise, but a standard version, and I could say the same thing about "Dirt." "Hood" is always a welcome closer, but there've been much better "Hood"s so far this year. The "First Tube" encore, though, is excellent, and continues this run's tradition of converting me to a believer in songs that I typically don't like that much.

All in all, it's a solid show, though not on par with the first two nights. Better-than-average first set, but plainer-than-average second set. All that said, situated in the Leg 1, it would easily be one of the better shows of the whole leg. So there you go.

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!