Been revisiting this show lately for a variety of reasons, and I wanted to add a couple of things to my earlier review. First of all, I'd like to strengthen my recommendation: any other year but 1997 we'd be talking about 11/14/97 as a Best of Tour candidate, if we talked that way at all, but it continues to hide out in the shadow of 11/22, 12/6, 11/17, 12/7, 11/29 -- not coincidentally the shows that have gotten official soundboard releases over the years. It is every bit as good as the rest of Fall Tour, and sets the *mood* for the rest of the November/December shows: dream-music, lullabies and nocturnes, smooth emergent musical-emotional contours, extraordinarily patient psychedelic soundscapes. What's more, every single improvisation is gifted with something unusual -- the grand segue into Piper and that melodramatic extended opening (with Mike pinning down the midtempo beat and the music washing against and around it like a river cruelly dammed); deeply Weird sounds in the FEFY > 2001 transition; a Slave jam that seems to unwind over hours or years, mutating slowly into coronation music; Trey's decision to leave a deranged version of Maze unfinished, flowing into Fast Enough for You instead...and of course marquee performances of Wolfman's Brother (lurching funk, unresolved, backlights a coiled creature whose angel form would emerge two weeks later in Worcester) and Twist. Of course. Twist, the first 'space jam' of fall, is the moment when the rhythmic/erotic gravity of Phish's yearlong experiment in funk finally loses its hold on the band, Trey especially, and we hear the natural consequence of Phish's still-new minimalist method: a dense rich sonic sculpture, minimal form and maximal colour, light tumbling down an irresistible gradient of want (void's horizon, final event) to die within a dark made of *all* dark, a literal timeless place if it's a place at all...

This was the moment when Phish stopped giving their fans a Great Value for the Money, stopped being the Best Night Out in Rock, and transformed into something deeper and stranger. It seems to me this music could only have come out of the band consciously rejecting the urge, the felt need, to be anything in particular. Having burnt fuel at an extraordinary rate in 1994-96 and consciously reached for a rhythmic-experimental lifeline in spring and summer '97, the band came to the desert able (because for the very first time *willing*) to glide noiselessly through space, to listen hard to starlight rather than needing to throw off sparks. They're not showing off here, not even a little bit. Can you imagine how hard that must have been for someone like Trey Anastasio? For a mind like his to quiet down to this degree? But here they are moving beyond funk as *style* to minimalism of every sort as *method*, and finding the opposite of the academic austerity that 'minimalism' seems to imply -- an intense negative pressure that pulls from them something theretofore hidden and secret.

The difference between the breakthroughs of Fall 97 and Phish's previous 'psychedelic' playing is that there isn't a hint of forebrain in these shows. They move logically from tune to tune, but it's an emotional logic, joyfully (and darkly) irrational. Wonderland is a scary place, ask Alice. The intuitive group movement and deliberate unself-conscious evolution within and between improvisations, sets, and whole shows is the main thing separating the dark spaces of Fall 97 from previous experiments that could be antagonistic, or cute, or narrowly representational. I think I've said this before: old Phish could sound like what sad lonely music sounds like, but by Fall 97 the music could finally just be sad and lonely (and much else besides). Maybe that's the essence of their maturity as artists. 'The *biggest* idea...communication.' You can hear some of that in the Vegas show, to be sure -- there's a reason folks get weepy about the Vegas Stash -- but something emerged full grown on this night. Not just a dreamy second set, but an enveloping nightlong experience that moved from effortless mastery to a frightening intensity of engagement in the first set, and then to (what I hear as) perfect presentness in the strange winding road of the second set.

You may prefer other shows from this monthlong journey -- Everyone Knows 12/6 Is the Best, and so ploddingly forth -- but listening now I'm startled by the rapidity of the band's transformation, these first few nights of tour, from the guys who played that heartbreaking Gin and asswiggling 2001 at the Great Went to the ghost travellers darkly whispering on this night. Ultimately it's not about 'funk' at all, but about the natural consequences of embracing musical democracy and patient beat-first groove building and intense emotional presence as first principles and just seeing where it took them.

I know I should write more about other things, and let Fall 97 be, but as much as this 'review' is about the music (which is quite good, y'know; you can tell your friends quite confidently it's *good music*), it's about recognizing when four human beings, Artists almost incidentally, are undergoing a scary, thrilling transformation among strangers, and emerging -- constantly; still emerging, in fact -- as a new greater body, more robust and capable and complexly alive than ever before. You should listen to this show sometime because everything about it is, in some way, strange and new. It's brave as hell.

