Debut Years (Average: 1987)

This show was part of the "1989 Tour"

Show Reviews

, attached to 1989-10-12

Review by HarpuaTheBulldog

HarpuaTheBulldog HOLY SHIT THIS SHOW WAS AMAZING!!
FOR SOMETHING THIS FAR BACK IT IS REALLY DAMN GOOD!

Say you are looking at the Top Rated or Random Shows and you come upon this show. You probably are just thinking to yourself "It's probably so high rated because it has very few votes. WRONG!!! YOU COULDN'T BE FARTHER THAN THE TRUTH.

The combined playing of Mike, Trey, Fish, and Page is reigns supreme in this show. They literally blew the roof off of the Mabel Brown Room. Fuck that bitch anyway! We came to listen to good music, and that's why you're reading this review. DAMN WHAT A SHOW!!!!!! I wish I was there.

Anyway, I will attempt to make a setlist review for this show. But it might not grasp how great this show was. I will also explain why this show is so good.

First off, it was part of the 1989 Tour. How fucking cool is that shit??? Like 1989 was such a cool year. Tienanmen Square Protests (June 4th, 1989), the fall of the fucking Berlin Wall, and N.W.A released Straight Outta Compton. That's a pretty fucking cool year. And Phish was right in the fucking middle.

The first song was the OH KEE PA CEREMONY. I mean, I'm already moist. And those beats were fucking sick, man. I love this fucking instrumental. This level of creative cognizance has not been seen since this era (even 1997, this shit is better than that shit.) The echoes of Cactus' bass combined with the occasional whomp of the snare drum is quite the listening experience. Nowadays, shit like this doesn't even get attempted by the band, because they like to pussy out and try for less and less improv. But I still love 'em, thanks to this night, 10/12/1989. Oh what a night!

Next comes the masterpiece AC/DC BAG. These fuckers are already fucking peaking because when you listen to this wonderful song, at about 2:33 there is a release of energy that is really fucking good. The only comparable energy release I have ever heard was about 27 minutes into the Tahoe Tweezer. However, that fucking shit was nowhere near the quality of this gem. AC/DC Bag is winding down, and that's when you can hear that wonderful keyboard playing of Page. He really fucking rocks the house on this one. I think this AC/DC Bag is better in quality and in showmanship than the two big "Bags" of 1997. Those nutsacks pale in comparison to this big black masterpiece. After this heavenly composition takes a bow, we are lifted off to...

COLONEL FORBIN'S ASCENT. Holy Fuck this song. The boys took me through the highest points and the lowest points with such accurate precision I thought I was listening to a fucking music-playing machine. DAMN! I just fucking love the fucking lyrics in this one tune. It is so soft and mellow to the ears, and Trey's guitar is like the chlorofoam to my fucking rag. How wonderful the song that I almost fainted. It was like smelling a snatch for the first time. Now I started to hear the fucking chords to a new song and guess which one was next?

FLY FUCKING FAMOUS MOCKINGBIRD.
HOLY SHIT what a beautiful song. Making me think I'm high on life or pills or something. AND THE NARRATION!! Is Big Red just fucking talking in the middle of a song? You bet your ass he is! This guitar work by Trey would not be seen for another 5 years (5/07/1994 TweezerFest) but then after that it just fucking disappeared. DAMN! This fucking show only gets better and better. The playing Phish does here is like finding a gold mine in your back yard but then it's actually lots of cash and you actually live in New Mexico. Holy Fucking Shit this show!
After this installment in the category of canonical 1989 jams, we are led down the fucking glory brick road to...

YOU ENJOY MYSELF!!!! HOLY SHIT!!! The most statistically likely song to see at a Phish concert, this one rewards the ear like a misguided whore. What a jam! What a fucking Vocal Jam? After the flawless instrumental introduction then they throw out the jam like a funk-o-saurus. Yeah I just made a fucking word up for this review! But who the fuck cares? With such ample song selection and this killer YEM... who knows! Who the fuck knows about life anymore? Are we just small living things hurtling through space at really fucking fast speeds? Whoa! This YEM pushed me out of the atmosphere! I had to take a minute long autistic mind break to prepare me for the next song, which was...

