Phish C/D

also forgot to say the “cities” jam in the second set of the 97 deer creek show is very very good, prime jazz fusion phish

Yes! Meant to ask about that "Cities"!

i ended up going back to it a few times, really phenomenal, especially after hearing so many straight "cities" covers without a jam portion. the "bowie" from that show was also like.... really weird. nine minutes of space noises before the head even appeared

really loved that show, even when it didn't work at all, thanks again jvc, my kingdom for a soundboard

eh fuck it i'm listening to the whole hampton/winston-salem box

i fucking LOVE “punch you in the eye”

hot take all the gamehenge songs are great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pSY7JXlc9c

well this is well-timed (i love the lost in vegas dudes)

i bet they don't like it!!!

11/21/97: well this show is just fucking amazing idk what to tell you. fall 1997 phish is the best band in the world. first set underrated, the "emotional rescue" groove is hypnotizing and the "punch you in the eye" gains so much from that extended dwelling on the funky opening riff; "chalk dust" gets weird and "prince caspian" gradually decays into delay pedal echoes. second set is basically everything i love about phish, and i don't even think "ac/dc bag" is a great song (i know what i said earlier about gamehenge) ("ac/dc bag" IS a great riff on "life during wartime") (i love that phish just love the talking heads so much). the "ghost" jam is quiet and unassuming and then very... emotional? not really used to this song going there but it's way more inner space than outer space. the "bag" is a psychedelic experience that bleeds right into a gorgeous like... pointillist "slave to the traffic light"? right into "loving cup," which they play really well bc they're fucking feeling it. 10/10. the show after this is somehow better

Love reading Brad enthusing over Phish <3 <3

This reminds me that it has been way too long since I pulled out that H/W-S box.

seconded on both counts!

the vocals on that live moma dance are just painful. feel like if you plot phish live track instrumental performance vs vocal performance, that video would be way upper left.

lol def

i like that they keyed into my favorite kind of phish jam style and dubbed it "alien spaceship taking off"

'reserve judgement' was an understandable conclusion. I think they'd dig most of the Ghost studio album. they sing mostly on key there.

rift, billy, and ghost all feature lovely singing from a bunch of dudes who cannot sing at all

well, i guess, of all of them, page can sing

Page is the most conventionally successful/accurate vocalist, but since none of them are "good" singers, might as well lean in to the weirdness. I've definitely seen non-fan opinions - possibly on ilx, possibly upthread! - that preferred Fishman's or Mike's vocals

lol that is very interesting to me. i like trey's voice actually. mike only tolerable as a backing vocal presence live even though i've gotten used to him on lead

Trey's singing voice is what put me off the Dead at Soldier Field thing. Thought his playing was fine, even good, and those are obviously big shoes to fill, but the vocals didn't work for me. I've come to mind them less now that I've dipped my toes a little deeper into Phish, thanks in large part to this thread!

Yeah, Trey's voice never really meshed well with the Dead's sound, even when his guitar did. But even that was hit or miss on certain songs. Love the Dead, love Phish, but they don't really mix - even though I'm glad I caught one of those shows.

I hate to admit it, but Josh Mayer does a much better job of fitting into the Dead's sound than Trey did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4MZWwYtQdk

goddamn

i don't even like "halley's comet" as a song at all but the song is obviously beside the point here

11/22/97: obviously a ridiculous comparison on its face but at their best phish remind me of agharta-era miles davis and that's exactly the kind of space that the opening "mike's groove" works itself into on both ends, riding the newfound funk of the "mike's" into realms that resemble either heaven or hell, while the "groove" feels like jamming in reverse, gradually stripping itself of elements and volume until we're in a universe of pure psychic emanations, which trey stops dead before launching into another solo over the head. fuckin....this is phish. then they play "harry hood"! it is not my favorite "harry hood" but it is still really beautiful and makes this show almost too special

second set is like the band went through the wormhole and came back changed, cf. the "halley's comet" posted above. would probably rank high on my personal favorite shows but i'm trying to avoid becoming such a deep fan that i have a list of my favorite shows if you know what i mean. it's not working

i think in the ideal phish set, the "breather" songs just end up feel like extensions of the jam or mood they've already set up, and set one of 11/22/97 easily feels that way for me, despite the fact that you can kinda divide it in half between jams and breathers. i'd say the only real flaw of that entire show is that "billy breathes" seems really hard to play, lotta slightly flubbed chords when they slip into that one

ideal phish first set*

is what i think i mean, bc breathers rarely rear their heads in second sets at this point

Otm re: 11/22/97 Mike's Groove. I listened to this one a few days ago and was reminded how much I love "I Am Hydrogen." It's the perfect ethereal breather between the deep jams of Mike's and Weekapaug. As much as the jams are the main attraction, I'm always slightly disappointed when "Hydrogen" gets left out of the Groove

