Phish C/D

7/29/98: think i've been listening to an audience recording of this, at least when A/B'ing the show with the livephish release of the riverport gin; it is one of the best sounding audience bootlegs i've ever heard so kudos to whoever taped it. this show is also phenomenal, first set is full of weird phish rarities and new songs (even though set-ender "birds of a feather" sorta has its wings clipped, pretty much a straight read of the studio version, whatever, awesome song, pleasure to hear it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv7NFBhzf-U

second set starts off really slippery with a bunch of massing psychic energy field sounds that eventually break down into... "buried alive"??? a goofy bluegrass instrumental that is afaict now the soundtrack of someone's psychosis. rivals the "gin" for the highlight of the show somehow

what is the best produced rock album of the '90s

the story of the ghost

Hard to argue with that. It's always sounded very warm and comforting to me; very easy on the ears. And obviously very funky. It made me unreasonably happy to learn that they played "End of Session" live for the first time ever on 7/25/17 (the Baker's Dozen show with the 30-minute "Lawn Boy")

lmao 30 minute "lawn boy"

looking forward to getting there

8/1/98: this is the first '98 show i've heard that i don't love unconditionally but that's ok, it's still really good, and it contains the best fucking "tweezer" i've ever heard. the first set is... fine, gradually peters out after the "mike's groove," but the show really hits its stride in the second set, during "2001," so entranced by its own groove that it almost accidentally becomes "magilla" after nine minutes, which is legit hilarious. then the "2001" groove returns for eight whole seconds before collapsing into "tweezer," which, this side of the riverport "gin," i've never heard all of the elements in a phish jam align so perfectly. here, check it out. it bleeds right into a killer "fluffhead" too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqIXJXK7tx8

i also really love the quieter section of the second set, "brian and robert" plus a cover of my favorite neil young song, "albuquerque"

the story of the ghost: if you had asked me about phish's studio output before i started this project, i would've said billy breathes and the story of the ghost were very good and the surrounding records were all very ymmv. even listening to farmhouse at am impressionable age, i could tell there was an identity crisis piloting that album? of course, it's also all leftover songs that were written in the same sessions as the material on ghost, so naturally it feels weird and lopsided, like a bunch of songs that don't really have any business being on the same album (hoist managed this kind of diversity better imo)

whereas ghost is very holistic, a collection of songs that emanate from the same quiet source, a steady simmering that puts a lot of smoke in the atmosphere, a lone candle in a dark room making all of the shadow around it look heavier and sharper. not a single song on it "rocks." instead of "rocking" they do things like "breathe," "shiver," "crawl," "hang upside down from the ceiling." i was texting a friend about it last night and made the (admittedly ridiculous) comparison to d’angelo’s voodoo, an album where he stripped down everything to the groove, making every gesture and flourish he put on top of it sound enormous. that's kind of what's happening here. it's a heavily-overdubbed record that never once feels crowded, even when the funk siren is going off in the extreme background of "ghost." and it feels like the right move for them in the studio: if it’s hard to capture your expansive, space-exploring improvisations on record because it requires a crowd to exchange energies with, then why not reimagine the studio as a way to create that space without actually playing it. shrink the songs down to the size of whispers and see what grows around and over them. this is why no other phish record sounds like it, and yet it is the phish record most aligned with their jam philosophy and their good qualities as a band (though it helps that they were writing the best songs of their career at this point). one of my favorite albums of all time now, i didn't think i'd ever love a phish studio album this much

i still think "guyute" ended up on the right album. it's a throwback to junta-era phish, like i think of it as "esther 2," one of those infrequent moments in the catalog where they remind you that they really love the band yes and they're gonna get yessed out. but i think it also, like "esther," captures part of their ethos as a band, going back to trey anastasio writing children's songs with his mom and gradually bringing them into the compositions he was writing for his band, where there's this sort of adventures of mark twain-ish creeping dread in the childlike atmosphere, and i think that fits in with the other songs on ghost (and with the cover art tbh) just right

the siket disc: pairs well with the 2000 drum logos show as an example of phish sounding as little like phish as possible, and that is why i love it. it came out after farmhouse but i moved it up in the lineup because these recordings are from the '97 sessions that produced a lot of the story of the ghost songs, and as such it feels like an appendix of that record, the untamed dark from which those songs sprung. if i were trying to get someone into phish, the first song i'd play for them is "what's the use?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WB9GyLrOiE

which is imo something you wouldn't think twice about hearing on a rarities comp by can. the rest of the record is a little "assorted studio experiments and fragments" but that's also what makes it excellent music to write to

Love the Siket Disc, just finally got around to that during the pandemic. It's cool. I also broke down and bough the huge box for Joy that included the Party Time bonus disc, which I don't think is streaming? Or at least not the last time I checked.