POSSUM!!! WITH A FUCKING SEGUE MARK!! Holy fucking shit this band pulls out all the fucking stops on this one. I fucking love this song, it puts this show into outer space (It was already fucking number 1 of all time.) Like as soon as I heard the first notes of Possum, I could fucking feel that shit from a mile away. It just blew my fucking mind. Trey's guitar work on this song, the licks and the vamping of his notes, I think I fucking nominate this shit for best Possum of all time. Nothing can come close to the uncaged 10/12/1989 monstrosity-beast that is this Possum. I wonder why phish.net doesn't have this Possum in red as a must-listen to, because everyone I know who has fucking listened to it has said that it's the best fucking shit they have heard in a long time. Maybe because they haven't listened to it. Open your ears, pussies!!! But back to Trey. What a fantastic guitar solo, the tension building and the wall of fucking sound, it's just an orgasm for your ears and possibly more. So Possum is dying down, I'm wiping off the pool of cum from my walls (you bet I double pump, bitch), when we go into perhaps the greatest song ever.

MOTHERFUCKING DIVIDED SKY. Divided what? Divided Sky? No, fucking Divided Hose Jam Face Melt Face Fuck. Because that's what it fucking is. I love the whole song, some mother fuckers (or is it other fuckers) don't like the pause but I think it complements the fucking amazing guitar work by Trey. At about 8:40 he just fucking floors this New Hampshire crowd (has anything cool come out of New Hampshire ever?) and it is just pure bliss. Shout out to the fucking chairman of the boards Page McConnell and his keys for just mindfucking me. What a beautiful song. What a beautiful show. If this show isn't on your list of top shows, what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you autistic? Lose a couple chromosomes, bud. This song remains in my light forever, when I'm sad or my girl died then I just turn to my friend in my trying times, the 10/12/1989 Divided Sky.

Next up is the classic ZZ Top classic, LA GRANGE. Holy hell is this song good, and holy shit was the playing even better. I have not heard a missed note at all so far, and I've listened to this show maybe 400-450 times. This rocking first set closer pulls out all the stops, with a great guitar solo from Trey and a good drum hit by Jon Fishman. He is getting pretty good at those cymbals, watch out now. I am just sitting here stunned. I mean, Phish is good with their own songs, and they are also good with their cover songs. DAMN! At about 4:56 Fish comes in with the absolutely filthy cowbell beat to shake up the patient jam, and this is probably the best cowbell ever. None of that pussy Will Ferrell shit. Come back to me when you make a good movie or grow a penis.

What a fucking first set. I would put this fucking shit up against any first set that you fuckers put at the top of your fucking list of best first sets, like 7/24/1999, 12/07/1997, or 9/11/2001.

Anyways, I am trying to gather my shit for the second half but then I hear the woodblock intro to FEE. I promptly took a shit, but that's not that big of a deal because I was sitting on the shitter when I first heard it. DAMN! I fucking love this song, sure, this fucking version isn't long or give you much back, but I could say the same thing about your fucking dick. I love the quirky lyrics (I went to Quebec once! Loads of pussy.) But the jamming and pacing on this one is superb, hands down best Fee I have ever heard, and Fish's drumbeats just blew my fucking mind. Wow! Must hurt to be sliced on the nipple.

But enough about last night. The next song is MIKE'S SONG. What a fucking song, Mike! You fucking rocked my socks off. I wasn't wearing any to begin with, but still. Phish is good. And as good as they are, this show is fucking better. This Mike's Song, clocking in at Fucking Legendary, makes the show about 75 times as good as it was before. But it was the best fucking show ever, you're saying. That's fucking right! Do the math, fuckhead. You've got wonderful bass from Mike, a fluid playing that lasted the whole night, and a good Guitar solo at about 7:23, and a band that loves to play and also just fucking listen to each other, and there you get this shit. How amazing we are to live right now and be able to listen to the wonderful extraordinarily good great fuck shit up 10/12/1989 Mike's Song. This shit is better than Scarlet -> Fire 5/8/1977 Grateful Dead. This shit punches that shit in the fucking mouth. Since you've got Mike's Song, you know what the fuck comes next...

I AM HYDROGEN. Holy fucking shit! What an amazing song this is! So serene, cold, touching, and resonating version of a fucking beautiful song. Love this shit! Phish you guys are so fucking good. An instrumental that carries with it death, love, and redemption in just a four-minute song. And I'm not talking about these short Tubes recently. This is prime shit, 10/12/1989 I Am Hydrogen. Many a time have I had an important life revelation while listening to this exact song. I listen to it in the shower and at work. I listen to it and think "Best Show Ever". All sorts of fucking types of music are in this tune, and the peaceful bliss once made me put down my gun and rethink my school shooting. I am in love with Page's organ here (His piano) and it just make my mind whirl. I then realize that there's something else in store for me, and...

