After several months of gigs in the Burlington area, the band returned to Goddard after nearly a year away. It's clear that the band is friendly with people in the audience, as Trey and Fish had transferred there the previous year and probably got to know folks there. The show is much looser than, say, their shows in February of this year or the following show at Nectar's.

Funky Bitch and GTBT feature some wild Trey solos and start the show off on a fast note, but Corinna slows things down. The band clearly had been practicing Golgi, as it is much more together than previous versions but is still very choppy.

The band stretches out Quinn with some actual new territory containing some more activity by Trey. The solo here sounds much like the Junta version of Bowie, with handfuls of scales. Just as the jam gets interesting, Trey counts into Sneakin Sally which contains a brief vocal jam.

After a set break, the band begins the first version of FreeBird. This appears to be a request by an audience member as there's a loud loud response. Ninja Mike, of Ninja Custodian, sings the lyrics here and Trey adds some crazy effects. After bowing out of vocal duties, Phish slays Freebird, actually doing a pretty good job covering it. Trey shreds it apart and the whole band really nails it.

Like most shows at Goddard when the band feels comfortable, the band wishes a reggae version of 'Happy Birthday' to Sue and Debra. Trey does a Happy Birthday reggae rap, much like 8/21/87's House Mouse Rap. In this case, however, it is Hood that the band launches into. This is a nice early Hood but the audio of most versions is still too poor to capture the performance.

More audience antics occur when the band covers 'Tell Me Something Good' with another friend singing. This goofy version moves into Possum. This Possum actually concludes with a Page solo instead of Trey. Another audience member comes out of the audience to sing 'FreeWorld', a bluesy number that contains an absolutely incredible series of arpeggios by Trey.

A short Wilson closes the show (perhaps the first one with the now standard blap-boom...) and most versions don't contain the encore Slave.

This show is mainly filled with some quirky antics and contains a few one-off songs that are novel. Nothing particularly noteworthy here save for those covers. The band at this point was still refining their skills and practicing a lot but the fruits of their labor would start to show still a little later in the Spring.

I keep imagining what it was like to see these folks at Goddard...just being at this little school in VT and seeing this band just KICK IT. Even if Phish never went on to be famous, I'd be pretty into this tape. These kids are just so full of talent.

What's funny to me is that this is the SAME BAND that became so huge. I mean, some aspects of changed, but more have remained the same. Like the Dead, they kind of just plunk on doing the same thing regardless of how big they get. That's how to inspire true cult-like devotion from your fans.

Check this one out.