11/11/98: yeah i added another '98 show to the queue, whatever, i found the last one a little disappointing and wanted to hear something that reminded me of why i fell in love with the island tour. the setlist of this show looked awesome, so i was like, why not, and i'm so glad i went for it, this has gotta be one of the best phish shows ever. first set is awesome, the "gumbo" jam is gorgeous, "birds" is starting to burn up the stage again, and the "bottom" and "julius" are both excellent. second set is off the chain, an even better endless-scrolling-universe-of-pure-groove "halley's comet" than the classic hampton one, a jammed-out "simple" (!!! i have been waiting to hear what this was like and i wasn't disappointed) that steers right into "walk away," imo the best song any rock band could conceivably cover, and then... well, since story of the ghost is out at this point, they're starting to play with the structure of "limb by limb," the solo section of which now juts out of the chorus at the oddest angle, while "ghost" finally starts like the album version, sirens sounding through a thick fog. the encore is three phish songs i don't care for (although it's fun to hear "contact" in funkier form) but this is still immediately one of my favorite shows

That is indeed an awesome setlist on 11/11/98. If I see a "Tela" I'm about 10 times more likely to press play on a show. Re: disappointing encore, I love "Contact" dearly but "Rocky Top" and "Funky Bitch" are songs I never look forward to hearing

Ha, I don't think Phish's version of "Rocky Top" is particularly great, but it holds a special place in my heart. In college, during the summers, I worked for a county highway department and the foreman was this lovable old Midwestern farmer guy in his seventies and "Rocky Top" was his favorite song and he would whistle it alllll the time. He lived in the same small town as me and every year there was a little carnival at which they would set up a stage for some country and bluegrass bands to play, and one of the groups would play "Rocky Top" every single year and this guy would stand up, dance around, hootin' and hollerin' with the biggest damn grin on his face. Hard to hate the song after seeing that.

Haha love that. I've got no problem with the song itself, it's just not something I get excited about in the context of a Phish show

Rocky Top was easily my least-favorite of Phish's bluegrass covers. Top three were: Ginseng Sullivan, Old Home Place, and Minds Got a Mind of Its Own.

"rocky top" at the right placement and the right speed is a blast. "ginseng sullivan" def the best bluegrass cover

If I see a "Tela" I'm about 10 times more likely to press play on a show

"tela" RULES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JykBMI_U4-Y

happy to have found video for the next show i'm listening to (7/23/99) if only just bc i've always wanted to see the lightning storm that apparently goes off during the second set's "ghost" > "free"

7/23/99: i actually own this show and have listened to it before, but couldn't quite remember anything about it. OH YEAH, this second set. what differentiates '99 phish is, idk, they are absolutely out of their fucking minds? cf. the "ghost" > "free" > "birds of a feather"; video above adds a lot because you can see trey getting super amped about the heat lightning flashing all around them while he's soloing in "free"

the first set struggles to find a rhythm but the renditions of "ya mar," "punch you in the eye," and "back on the train," and "possum" are all very strong. i reiterate that the second set is absolute fucking nonsense in the best way

Meatstick would be one of their better late-90s songs if not for the lyrics being about burying a Meatstick.

ilx user peace, man is correct about this one

Watched the whole Polaris set on the tv last night. They needed a camera that shows what Trey is gawking at throughout.

funnily enough the only time they panned out to the crowd i was like "pls never show the crowd again" and the 1999 camera crew must've heard my request through a portal in time

lol

7/23/99: i actually own this show and have listened to it before, but couldn't quite remember anything about it. OH YEAH, this second set. what differentiates '99 phish is, idk, they are absolutely out of their fucking minds? cf. the "ghost" > "free" > "birds of a feather"; video above adds a lot because you can see trey getting super amped about the heat lightning flashing all around them while he's soloing in "free"