Agharta-era Miles is a much beloved sound in the Phish world ime so hard core fans would prob not find it a ridiculous comparison

11/23/97: there's probably a better argument for 11/22 being the ultimate phish show, for one thing the setlist is more consistent, but this is my favorite show of the hampton/winston-salem box, from the moment the "theme from the bottom" jam starts it's like the band themselves have tapped into a '95-ish energy, just applied to the more cosmic stylings of '97. this, at least, is my explanation for why "black-eyed katy" feels so distinct from its workout on the previous night, and why "twish" into "stash" is like a dream where you walk through a door and realize you're walking on the ceiling of the room you stepped into, i.e. blood collects and boils in the head of this "stash." phish fans who care about them not fucking up the really complicated composed sections of their songs will balk at how much i love the "fluffhead" from this show, but again, the energy, it even infects "character zero" which i think of as a set non-event (great closer for that reason) and they just play the shit out of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2HgeBj_py4

^^^ the second set is a single 50-minute jam that swerves between "bathtub gin" and "down with disease" (and which, as a jam, may exceed the quality of the "halley's comet" from the previous night) with a "bold as love" coda, yet another perfunctory phish set ender that gets a transcendent reading at this show

12/11/97: ok i almost can't believe it but i may have a new favorite show? there isn't an official livephish release of it but if you can find the boot (see: slsk) it'll likely be a soundboard recording, one of the very first from the fall '97 tour. (there's also an aud on youtube, i haven't heard it but one of the comments reps for it lol.) the first set is inexplicable, just like blinking in disbelief as it happens, from the heavily syncopated "punch you in the eye" to the watery, uneasy "disease" jam, after which i begin to feel like a train hit me and i'm using whatever bones aren't broken to crawl through this "maze." "dirt" is the most gorgeous phish song ever and the best phish lyric, hardcore depressive stuff (i'm finally spit out of the maze only to realize i'm depressed and alienated from everyone i know?? that's the breather in the set??? ok!!!!) then "limb by limb," gentle unfolding arabesque of a song, always feels like hands stretching out a paper lantern, and the soft dreaminess they extend it into... bliss, phish at the peak of their powers, one of those jams where it feels like the band is actively shaping trey's solo, which builds and builds and builds and explodes back into the chorus, the vocals of which hang over the song as it disintegrates into the opening chords of "loving cup," a usually solid cover that seems extra forceful on this night, maybe bc it's responding to how many headfirst dives through the widening gyre they've done in the last hour. "rocky top" played at punk speed. hell yeah. best first set ever

does the second set pale in comparison! not really! it has a distinct narrative from the first, which i think charts an anxiety attack, whereas the second set is all about hell and doom. it also leans surprisingly heavily on covers which i think thematically rhymes with the end of the first set, and it's also like phish the band is falling away from the music hovering in front of them. the who's "drowned" almost threatens to be a more traditional jam and then it hits a groove for a few minutes and as soon as it loosens from the groove it's like they've steered the whole ship into a cave of glowing limestone. this is "composing a pink floyd album in real time" phish!!!! the very first "roses are free" masses out of the darkness they've driven into and it's like... coming up for air, haha, yeah, especially because they play it straight, only hints of what they could knit out of its ends by april 98, but also it turns into a furious "big black furry creature from mars" which, idk, maybe phish should've written a few more hard-sci-fi hardcore more-than-halfway-to-naked-city-by-the-time-the-noise-breakdown-starts type songs. lots of debris and smoke after that jam, and then they just... snap into "ghost," which page adds a lot of clavinet to just to make it funkier???? it works. the jam is deeply entranced, quiet and groovy and lovely, all gentle gradations, not as showy or spacey as "ghost"s past and future but maybe ultimately more haunted for that, cf. page's keyboard shimmers in the first half. as the band starts to regain volume the jam starts bending itself right back into... the "down with disease" solo!!!! thereby tying the entire show together. blistering "johnny b. goode." "waste" encore. perfect show, or idk as perfect as a phish show could be for me

also a full 15 minutes shorter than most phish shows. would you believe it helps

Brad your enthusiasm seems only to grow as you get deeper into this! I hope you left yourself a trail of breadcrumbs.

I hesitate to tell you this but there is some great video footage of 12/11/97 contained within the first widely released Phish doc, Bittersweet Motel. Hesitation because if you haven't seen it, much of your good will towards the world of Phish will be seriously threatened by the non-musical parts of the movie, which paint the fans and the scene (indisputably), and the band itself (disputably), in a highly unattractive light. However you can skip around to just the music parts. :-)

Also FYI if you don't know -- http://www.phishtracks.com and http://www.phish.in (though I think soundboards are far better in general)

i will be watching bittersweet motel as part of this project lol. i'm v excited to see the footage of 12/11/97

Oh man, yeah. LS otm wrt to that documentary. Worth it for some of the performances, but such a terrible reflection of the fans/scene.

