(posted to rec.music.phish in Nov 1996 -- my second ever show review)

Wow, that first post was WAY too long, so this one will be more concise.

Set I: Buried Alive-->Poor Heart, The Sloth, Divided Sky, Horn, Tube,
Talk, Split Open and Melt, The Lizards, Character Zer0

Set II: David Bowie-->A Day in the Life, You Enjoy Myself, Taste, Swept
Away-->Steep-->Harry Hood

E: Julius

For starters, this show rocked a lot harder that Champaign. We had been
driving for 9 hours (lots of stops for potty, smokes, snowball fights,
etc.) and we were ready to GO! Thankfully we were in no way let down. I
had 12 row floor seats (another fan singing the praises of mail order!)
which I though was perfect...close enuf to see individual facial expressions
and interplay, but far enuf for Chris to work his magic.

For Buried Alive I knew that these guys weren't fucking around tonight.
They kept cranking out tune after tune that made me go "Yes!" Never a
dull moment until Horn. Pleasant song, but can be a buzzkill. Not
tonight, though, when Trey said the next one was for a guy in front
holding the sign up...TUBE! I heard this at Deer Creek last year and
consider myself one of the luckiest people alive to have heard this at 2
out of my last 4 shows. I still don't know the words, but this song kicks
it. Hard. Talk was time to chill & smoke, But SOAMelt played with my
mind horribly. Kept twisting and turning. I loved it, but I needed
Lizards to calm down. The girls behind me (junior high...plastic mardi
gras beads, glitter, long flowery dresses, birkenstocks and plenty of eye
makeup - they were, in a word, Absolute Posers - is THIS the newbie scene
everyone's talking about/defending?) were damn annoying; they asked "now
what's THIS one called?" During "we breathe deep" in SOAMelt. Then they
absolutely SCREAMED "And the lizzards they have DIED!" Oh my god...I hope
that they had a really good time detracting that much. Sorry to rant &
rave...Char 0 was cool, I was wanting a vocal jam, but did not get one.
I was going nuts toward the end when Fishman did a big fill and kicked
the jam up a gear. I've never seen FISHMAN lead a charge that fiercely
into a new level. Go Johnnie Boy! Make your mom proud! (Who,
incidentally, I heard was there on Friday!)

Set two had a cool spacey intro, could it be Bowie-->YES!! And Bowie
rocked. They seriously did not want to waste any time tonight. There wer
no "filler" songs, they were just out to jam tonight. Chris was working
double overtime in Bowie. Trey's drumkit work was cool, he and Fish had
some of the coolest interplay I've ever seen between the 2 of them with
that sssshhhhHHHHHWWWWWUMP! trigger effect thing. GO Fish! You are ON
FIRE! (quick justification for drumkit comments given my previous post
ripping into his use of it...) These past 2 nights when he has used
it...with the exception of Friday's Simple, he has kept it short, and has
simply added cool sounds as opposed to setting up a groove (*paranoid mode
off) Trey ripped up the ending, firing it through the riffs, no
alternating fast-->slow 4 bar licks, just pure energy throughout. Day in
the Life was fun...kept energy up Fish accidentally threw in a beat and
screwed up Trey's rhythm, who a few second later sang "made the
Bus" twice. Bad Fish... I called YEM, and it was a great
treat. Definately above average. Trey did a really neat thing in the
pre-nirvana segment where he coaxed a chord-feedback thing and then put
the harmonics over it...wow. Almost in the 1-5-8 pattern of 2001. Why
did everybody start clapping in the (I think it was here?) b&d segment? I
was praying for someone to screw with tempo, and Fish read my mind. Thank
you for that overly syncopated fill -- it shut the DAMN CLAPPERS up!
There was whistling in the vocal jam, which made it really cool -
something to remember, I guess. Taste was really neat to hear, they DO
have it down pat, Corey. Then I finally got to hear Swept Away-->Steep,
and I was ecstatic. Chris fucked up, brought the spot on Trey a bar
early, then turned it off, then flashed it on for a second, then slowly
tried to fade it in as Trey was singing - as if no one would
notice...well, I DID! But both of these songs made me happy. I was
surprised by Steep...good job, guys. That blood-curdling scream
frightened me thoroughly and nearly knocked me onto my ass. Whew! Then
Hood. Good chance to calm down before they jammed the ending. I left
feeling good (about Hood).

"Encore, they better kick it, unlike last night!" I thought. Julius was
up, and I was smiling. I thought the clappers had started, but it didn't
happen...thank God! Trey did a lick in his solo similar to the Chalkdust
Torture solo on Picture of Nectar.

Overall, this show was a definite rocker after Champaign. I was blown
away, and I have to give this show a Scott Jordan 7.

See you tomorrow in Grand Rapids!!

- Mark H

My first show! The quality of this aud is fairly bad, probably due in part to the poor acoustics of The Palace. On the other hand, the audience comes through loud and clear, which does make this an entertaining listen.
The opening sequence (Buried Alive, Poor Heart, The Sloth) whips the crowd into a frenzy! It's nice to hear Talk, with Trey on the acoustic guitar. YEM has an extended, rather unusual bass-led jam. The segue between Steep and Harry Hood consists of a startling, blood-curdling scream!
Still, nothing in this show is terribly memorable. Most (all?) the shows I've seen since are more remarkable.

Just listened to this one again and I must say this show is lame. At the time I thought it was a decent show but yikes. Now it could be the atrocious acoustics of the Palace but the sound is flat. This is by far the worst and shortest Tube in history. SOAM gets out there a bit and is by far the highlight of set I. Set II starts off good with a groove oriented Bowie but quickly sputters until a descent hood to finish it off. Its hard to believe what was to come in 6 months. I'm not a huge 96 fan so I may be biased. Also it was balls cold that day and the cops were out in force!

A lot of people say that this show was kind of lame.

I have to disagree with that. There is a lot of great little jams in here.

The Melt packs a lot of punch, I know that its not a 20 min jam or anything but its very intense. Lizards was great and has a cool little synth solo in it. I always like a show that has Lizards and Divided Sky in the same set.

The 2nd set is a great complete set. The songs all flow really well and each song is pulled off really well. I know that its not the craziest show out there but its a very solid set list and the songs are all really well played. I had a lot of fun at this show, even though it was no 95 or 97 Palace show it still hold a special place in my heart.

This was the 1st time i had ever heard Tube and it restructured my DNA. Great jam with Trey's Snd Fx and Mike's foot bell in YEM!

"Worst and shortest Tube ever"?

Except for all the other Tubes before Dayton 97 which are all pretty similar I guess. But hey, if they've jammed a song out 15 out of 104 times they've played it, it's safe to say that they jammed it out every time except for this crappy version that made you so pissed off, right? God I can't believe you actually LIKED this show!! What were you thinking? You must have been a Dave Matthews fan or something, but now you're into Medeski Martin & Wood because you're sophisticated like that.

God these reviews on this show are hilariously entitled and angry.

Oh no, people are seeing their first show and they know the words to fucking Lizards!! the tragedy that these posers knew the words to a song that had never been on an album! Somehow worse than when people act like there are these legions of n00bs out there who heard "Farmhouse" and "Heavy Things" on this imaginary FM radio station that played Farmhouse and Heavy Things and Bouncin and oh, of course the funniest- DWD.. There are still people in 2012 who will act like DWD is a song for "frat boys who saw it on mtv". i shit you not. It's a wild and woolly scene out there.

Yo Bert calm down. I have no idea what you said but please don't get worked up over an opinion. I just didn't see and hear what you other kids did that's all.