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, July 16, 2021 9:08 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lmao at Trey cracking up at that "boing" sound effect that Page keeps triggering during "Birds"

otm youtube comment:

Eamonn Geraghty
3 months ago
I wonder what it sounded like to Page because he looks like he was out of his gourd at this show 🤪

7/31/99: wanted another '99 show to get a more complete idea of the year and picked this one because the setlist is weird; turns out, like the polaris ampitheatre show, it's a fitfully interesting first set and a second set born and raised in hell. ok actually the 25-minute "bowie," one of the best i've heard so far, is really pleasant and so quiet it at one point goes silent. this show also has one of the best encores of all time, nawang khechog joining them for a freeform horn/vacuum jam (i normally hate when fishman brings out the vacuum but this is kind of cool) out of which the most gentle and gorgeous "brian and robert" forms. afaict page's voice is shot for the whole show which unfortunately throws off literally every attempt at vocal harmony

12/11/99: y'all stop what you are doing and listen to this immediately. is this the best phish show? if you want a first and second set that turn you inside out in different ways and contain only good songs (well aside from "cavern," as usual.... it's fine)... this is it. it's like '97 phish traveled two years into the future for this night, and also the time travel turned their brains into black holes that connect to the end of the universe. the bootleg i have is murky but you can still tell, the energy in the room, the way the crowd just straight up howls at every awesome development, how no one told me "scent of a mule" was this cool live, how they splice a gorgeous "simple" jam AND "i am hydrogen" into the most furious fucking "mike's groove" ever????? the "ghost" that is fully a tour of a rotted space station???? this is it!!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q0U8biL6ak

dear phish, please release a soundboard recording of this show and i will send it to all the phish haters i know with a note that says "see haters, here is a show that rules from top to bottom, this band is sick and i'm not embarrassed about liking them at all"

farmhouse: seal "gotta jibboo" in an iron coffin and sink it to the ocean floor

unfortunate it features some of their best ever studio jammimg lol

which is maybe a natural byproduct of how little of a real song it actually is

this album sounds GORGEOUS btw, and i still really like "bug" and, unlike almost every phish fan on earth, the (admittedly overworked) studio "twist," plus "dirt," the strongest evidence anyone has for phish being able to write astonishingly beautiful songs with STRINGS. i think "piper" doesn't make a ton of sense as a studio song even though it is the best phish song ever, and the album just kinda slips through my fingers after that, "first tube" excepted

the studio "piper" did make me feel very emotional about the approaching end of 1.0 in this project

6/14/00: one of the first phish shows i ever listened to, you can see me advocating upthread for it as a good intro to phish for people who hate phish, which, yes, it is, but now that i've listened to a ton of phish shows... man. what the fuck. the mood is almost scarily contemplative, like they are staring over a precipice right down into the void within. the take of "cities" moves at a somnambulant pace, and this is an already-slowed-down cover of a fast song, so the fact that it holds together at all is fucking mesmerizing. you would think phish, of all bands, playing at this sluggish pulse would kill the energy, but it's just a different kind of energy, or at least it reminds me of how i fixate on the wider emptiness between beats on something like a dub techno record. their jams have never sounded more like they're literally mutating after being exposed to radiation, how else to explain the dark and grim place that "gumbo" goes to immediately? also none of the jams contain elements that are remotely 1) beautiful or 2) rockin', and there's usually a lot of both at phish shows. this show is all-gnarled, all-cosmic-drifting all the time, its limbs are octopus limbs, and in fact when i hear this show i feel as high as the band were at the time they were playing it. (i'm not.) never forget that phish sounds like this sometimes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht520QVJYRc

alternate review: this is the phish show that makes me feel the drug-sweats-iest

9/14/00: it is time for both phish and me to take a break bc it's getting a little painful to hear highly imperfect versions of "reba," even though i feel weird complaining about that because "reba" is a complicated song and i'm sure playing it well sober is a great achievement and playing it high is probably like executing a drum solo underwater. so i'm not really complaining, but you can tell the burnout has set in and it's not 1994 anymore. fortunately you wouldn't be able to tell by listening to the jams, all of which are out-of-body experiences at this show; i'd get into them but this is a very early livephish release so i feel like if people know, they know, but i specifically love the "carini" and the extremely fucked up "drowned" jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DpKS6V3X8M

one of the reasons i'm listening to the "last" show, 10/7/00, is i found video of it

it is a really really great show

Some previously-unseen '91, audience-based, video camera footage has debuted over on phish.net. Originally intended as part of a Gamehendge CD-ROM project that never saw the light of day.

https://phish.net/blog/1626683534/lost-gamehendge-cd-rom-footage-released-30-years-later.html#comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCO2ZOAikUw

Ooh, thanks for that! I'll definitely be digging into that at some point.

