@ColForbin said:

Like a lot of people who posted in this tread, I am no ballad hater. I even love the much maligned Bug, for example. But, as much as I wish it were otherwise, I hate Show of Life, and none of you will convince me it is a good song. (Just like I won't convince those of you who love it that it sucks!)

bug is one of the hardest things in phish fandom. it's a medusa: you gotta go in a little blind. if you think about, say, the incompetence of the rhymes, or the dumbass vocal melody, or the incredible laziness of the chorus, you'll miss a chance at something very intense. it only works in the dark, deep into a show -- but i never ever want it there, 'interrupting' the second set.

its jam is right in the band's wheelhouse, trey's/fish's especially, but in order to get there, you have to close your eyes and tiptoe past maybe the most effective momentum-killing song trey has ever written. it's so listless, lifeless, directionless, and *pointless* that it's like it was purpose-built to destroy the flow of a set...but if you can switch off *that* awareness, survive the unbearably stupid first verse, and just float on the lights and the images of expanse and gentle movement that begin the second verse, the remainder of the song functions like a more hesitant/ambivalent treatment of Prince Caspian, without that song's complexly beautiful surprise ending.

i'll never understand trey's insistence on pairing hood and bug (maybe the biter irony of ending the former with 'you can feel good' and the latter with 'it doesn't matter'?), but he likes the song, and as long as the band digs into it and fish does his 20YL-style magic on the kit, it always ends up covering its costs.

now, to hear garcia singing a much-slowed-down version of Show of Life...god, to hear that...