Our favourite band is four very brave guys. They brought back a beautiful piece of darkness to share among friends. How darkly deadly dreamily swell of them.

Historical note: Fall '97 was a great time for Wolfman's Brother. Though it's a standalone tune now as it was in 1999-2000, the Wolf's Bro was a 'Type II' vehicle in 1997-98, and all four Fall versions (11/14, 11/19, 11/30, 12/7) end in gin-u-wine segue arrows, and earn them. In those days the song's sly minimalist funk was central to the band's improvisatory approach - for the first time Phish weren't afraid to play sexy dance music and MEAN it, so their dance tunes could integrate smoothly into the overall flow of a long-form improvisatory set.

(Compare to the awkward, clattering stop/start Tweezer experiments of 1993-94, say, before the boys were able to play dance-funk without placing tongue firmly in cheek; look too at the number of early YEMs that swerved off into clever quote-a-thons and ancient riffs, as opposed to the slinky late-90's style and today's dead serious rock approach.)

Now for this transcendent show...

The second set really is what it looks like: Wolfman's > Piper > Twist > Slave, blending together the ethereal delicacy and enveloping darkness of late 1997 before a tiny, attentive crowd. Wolfman's Brother clonks back and for for a while before developing a spacey echt-'97 groove, all hazy atmospherics and feathery drumbeats; as the jam opens up a welcoming major-chord pattern evolves, and Piper bubbles up in its own time. It's a lovely Piper, building slowly to a midtempo climax - the song hadn't yet turned into a musical greyhound race in those days. After the late lamented Piper coda, Trey starts up the haunting original Twist arrangement...

...and (surprise surprise) Fall '97 was a good time for Twist too. Trey keeps things mellow with his guitar comping, Mike lets some weird dissonant chords loose from his bass, Page plays some tricks on the piano, Fishman is his usual larking-gnome self behind the drumkit, and the groove involutes and complicates into a gorgeous full-band statement - a futuristic precursor to 11/22's 'space jam' out of Halley's Comet. Trey hangs out in the ionosphere, soloing for several minutes, as the other players drop out. This is the template: between this Twist jam and the ambient Stash from the previous night in Vegas you can discern the outline of the whole tour's weeks-long subterranean melody. It's a powerfully emotional moment wholly distinct from, say, Trey's digital delay loop jams from Back in the Day (e.g. 12/31/95, 5/7/94).

The opening chords of Slave coalesce out of the mist, and the next 15 minutes are sublime. It's a short set (less than an hour!), but the music flows so effortlessly that it seems like one long song. This is dream-music - musical psychedelia in the truest sense of the word.

And the first set? Every minute of it is excellent, from the swamp funk of Gumbo to the startling Maze > FEFY > 2001 sequence (yes those are proper segues) to an atomic Antelope closer. If you only know post-hiatus Phish, an opening frame like this one might come as a revelation, and even for relatively experienced fans this is a treasure.

Phish just didn't play bad music in Fall '97; this show doesn't get the same attention as Denver or Hampton or Dayton, but it's every bit as good as the rest of the tour - a single cohesive musical statement to reward a tiny out-of-the-way audience. Other shows can claim to be Greater in some sense, but this is the deep stuff right here. The purest essence.

I mail ordered for a single ticket, flew to SLC alone. Hung with some nice peeps in the parking lot. I had no idea where my seat was. When I showed my ticket to the usher and they sent me down to the floor. Cool, a floor ticket. When I got to the floor, i flashed my ticket, and they told me to keep walking toward the stage. Came upon the next security dude, he told me to keep going, and so on....2nd Row, dead center....best reserved ticket Ive ever had....Great times!

Wolfmans Brother-> Piper was fantastic!

