, attached to 1995-06-28

Review by Mikesgroover

Mikesgroover I attended this show and recall a lot of suburban high-school aged fans in attendance, as Phish was growing more popular in the New York metro area. They would get a taste of "fun" Phish and a really big bite of "weird" Phish at this show.

The Tweezer is one of the most experimental pieces of music Phish has played, though it doesn't get the attention of the other experimental Tweezers they played that summer. If you want to know what makes Phish different from any other band out there, this Tweezer is as good an example as any.

The first set is almost all meat and no filler. FEFY is stunningly strong, with Trey's soloing on the outro much more passionate than is typical. Unfortunately the Reba is short and not very fulfilling.

Stash is an experiment in exploration, with playing that at times seems to go multiple directions at once. This dissonance is a bit of a mind-melt, with minor chords and furious, fuzzy chaos. Not beautiful, but searching.

One of only two Fluffheads of the Summer '95 tour was much more palatable to this crowd and it's a punchy, tight version.

After standard versions of Sample and Poor Heart, the band launches into the Tweezer, a 30 minute journey of truly adventurous, hang on for the ride music. A video of this Tweezer has been posted on YouTube and is worth checking out. CK5 lights the band sparsely for most of the song.

The jam starts wandering at around the 6 minute mark,but gets really interesting at the 10 minute mark. At 14 minutes it takes off into a full-on gallop, with Dave's Energy Guide emerging from the weirness. At 20 minutes on it gets really dark and deep-- this is chaotic out-of-this-world Phish, really dissonant. The Cannonball "jam" emerges organically out of the jam, and Trey sings only one line of the song.

While this Tweezer isn't entirely successful throughout, there are sections of beautiful playing. More importantly (to me) is the willingness of the band to throw caution to the wind and keep pressing forward. The difference here compared to Phish 3.0, is that in 1995, even if the exploration isn't working completely, they choose to press on instead of Trey pulling the plug.

They jump off the deep end in this Tweezer, and that risk-taking is what has kept me coming back all these years.


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