Wednesday 08/15/2018 by phishnet

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX OF PHISH ARCHIVAL RELEASES

[The following is courtesy of Ryan Harrell. THANK YOU RYAN! -Ed.]

About a year ago, I was enjoying one of the Live Bait releases and began thinking about the somewhat disembodied nature of this series, in which live performances from different years and eras are removed from their context and assembled in a way that simulates a long live set. This effectively presents a broad range of Phish’s archives, for which we are all grateful, but it necessarily loses any sense of the chronology or historical context of a given song in doing so.

Also around this time, I noticed .net users on the forum discussing years and eras of the band underserved by official releases of full shows. As I recall, 1999 and 2000 were particularly high on that list, and I began wondering how much soundboard-quality audio from these years existed in a form let than a full show, but at least one song. Far from simply being a nerdy thought exercise, which it definitely was, I also realized how awesome a playlist from a particular year or tour would be with this data collected and compiled chronologically. Okay, so it still sounds nerdy.

What began as a relatively small task ballooned into a massive project, as I soon realized I was not only compiling all of the Live Bait tracks, but also every performance broadcast on every From the Archives, every pre-order bonus disc, every free sampler, every song on A Live One, every DVD extra, and so forth. Because the band seems to keep excerpts of webcasts on its YouTube channel more or less permanently, I also included those. And although I initially resisted the urge to compile soundchecks released by the band or Kevin Shapiro, in the end I caved, because why not?

The result of my obsession is the Chronological Index of Phish Archival Releases, which I am happy to share with the larger Phish community. It is my hope it leads to the creation of many excellent playlists and rediscovery of overlooked shows and eras. Even though much of the fanbase is no doubt familiar with many of these performances, I will admit I have not always connected illustrious jams that occured within the same week as one another, on consecutive nights, or even within the same show. Even more interesting are the sets and shows that now can now be completely or substantially assembled from their various standalone parts. For instance, the second set of 2000/07/04, excluding the encore, is now entirely available in soundboard form due to the release of Live Bait: Vol. 14, even though this show has never been released in its entirety. Other highly-regarded shows that can be substantially assembled are 1994/11/12, 1995/06/16, and many more.

Conversely, the highlights of many shows that have been released officially may already be in fans’ media library folders as portions of other live compilations. For example, the recent release of 1999/09/18 is indeed welcome, but two major highlights, “Tweezer” and “Boogie on Reggae Woman,” were previously released on Live Bait: Vol. 12 and the 2012 SPAC From the Archives respectively. If these snippets speak to you, it is a decent indication the entire show will as well.

To be clear, this is not an index of all officially-released shows or a broader list of shows generally available via ‘liberated’ soundboard. Many of those shows are indeed listed here, but only to the extent smaller snippets of them were released by the band on a separate occasion. One other caveat is my consistent usage of the name of the venue as it existed the first time Phish played there throughout the document, even if the specific performance occurred after the venue changed names. I did this not only because corporate renaming of classic venues generally stinks, but also so a user can search for “Knickerbocker” and see all soundboard selections played at that particular venue in Albany, New York. I wanted to provide a guide for not only making comprehensive chronological playlists, but also venue and region-specific ones, too.

I hope that Phish fans enjoy using this document as much as I enjoyed creating it. And to answer my question about how much from the year 2000 has been released in piecemeal fashion, I can now report the answer as more than six glorious hours, at least according to my playlist. Lastly, I recognize this task would have been impossible if it wasn’t for the people who reliably collect and publish all the setlist data on .net, those who taped and distributed the From the Archives broadcasts while everyone else was partying at the festival, and everyone who has undertaken a similar task, and whose previous hard work and dedication formed significant bases of and reliable means of fact-checking this document. For instance, I have since learned many soundcheck recordings were released only as iTunes bonus tracks, and I will work to include those, along with all other selections as they are added to this ever-expanding index. -Ryan Harrell

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Comments

, comment by jaosnlikesphun
jaosnlikesphun This sounds great! Thanks Ryan. So where do we access the list?
, comment by elton_john
elton_john @jaosnlikesphun said:
This sounds great! Thanks Ryan. So where do we access the list?
The list is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-RNK6CBvZSZyBymQFiV_62vCEPmYW95AtA_OvgSGwGY/edit?usp=sharing
, comment by Slewfoot
Slewfoot Awesome! Thank you, Ryan! Incredibly helpful to have as a reference. One thought: you may want to denote which shows are from multi-tracks with an ** or something. Based on a conversation I had with Shaprio they are the following:

A Live One
11-22-94
6-26-95
12-31-95
11-7-96
Slip Stitch and Pass
Amsterdam 97
Ventura 97 / 98
9-14-99
12-16-99

DVD's
Vegas 2000
IT
Coral Sky
Alpine
Utica
Clifford Ball
Brooklyn
, comment by TerrapinStationVT
TerrapinStationVT Incredible list! Thank you for compiling this.
, comment by LizardwithaZ
LizardwithaZ The absence of officially 99 releases is flabbergasting. I assume they’re holding back an official Cypress box set for the 20 year anniversary, but come on! I really want my first 2 shows (7/1 and 7/7/99) which both have some really good jams, but which I’ve never been able to hear soundboard on. I assume it exists somewhere...
, comment by lovethisband
lovethisband Holy smokes, this is an incredible resource. Wow! What a labor of love, thanks for sharing!
, comment by danielplainview
danielplainview I actually did this very thing several years ago for myself. My goal was to track down every single available track, not only as a reference but in the highest quality possible. No easy task, especially in the days before Phish.net had an FTA FAQ section. I came really really effing close to doing getting everything. Had to shell out cash on eBay to get some of those CD bonuses people with preorders and I got all of them except for one. I have a spreadsheet that is very very similar to yours somewhere. If you want I’ll try to find it for you to compare. I took a real quick glance, but you’re definitely missing a few tracks (ex: there’s a lot more from NYE 1998 that’s not on your list that was definitely released, I think in 2010: Ghost, Cities and Runaway Jim)
, comment by hdorne
hdorne This is so nerdy, I love it. The kind of Phish nerd stuff my wife lovingly makes fun of me for doing. Thank you for all your hard work!
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