ah, my first show. it might be the hardest review to write: the memories are dream-like and vague with no real emphasis or priority given to song particulars. i was thirteen! going to a concert was something i had never done before, so i didn't know what to expect.

it was an eye-opener (not mind-opener, that would come later). i was pleasantly shocked that people were openly doing drugs, whether it was the one single tank up in some bushes in the middle of the parking lot or a quick puff of some herb on the "lawn" (thirty foot patch of grass in the back of the venue). i was sober, probably not by choice, but too caught up in the newness of everything to dare mess it up by getting caught doing something i shouldn't.

fifteen years later and i'm still smiling at the fact that 'split open and melt' was the first phish song i ever heard live. this one song more than any other (by any band for that matter) has done so much to open my ears and my heart. with that in mind, the more i look at the setlist the more songs i see that ended up being totems for me: tweezer, the divided sky, guelah! jah works in mysterious ways.

i danced a little. my friends would not. it would mark the first time i could demarcate a line between those who dance as active participation and those who passively listen, and i think even at that young age i could understand the power of dance as language and movement.

i bought a t-shirt, the classic white with rainbow logo. it had a '1993' underneath the logo, and it was comfy right away, no washing required. i would kill to have that shirt today.

the zoo was one of the strangest places i ever saw phish. my strongest memory is of leaving during setbreak to walk amongst the animals, running back in to the pavillion as the opening strains of 'tweezer' unfolded like a giant fruit bat's wings.

(Published in the second edition of The Phish Companion...)

"See the city. See the zoo."�
This show is well known for the fitting return of Slave to the Traffic Light, after a 233-show hiatus that began on 10/27/91. This was only my second show, and my first time traveling to another city to see Phish. I had never seen a show at the Cincinnati Zoo (or at any other zoo), so I wasn't sure what to expect.
We pulled in to the Zoo's parking lot about thirty minutes before show time. Things were quiet and there was no lot scene, no vendors, and no drum circles; there was, however, a decent number of VW buses and cars with Dead stickers. There were a few bootleg T-shirts for sale after the show and I bought my first one: it said "Phishy Ale," and was laced with references to Gamehendge and Vermont.
The ticket price included admission to the park, but we didn't hand over our tickets until we got to the venue located somewhere inside the park. The venue was more like a courtyard. There was a medium-sized section of pavement in front of the small, temporary stage. Beyond the pavement was a raised lawn. The standing-room-only crowd filled the pavement, and the lawn was scattered with dancers. I would be surprised if there were more than three thousand people at the show.
The setlist reads like a classic novel, and this one is full of musical surprises. There is wonderful conceptual continuity between the jams of "Tweezer"� and "YEM"� in the second set. The transitions are exceptional. Inside of "YEM"� is a great one-verse version of Eric Clapton's "Cocaine"�. The "YEM"� vocal jam contains "Tweezer"� lyrics, and ends with the opening lines of "Halley's Comet floating above the madness.
Trey dedicated the unplugged encore of Amazing Grace to the animals. People were very quiet and showed respect. We got to talk to Page after the show and he told us the Tequila teases were in honor of Jimmy Buffett's nearby concert. This was a special show for me, and the one that got me on the bus.

This is a really solid show with a fun Tequila theme, but I think it's a notch below the heavy hitters from this hallowed month. A tight first set begins with a fiery Split Open and Melt and the rest of the set is executed well with Divided Sky and Suzy Greenberg being the other highlights. Set 2 opens with a quick Buried Alive and a short but terrific Tweezer. The next noteworthy part of the show is YEM>Cocaine>YEM->Halley's, with the YEM vocal jam segueing into Halley's. I believe this was only done one other time on 5/8/94. Slave makes a big splash in its return in the back end of the set. Good show, but there are a few others from this month you'll want to check out first, although you might as well just listen to them all.

THE GOOD: This show is best known for the glorious return of Slave as well as the Cocaine jam in YEM. But there are some other nuggets in this one that are worth a listen. The SOAM to open is the first of the tour to really come together while the Curtain features an absolutely perfect transition into Sample. The band had clearly become comfortable openly playing hey-exercises on stage at this point, and the Tweezer in set 2 is a great example. Page shines in Coil as well as in Slave, both of which are wonderful and are worth repeated listens.

THE BAD: Aside from the somewhat typical '93 first set which is incredibly short (59 minutes?), this show is fairly solid. While the Tweezer is wild and hey-laden, it also mainly seems like an improvisational exercise rather than a nicely flowing jam, which some fans may not care for.

ETC: Tequila teases are everywhere in this show (4 different songs!) but so are references to Hey exercises (Tweezer, Halley's). Try to figure out what Trey is saying during the breakdown in Tweezer - is it a garbled version of Hound Dog? Fish dedicates Rosie to Page's cousin, Jack (aka Tom Hanks) for his birthday. He also forgets the words quite humorously. There's a hilarious exchange when Trey dedicates Amazing Grace to the animals to go to sleep to, and an audience member yells out "Highway to Hell".