(part 1 of 2)

Most mid-period Phish fans who've heard this show love it. If you're not a fan of Phish's spacey late-90's improv, you might find it a bit samey; e.g. the last 20(!!) minutes of Roses Are Free head back to ground that'd already been adequately covered (you might say) by the last 10 minutes of Rock'n'Roll and the 15-minute 'Quadrophonic Topplings' jam and even the last six minutes of the *show-opening* Disease jam. That's a lot of twinkling ambient-textured psychedelia to sit through in one listen. If you're in the right mood, on the other hand, or happen to enjoy that sort of thing, you might call NYE '99 the canonical Phish show. Trey memorably thought so - he came offstage with Fishman thinking the band was done for good, and a little more than nine months after this night it was. It took them a decade to fully recover and regroup after this spiritual/musical peak.

Both camps have it, I think. The ferocious concentration and intensity of '97 were gone by this point in the band's arc, as was the larking bounce of 1998, but there's a miniaturist's precision to the sound-assembly and quiet interplay nonetheless. By late '99 the ambient excursions of fall '98 has started to integrate fully into the band's sound; even the driving rhythmic songs here start with Trey piling sonic sediment atop the rhythm bed, and the great guitar declamations are more rare than ever.

(part 2 of 2)

It worked, and works. Fans weren't prepared for how deep the band dug at this show: not just a jammed-out Roses but a great distended 35-minute dance trance (perhaps); not just a swampsick Drowned > After Midnight > Jam but a slow sludgy all-the-time-in-the-world chillout; not just the maybe-best-ever 22-minute Sand but a supernaturally patient 'Topplings' coda that bled into a rare effects-laden solo for Gordon on the bass; not just a wee-hours Bowie but a wailing mid-90's throwback with ostentatious virile noisemaking from Trey. The Twist previews the canonical 6/14/00 Fukuoka version, R'n'R billows and bellows and explodes before dissolving into heady narcoticism, and the whole thing feels like a hypnagogic descent into another world.

It may indeed try your patience and it's less varied than you'd expect from a seven-hour Phish performance, but the after-midnight show remains the dream-logical endpoint of a certain style of Phish, the experience they spent the last decade chasing (before their 2009 renaissance). There are late-90's shows to hear before this one, but Big Cypress remains an essential passage for Phish fans.

I don't care what period of Phish you enjoy the most. Whether its 93-94, 95-96, 97, or whatever, 12/31/99 is THE best show Phish has(and probably will) play. You can fit all of set II on 6 CD's. SOME of the highlights of this absolutely mind-blowing, jaw-dropping concert are: you can really tell how special this concert is after the Heavy Things for ABC. Twist>Caspian>35minute Rock and Roll is absolutely outstanding, particularly the R&R. Several different major themes are visited in the song, and it's when you really start hearing HOW UNBELIEVABLY IN SYNC Fish/Mike were on this night. All 4 of the guys play great throughout the show, but Fish especially is on another planet, and Mike is dialed in completely. The Sand>Quad. Toppling is one of the best jams I've ever heard Phish play, clocking in at around 40 minutes. The Bowie is WILD, and segues into My Soul. Drowned>After Midnight Reprise is another 25 minutes of pure bliss - you can hear the crowd going absolutely apeshit when Fishman switches the beat from Drowned to After Midnight. PERFECT placement of Horse>Silent, and THOU SHALT NOT OVERLOOK Piper>Free. I've never heard Trey get so wild so quick in a Piper jam - he uses his digitech whammy pedal masterfully for the first 10 minutes, and then uses delay loops the last 10 minutes of Piper while Page leads the jam. They come around for a 2nd verse of Piper lyrics, and at that point Fish's drumming is so ridiculous that Trey is laughing his ass off while trying to sing the lyrics. Free is also long and an excellent version. The Roses is 35 minutes, and absolutely wonderful. SO MUCH to say about this concert, including the excellence of the 1st set as well. I disagree with the previous reviewer who says the show is full of sounds from 99. It has sounds from 99, but the collective tightness, transitions, and funk remind me more of a show from 95 or 97. You MUST listen to this show, it will change your perspective on Phish - they left absolutely everything on the stage this night.

The anticipation was palpable on NYE - everything was colored by the fact that we had an epic show promised later. So let's skip to the show, after a fun ride on the skywheel.