So Joyful. So Chilled Out... I splashed out to get my brother and I front row tickets for his birthday. And we were rewarded. The arena was about half empty as most of the drug scene, quite understandably, avoided Utah. The police were out in full force, too, although they also relaxed as soon as they figured out that we cold, hardcore mountain types, who came out for a nicely scheduled weekend tour, (together with Denver) arrived tickets in hand, bright-eyed and were actually there for the music. Seriously: A lot of people 'on tour' just elected to not put in the effort to hit this show. I am quite confident that it was because of the quality of the audience at this spectacular show that a year later, Phish chose to play Dark Side of the Moon not in Vagas, as everyone was expecting, but at the E Centre in Salt Lake. Such a great atmosphere, you can really hear the unity in the second set. The first set we were pushing pushing them, faster and faster, (Page was ripping!) and they were almost competing with one another in Runaway Jim and Maze (They were all four just... Blistering!) until Trey broke down and started playing Fast Enough in the middle of Maze!!! It was too good, too right, too real to just let the song end... so they simply didn't finish it. To let us cool down. Brilliant. And it was during Also Sprach Zarathustra that security decided they had no reason to have so many officers around and sent them home to their families. It was almost a security-free show after that, although I saw a few offstage during Antelope who had stuck around to dance.
But it is the second set that makes this show really stand out. I wish I could say that they played only four songs in the second set but I cannot. They played one block of solid music around some tunes, including two new ones we had not heard before: the fourth Piper and the fourth Twist to be played in the USA. They were still working out the chords, harmonies and lyrics for Twist, too, not always 'agreeing' on what to sing or play; all in perfect synchrony somehow. Twist and Slave here in this show are something... something special. Something you don't get at many shows. The list could read Twist > Space > Slave. I am so lucky to have been part of this uniquely patient, fearless and peaceful show. The next year I gave my brother his 2 birthday tickets to Salt Lake again but I didn't go because I had to work!
D'oh!

In a year with so many highlites and amazing historic shows, this one stands alone against any of them.

Best 2001 and slave I’ve ever seen. Axis too.

Four song second set. Totally dialed in.

This version of GUMBO is the official birth of the cow funk. Here. On this day and date.

Extremely underrated 5 star show.

After a fantastic ice breaker of a tour opener the guys reveal the recipe they will use frequently for the rest of the show. A slightly shortened show with a short yet laser focused 2nd set.

The entire first set is excellent Gumbo is always a treat and Maze has a great peak and a nice stretch to it. 2001 is also notably good. Antelope has some nice whistling that makes it unique and a great finish.

The 2nd set is the design you know and love from this entire tour (and 11/17/97 has it as a 1st set). Wolfman is a nice warmup for the big ones to come. The segue into piper is fantastic, especially considering how difficult it is to seamlessly segue into an awkward intro like piper has. Twist which is new like Piper gets a nice stretch to it and a very experimental one at that. After all this you get an epic Slave to end the set, it has a great stretch and a patient and beautiful peak. just excellently played.

Bold as Love is very well played as an encore, not much more you can say!

Set 1
Jim starts the show out strong. Very solid short version with a good full band peak. Gumbo starts up the funk. Thick wah laced vamping eventually fades into a short effects laden spacey section with some great minor notes from Mike. Maze is next, and it is a killer version. Page has a great solo, and Trey's lead section is awesome. The build of tension during this part is incredibly precise and purposeful, yet retains that unpredictable and loose '97 feel. The peak is a little wobbly with no one quite coming together perfectly, but it's still very high energy. This version is unfinished, and bleeds into FEFY. I like this song a lot, and it works well as a breather. Trey's solo is a little sloppy at parts, but finishes strong. 2001 starts with a minute or so of space and then funks along for about ten minutes. Not a lot to say about this version, which isn't a bad thing. It's your standard '97 2001. Ten minutes of unabashed stagnant funk. This leads into Funky Bitch which is well played. A error-less Guyute is next which is always good. Antelope is really good. Good build to an interesting peak where Trey uses metal chords rather than individual notes. Gives a different, heavier feel to the song. BBFCFM tease possibly?

Set 2
Wolfman's Brother starts out just pure funk and eventually gives away into a slightly looser, spacier jam. Very pretty towards the end. True -> segue into Piper. This is before the days Piper was a jam vehicle, so it's only about seven minutes long, but Trey actually has a killer solo at the end. Twist starts up and begins with some really tight funk. Mike is all over the place here, in a good way. He's pushing the jam along, making it interesting. The music eventually starts to fade/turn into a wall of sound of sorts and fizzles away into just Trey playing over a synth note. Trey's solo here is incredibly pretty, and made up of mostly arpeggios. Mike joins in at the end for a minute or so, and Slave begins. This is a very patient Slave. It takes time to build, but it's never boring. The peak is beautiful as well.

Encore
Bold as Love. I love this song, and Page does a decent vocal job this time.

This entire show is really good. Solid first set and an incredible four song second set.

Solid first set coupled with a trend-setting second set equals 5 stars from this reviewer.

I forgot to give you the puzzle:
Try to find the BBFCFM teasers!