Also FYI if you don't know -- http://www.phishtracks.com and http://www.phish.in (though I think soundboards are far better in general)

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, July 12, 2021 3:22 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i did know about phish dot in but i didn't know about phishtracks! thank you!

project update, rest of 1.0 mapped out:

- the white tape ✓
- colorado ‘88 ✓
- junta ✓
- 8/26/89 townshend family park, townshend, vt ✓
- lawn boy ✓
- 10/31/90 armstrong theatre, colorado springs, co ✓
- 7/12/91 colonial theatre, keene, nh ✓
- a picture of nectar ✓
- 11/19/92 ross arena, saint michael’s college ✓
- rift ✓
- 8/26/93 arlene schnitzer concert hall, portland, or ✓
- 12/31/93 worcester centrum theatre, worcester, ma ✓
- hoist ✓
- 7/8/94 great woods performing arts center, mansfield, ma ✓
- 12/19/94 providence civic center, providence, rh ✓
- a live one ✓
- 6/19/95 deer creek music center, noblesville, in ✓
- 11/14/95 university of central florida arena, orlando, fl ✓
- billy breathes ✓
- 11/2/96 coral sky amphitheater, west palm beach, fl ✓
- slip stitch and pass ✓
- 7/21/97 virginia beach amphitheatre, virginia beach, va ✓
- 8/10/97 deer creek music center, noblesville, in ✓
- 11/21/97 hampton coliseum, hampton, va ✓
- 11/22/97 hampton coliseum, hampton, va ✓
- 11/23/97 lawrence joel veterans memorial coliseum, winston-salem, nc ✓
- 12/11/97 rochester war memorial, rochester, ny ✓ (new favorite show alert)
- 4/4/98 providence civic center, providence, ri
- bittersweet motel
- 7/29/98 riverport amphitheater, maryland heights, mo
- 8/1/98 alpine valley music theater, east troy, wi
- the story of the ghost
- the siket disc
- 7/23/99 polaris amphitheatre, columbus, oh
- 12/11/99 first union spectrum, philadelphia, pa
- farmhouse
- 6/13/00 drum logos, fukuoka, japan
- 10/7/00 shoreline amphitheatre, mountain view, ca

you can do more on phish dot in but phishtracks is less buggy ime

please add the Trey solo live album Plasma to your agenda

oh good rec, that'll be a nice break between 1.0 and 2.0

watching bittersweet motel. someone tell me todd phillips recorded all of 12/11/97 and the footage is sitting in a vault somewhere, decaying. they're playing so well they even manage to look cool

i'm not very far in yet but idk just the clip of them arranging "birds of a feather" endeared them all to me

to say nothing of the Great Went, which is also amazing and heavily features in the movie. I do think they probably have pro footage of both complete shows. Maybe someday.

There are a few extras on the DVD from 12/11 - Punch You in the Eye, Big Black Furry Creature, and Dirt

ugh i am gonna buy a used dvd of bittersweet motel, i see this in my future

the movie did not bum me out until the great went montage started. the band (by which i mean trey mostly) comes off a little full of themselves but also with the correct perspective on what they're doing and why they're doing it. the concert footage is insanely great throughout, it's only when i see trey in a goofy beanie during went that i remember phish is the goofiest band i will ever like. trey interacting with the fan was one of the strangest interactions i have ever seen and made me think it must be weird to have adoring stoned fans when you yourself are stoned and driving a golf cart. the intensity with which trey judged the first set at the great went really surprised me honestly but ... then again it does not surprise me that they took their project very seriously at this point

a really solid music doc

i did think interviewing those two dudes about weed and babes was a little much, todd phillips

the scene with the band that i remember being most cringy was in the gun shop. and yeah, those two guys - that's the one with "the chicks roll up in their v-dubs"... ugh

knowing what we know now about todd phillips' career and subject matter interests, it makes total sense the way he focused on the more party-oriented elements of the fan scene. a different director could've made as rich and convincing a movie though leaning into like the nerdier sides of phish fandom, the huge early internet presence, ties to prog, etc.

Re: early internet presence, the "phish.net" is the reason I first went online in 1991, to trade tapes and download guitar tabs. It was console-access back then, or at least it was before I knew about browsers.

oh yeah the gun shop scene was rough and thankfully brief. trey got a whip

the worst, most deflating moment in my phish fandom so far is when fishman employed a jamaican accent for the long dubbed-out reading of "lengthwise" on 11/19/92. ruined an otherwise good show

think there's still a kind-of-funny punchline to the gun shop scene, which is that trey only actually buys a whip, aka one of the few things in that shop he could use as a musical instrument

i
can see through the lights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b17Cp0V7OMg

my favorite performance of my favorite phish song

Ah man, was not aware of fake-patois "Lengthwise," that sucks. I think about that song all the time. It randomly pops into my head as a kind of mantra

i love it on rift for sure, down to the lyric

which, it's mostly a lyric lol