10/7/00: two developments i've noticed in '00 phish, one of them maybe dating back to late '99: 1) trey starts using the loop pedal to solo over himself a ton (cf. the opening "first tube"), creating this spacey light-trail effect; 2) mike is singlehandedly trying to bring back the slap bass as a thing in the year 2000. he will not succeed

very strange energy at this show. none of the jams really call attention to themselves, most of them just slowly plugging away at a single idea, but that ends up making "bathtub gin" really chill and lovely and "2001" very disco. vocal jam at the end of "yem" was ominous and weird-sounding like an atonal cluster of voices you'd hear around an obelisk

and that's it!!!! 1.0 is done!!!!!!

1.0:

- 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 ✓
- 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 ✓
- 11/11/98 van andel arena, grand rapids, mi ✓
- 7/23/99 polaris amphitheatre, columbus, oh ✓
- 7/31/99 fuji rock festival, japan ✓
- 12/11/99 first union spectrum, philadelphia, pa ✓ (BEST SHOW EVER)
- farmhouse ✓
- 6/13/00 drum logos, fukuoka, japan ✓
- 9/14/00 darien lake performing arts center, darien center, ny ✓
- 10/7/00 shoreline amphitheatre, mountain view, ca ✓

Loved following you on this journey Brad, it's been a genuine treat!

I can't wait to follow you through 2.0, I was largely tapped out during this era. Never caught them live and just followed whatever studio or official live albums they released. Wasn't until 2010 that I finally started seeing them again and fell back in.

next up, probably after i take a break for a week:

hiatus 1.0:
trey anastasio
plasma

2.0:
round room
the victor disc
12/31/02 madison square garden, new york, ny
IT
11/28/03 nassau coliseum, uniondale, ny
undermind
headphones jam
6/19/04 saratoga performing arts center, saratoga springs, ny
6/20/04 saratoga performing arts center, saratoga springs, ny

(please recommend me more 2.0 shows)

Good lineup so far. I would add Mike's 2003 solo album Inside In, which I really dig but ymmv. It has kind of a Soul Coughing-goes-country vibe and the songs are solid. Also don't skip 2/28/03, which was released officially and has one of the best Tweezers. The whole show is absolute fire start to finish

thank you! exactly what i'm looking for

i relistened to 12/11/99 tonight just to see if it holds up as my favorite show. it does

trey anastasio s/t: the last two tracks of farmhouse were "sand" and "first tube" and this album takes them as a blueprint, almost every song is groove-based and light on its feet, and while this makes for a fun listen, there's not a lot of meat (lol) in the songwriting department—the only song that reminded me of the level he was writing at circa ghost is "flock of words," maybe to a lesser extent "drifting." but hey, the horns sound great

plasma: ok this RULES, replicates the feeling of phish with horns but with really surprising and huge jams. you can tell trey was listening to a lot of fela kuti at the time. it looks good on him

reading about "sand" made me aware of the existence of... the boredoms... covering... "end of session" and "free"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZsSET1hIvM

Brad, can you (or another Phish head itt) explain exactly why Phish fans are so down on 2.0? The, uh, phans I know talk about it like it's the Dead in 1995 or something. But the words I've heard people use to dismissively describe this period - ambient and "aimless" - make it sound like it might be the Phish era for me!

i won't know for sure until i get there, but my impression is: trey was really deep into opiates at that point, so a lot of the composed songs are full of mistakes (sooo many phishheads are really anal about this and i both get it and don't) and sometimes the jams don't really come together? again, i don't really know about the latter, the only 2.0 i've heard so far is a clip from live in brooklyn and idk it sounded pretty good

my other impression is that the true phish ambient era is 3.0