S1 Notes: I will take a Runaway Jim to open either set at any show. I like the way it gets a place moving and slow builds towards that big ending. "Slow build" is going to turn out to be a theme of this show. Gumbo brings a lot of excitement when those opening notes kick in, and I’m hanging on Trey’s guitar coming out of the song proper. Soon, Mike begins to drop the chord progression, pushing towards Type II, and such a patient space jam develops, in fact, I think, the most patient and spacious jam of the night, that whole second set considered. Maybe spacious is the wrong word, but it is definitely a high-fidelity three-dimensional space that gets opened up. Maze emerges from this, bringing a good contrast, and my mind is brought back to a strange experience out in the desert witnessing a strange aerial phenomenon officially explained as a Starlink launch… it left doubts, man. FEFY comes out of an unfinished Maze, and it provides a great space to come down and just have calm for a few minutes. It feels like a nice mental breather. Some interesting full band improvisation obscures the true identity of the jam about to start, until that familiar hi-hat-kickdrum-snare beat kicks in. 2001 is certainly welcome at this point, as I’m ready to embark back out there for a little while. We make a close observational pass of Crosseyed and Painless, continuing into a second peak that delivers a Funky Bitch. I realize, if Phish every plays Utah again, I’m there. What an amazing, beautiful, and often, profoundly strange place. At this point, I felt that I had gotten a set worth of music, and it goes to show how deep I felt the set had already gone. But then, the ugly pig appears. I am honestly neutral on Guyute. I know, I know. But this one is, honestly, a little sloppy. Whistling banter leads to Antelope, with foreboding Page, Trey twists up his guitar lines, then bursts them open in an uncoiling, and at some point, the rhythm drops out and the band is playing in zero gravity for a few moments. The entry ramp of the ship drops open, and They speak Whistle.

S2 Notes: A patient Wolfman’s kick’s things off. I would call it low-swing funk, for a certain almost-tangible quality of something swinging below your perception and bobbing you along from below. Mike starts igniting the thrusters, getting the old ship ready to go, Trey begins to set a destination to depart for. We embark, and set a gentle course towards the Red, Red Worm. This is a museum grade, textbook slow-build Piper. At this point, I noted that I fully left the room, and apparently my listening session, as I remember nothing until I snap back into the opening lyrics of Twist, fully awoken by the first “Woo!”. As the jam reveals itself, I realize that I think this has been a “Mike” show, with him being the main driving force in the improv, as far as my perception is concerned, as he lays down contrasts of pounding low notes and melody interchanges. My mind begins to receive a strange tour of a seemingly random survey of the week’s events, with minor incidents suddenly taking on weird, often unnerving significances. I work to quiet my thoughts, reaching a calm, still place, and it becomes clear that this whole show, and especially this second set, has all been in service of reaching this point, somewhere deep in Twist. Slave flies outward assertively and triumphantly, as if we have suddenly escaped the gravity of Twist. This is a slow-build Slave. It is really a slow, slow build Slave. It takes its sweet time getting there, and by the end, that’s alright. The Bold as Love encore evokes the “transportive” nature of much of the show. The second set was about one-hour, that’s why it felt short. You know, it works, but it’s hard for me to see an argument against even 10 more minutes of deep space jamming somewhere in this set, maybe in Wolfman’s. I'm asking for extra dessert at this point, though.

If you like late 90s-Phish, there is no reason not to have heard this show.

The first set is absolutely amazing.

Very solid Runaway as an opener! Gumbo is spacey and funky and segues nicely into a great Maze.

Fast Enough For You is average, followed by a pretty groovy 2001 right into another funktastic Funky Bitch!

Very tight Guyute followed by a high intensity Run to finish out an awesome first set. In my opinion this is a first set any Phish fan should listen to.

2nd set packs a wallop. You know with 4 songs, you are gonna get some solid jams. Fall 97 was Wolfman's tour and this one is no different. Very solid all around.

5 stars from me. Fantastic show all around

This is a pretty low key show. Maze, Antelope, and Guyute have their peaks like normal, but aside from those this show doesn't hit too many other highs, which is A-OK with me because the funk is in full force. Gumbo grooves like a boss, 2001 is taken a little slower and is funky as all get out, and Wolfman's is premium funktown. Twist isn't as funky as those just mentioned, but is a beautiful jam that is not to be missed. And everything else is played with that special energy that fall 97 had, you know what I'm talking about.

Super Solid Show!

8.5/10

SET 1:

Runaway Jim: Standard with the exception of a sloppy closing section.