HERE COMES THE FUCKING WEEKAPAUG GROOVE!!!!! My fucking favorite song! This version is so good, any second of it would be worth the price of admission to a tour's worth of Phish tickets (plus money on the side for balloons.) Trey just comes up with so many ideas on this one, it's like a fucking toy factory except it's like a guitar solo, and it just sends good shockwaves through my brain like when the hospital gave me those for my disorder. (SHHHH!) As I said before, the fucking frenetic pace of this shit gives me good feelings, and the tranquil highs of Phish's Weekapaug Groove combined with the frantic jamming of Phish's Weekapaug Groove makes it a jam for the ages. I repeat: Get this song on your tape deck or your CD or your iPod or get your Grandma to listen to it repeatedly so she chooses to die to stop listening but the final word she croaks is "Weekapaug" but no one knows what it means and no one has seen the Seinfeld episode with the Bosco lady and it ends up later that she sucked off a guy from there maybe 70 years ago.

THE NEXT KILLER GROOVE IS ESTHER. I'm still fucking her, but Holy Hell was that a fucking great song that the Phish from Vermont just dropped. Trey's playing was so good that the whole fucking band was elevated to his level. What a fun song, a must-listen if you have not, and I know it's a fucking delicate song but it is classic, with great playing from everyone. This is like the Train Song in the 11/17/1997 show, it's like the drop song or the fucking cool-down song that Mike uses to dry his vagina off. That is why this song is not getting as much text review from me.

NEXT IS AN ACTUAL GOOD SONG. WALK AWAY.
This has been a favorite of mine ever since it was first performed by the James Gang, which somehow is allowed to call themselves a Gang without a single black person. WALK AWAY DUH-NUH NUH-NUH-DUH-NUH. Love that fucking chorus. The intense rocking saves the second set from the shitty quagmire that is Esther. (I'm still fucking her.) But Anyway, this version is arguably the best version I've ever heard, with above-quality jamming from Trey and bass bombs from Mike. Fishman also keeps a great beat for the entire fucking song. I cannot recommend this version enough, it keeps rising above, wait, scratch that shit, the whole fucking show is so good. I can't wait for this show to blow up like an Afghan terrorist. It is just so goddamn good, and it even gets better with...

THE FUCKING LIZARDS!!!! WHAT!!!!!! I love this fucking song, and the boys bring me a wonderful version that trumps all others I have fucking hear (including the Fire on the Mountain one on 12/31/1995). Speaking of that show, I heard someone the other day saying that that show was the peak of Phish. WRONG MOTHERFUCKER!!! This show, obviously, is the peak of Phish. 10/12/1989, put that shit in the history books next to Lee Harvey Oswald's gun and Ronald Reagan's drool cup.
But the Lizards!! Why are they fucking extinct? Who the fuck cares anyway. They are now fucking immortalized in song and we have Phish to play absolutely stellar versions like this one. It better be on the Top Rated for a long time. Or maybe some fucking pussy asshole will give it one star just to ruin everyone's day. Fuck you asshole. Page's piano play on this one is just Sublime and it really made my day. I was hanging up my Arby's management hat and then the tape came on and I was just so happy.

The second set was perhaps, the greatest set in the history of Phish. Maybe 7/27/2014 gives it a run for it's money. But at the time of occurence, this was so surprising of a show that it continues to shock people to this day. It's like Phish lightning, except lightning can kill you.
Anyway, the encore was left. Phish didn't even have to come out for the encore, people would have been swooning and chicks would show their titties anyway. BUT THEY FUCKING DID. I don't know how the interstate system works in New Hampshire, but Phish rode out the night on the...

HIGHWAY TO FUCKING HELL. WHAT A FUCKING SEND OFF. THIS PARAGRAPH IS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE THIS SHOW WAS IN ALL CAPS. FUCKING GOOD. THE INSANE ROCKING CHORDS IN HIGHWAY TO HELL ARE LIKE MUSIC TO MY EARS. THIS SHOW CAN'T BE BEAT. FUCK YOUR 50 MINUTE TWEEZER. FUCK YOUR 11/18/1994 LLAMA. FUCK YOUR FALL 1997 FUNK. FUCK HER RIGHT IN THE PUSSY.

THIS SHOW IS JUST SO GOOD, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO DESCRIBE. I JUST SAY ONE THING TO YOU: DOWNLOAD THIS SHOW.

DOWNLOAD THIS SHOW
BEST PHISH SHOW EVER
I'M OUT.
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