Afternoon Set (1:46): Runaway Jim, Funky Bitch, Tube, I Didn't Know*, Punch You in the Eye, Bouncing Around the Room, Poor Heart, Roggae, Split Open and Melt -> Catapult, Get Back on the Train, Horn, Guyute, After Midnight

This set had a GREAT SOAMelt. The jam quickly veered away from the SOAM beat/bassline into Type II territory, and then Catapult appeared out of the blue. I almost think this was planned, though, because the band was chatting with each other before starting up SOAM, and laughing while they did it (I don't think they take Catapul very seriously).

After Midnight was the other highlight: I have never seen a group of people (the fans AND the band) so excited in my life. The vibe during this song was just an exciting thing to feel, and the cheering was louder than any of the cheering later in the night.

THE SET

Midnight->Sunrise Set (7:45): Meatstick -> Auld Lang Syne, Down with Disease -> Llama, Bathtub Gin, Heavy Things, Meatstick tease, Twist Around > Prince Caspian > Rock and Roll, You Enjoy Myself, Crosseyed and Painless, Minestrone, Sand -> Quadrophonic Topplings, Slave to the Traffic Light, Albuquerque, Reba, Axilla, Uncle Pen, David Bowie, My Soul, Drowned -> After Midnight reprise, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, Bittersweet Motel, Piper -> Free, Lawn Boy, HYHU > Love You > HYHU, Roses are Free, Bug, Harry Hood intro tease > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Wading in the Velvet Sea, Meatstick

The stage was lit up to reveal a father-time like figure with a cubist head (think Picasso) riding a stationary bike next to a giant clock, making the clock run with his riding. Then, at about 10 of midnight, he stopped pedaling and slumped over the handlebars . Then, a couple minutes later the band showed up on an airboat (which I couldn't see at all) and then the sides fell off to reveal the band on the 1994 NYE Hot Dog (Meatstick) while a pre-recorded Meatstick played over the PA system. They rode through the crowd throwing out Lei's and beef jerky. The got to the stage, got off the hot dog, and fed father time a LONG string of sausages. This revived father time who started furiously pedaling and advancing the clock quickly to 1 minute beofre midnight. The countdown then appeared on the jumbotron and the boys started actually playing Meatstick on their instruments (I think...they could have been faking it to the recording but it got much louder when the picked up their instruments). All the while there were girls on the stage dancing the meatstick.

As the countdown reached 10, everyone started to scream the numbers, and when we all yelled happy new year it was pure magic. I don't use words like magic often - but I felt my heart burst within my chest, full of love, full of happiness, joy, every synonym in the damn book. How can I get across how special I felt as I listened to the most amazing band in the world auld lang syne, heard fireworks bursting in the sky while kissing the love of my life in the first moments of the year 2000? I can't explain it - but my one sincere wish is that everyone can feel that good at least once in their life. I just felt like I was reborn - really sensing the world for the first time - like I was coming out of Plato's cave. Amazing, amazing, amazing. IT a thousand times over.

DWD, which seems to be the traditional NYE song now, was overshadowed by a great fireworks display - much better than those at the summer festivals. But they should be right? This is the big year of the three zeros! DWD was LONG, but hard to get a good grip on with the way I was feeling. The Cheesecake Heavy Things was hilarious, and I'm disappointed that the didn't show it on ABC. The rest of the set blurs for me...the big jams were Rock and Roll, YEM, and Sand - the biggest jam of them all. I had a hard time maintaining after splitting a bottle of Korbel with Ann, and we headed back to our tent during Bowie (about 4AM). Luckily, we were camped close enough to still hear the concert clearly while wrapped up in our warm sleeping bags. I listened to much of the rest of the show in a half-asleep haze, unfortunately missing the Piper and Roses, but that's what tapes are for, right? My experience had already reached perfection at midnight, and I have absolutely no regrets about not being able to stay up.

Ann and I had initially planned on leaving on the second, but the fact that the traffic had completely blocked the water and port-o-potty trucks from getting through told us that we should probably get in line too. We packed up our stuff and got in line to get on 2nd Ave....and then didn't move for 6 hours. But once we did start moving, it took us only about 2 hours to get back to Ft. Lauderdale. We grabbed a room at the HoJo (mainly because it was right next to Denny's), took a much needed shower, and ordered a pizza. Mmmmmmm...a perfect end to a perfect weekend. Thank you Phish!

Cheesecake!