Gumbo: So slow. So funky. And when all those loops hit so hard in the late 9’s. Just sick as all get out. Would recommend. >

Maze: Page’s solo goes on forever. Trey is just dying to jump in. Tension gets ratcheted up big time. Trey’s climax is a mess. Page keeps playing for a few beats after he is done. Just not on the same page. No vocals at the end, Trey leaves Page hanging out to dry and just busts a move for >

Fast Enough for You: Intro into the vocals is weird. I adore this tune. Have always remembered this as a standout version but having just relistened, it is run of the mill.

Also Sprach Zarathustra: The lines Trey is throwing down after the first peak are just fantastic. Woooo!!! Would recommend! >

Funky Bitch: Standard.

Guyute: Dedicated to Paul as per Paul, any song that has whistling is a good song.

Run Like an Antelope: Awesome version. Has a significant crunchy, sort of dissonance to the middle part of it – one that I associate directly with that summer 97 sound. After they get out of this they still take their time (3.0 version, you should be paying attention to versions like this!!!) and keep grinding away. The tension keeps ramping up. Great trills in the late 10’s and into a huge peak. Wow! Then Trey whistles the Rye Rye Rocco part, lol!!! Would definitely recommend!

SET 2:

Wolfman's Brother: Pretty cool version. Ultra patient and super mellow. It’s a jamcharts version. But for me, this isn’t a version I would recommend. Cool segue into… ->

Piper: Man, these 97 versions with that slow, patient intro and build. So great! >

Twist: Ethereal jam coming out of the composed section. Love the very quiet note that Trey holds in the early 9’s while Mike drops bombs and is leading the charge. Straight up hose in the mid 11’s with Trey sporadically letting loose the most glorious runs. By the late 12’s the whole band has basically dropped out and it’s just Trey. So awesome! From 14 and half, it’s very quiet outside of some gnarly effects, tons of space and room to breathe. Just Mike and Trey for about the last 40 seconds, for a moment it sounds like they could go for SOAMule around 15:20 but eventually… >

Slave to the Traffic Light: The crowd was so enraptured by that Twist jam that there is basically zero reaction for the first 10-15 seconds of this. They had the fans straight up eating out of their hands. This is an exquisite and patient version. They stretch it out forever. Slow burn and build. Huge peak, you can hear some of 12.7.97’s Slave peak in this 11.14.97 version. This one is an easy all timer! Highly recommended.

ENCORE:

Bold As Love: Trey works this one so hard he gets off key multiple times. But the effort is there and for the most part it is utterly ripped to shreds. Awesome way to end and awesome show!

Summary: Really long and great first set clocking in 84 minutes! Second set is 56 minutes but it’s brilliant, a four song second set! Highlights all over the place and the current rating of 4.481/5 (210 ratings) feels right on the money to me. If you haven’t heard this show, then what are you waiting for?

Replay Value: Gumbo, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Run Like an Antelope, Twist, Slave to the Traffic Light

Second show of Fall '97 produces some absolute heaters, but is overall overlooked because pretty much each of the highlights are arguably topped by more noteworthy versions over the next few weeks (this Twist might take the cake, but look to 11/26 for Gumbo and 2001, 11/22 for Antelope, 11/19 for Wolfman's Brother, and 12/7 for Slave). Nonetheless, in a vacuum this show is absolutely spectacular front to back. Set I Gumbo brings that great, extended, laidback '97 funk. Maze features an extended Page solo in which he really works the organ for all it's worth. After a great Trey peak, he decides to turn just before the finish line and ripcord into FEFY, which is glorious as ever. 2001 has some excellently tasty Mike involved, and the transition into Funky Bitch is a great catapult. The Guyute whistling influence in Antelope makes for a very fun twist, but the jam itself is also worth noting for its great drum and bass work.

Set II greatly illustrates Phish's excellent ability to seamlessly morph. Wolfman's, Twist, and Slave each evolve so gradually and subtly, that you're not quite sure how you got from point A to point B. In fact, you don't even remember leaving Point A to begin with. Wolfman's remains largely mixolydian funky, but in the final minutes takes on a darker aura almost reminiscent of a deep jam Stash. The transition to Piper is silky smooth. Twist is probably highlight of the show for me. The band reaches a floating, mystical soundscape fully of great bass, synths, and spacey ambient guitar. The walk to get there is gradual, so its worth stopping every minute or so to take stock of what's going on. The Slave closer is a gradual crescendo, demonstrative of the band's great propensity for patience before the peak.