ALPHARETTA 1 RECAP
[Phish.net thanks volunteer recapper @LizardwithaZ for writing this recap. PhishNet depends on volunteers to recap shows, and opinions offered herein do not necessarily reflect those of PhishNet and our volunteer community. -Ed.]
How do we sustain ourselves in life? Sustaining ourselves through a global pandemic was a near impossibility, as we lost so much, day after day.
Yet here we are again, as we find ourselves back in Alpharetta, almost exactly three years after “Ghost,” “Carini,” “Soul Planet,” “You Sexy Thing,” and that incredible 2018 run.
This time, we’re looking for sustenance. For something to sustain us. And perhaps Phish is looking for something to sustain them, too.
OAK MOUNTAIN RECAP - APPROACH THE NIGHT WITH CARINI!
[Phish.net thanks volunteer recapper Suzy Barros for writing this recap. PhishNet depends on volunteers to recap shows, and opinions offered herein do not necessarily reflect those of PhishNet and our volunteer community. -Ed.]
Second night of tour, everybody, and for those of us who hadn’t been to a show at Oak Mountain, there was that fun element to check off the Phish venue bucket list. It goes without saying that this show was INCREDIBLY HOT in all the meanings of the word. This show was ALL MEAT NO FILLER and I can’t express my enthusiasm for it strongly enough, although I’m going to give it a shot.
SET 1: Sand, Everything's Right, Turtle in the Clouds, Maze, Destiny Unbound, Foam, Stash, Bathtub Gin
SET 2: Chalk Dust Torture[1] > Steam > Prince Caspian > Golgi Apparatus > AC/DC Bag > Shade > Mike's Song > Silent in the Morning > Weekapaug Groove
ENCORE: A Life Beyond The Dream, Cavern
Chalk Dust Torture included a Fire (Ohio Players) tease from Trey and was unfinished. Trey teased Waves in Steam.
Soundcheck: My Soul, Foam, Evening Song, Thread
SET 1: The Moma Dance > Sigma Oasis, Back on the Train, Dirt, The Final Hurrah, Funky Bitch, Ghost, Driver, The Wedge, Walls of the Cave
SET 2: Evening Song > Carini > Martian Monster > Golden Age > Mountains in the Mist > Blaze On > Harry Hood
ENCORE: Yarmouth Road, Gumbo > Character Zero
Page teased Long Tall Glasses in Gumbo. This was the rescheduled date from the show that had been postponed due to coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
ARKANSAS RECAP - WELCOME BACK!
(phish.net thanks volunteer recapper Michael Ayers (@yhgtbfkm) for writing this recap. PhishNet depends on volunteers to recap shows, and opinions offered herein do not necessarily reflect those of PhishNet and our volunteer community. On behalf of fans everywhere, it sure is good to be back! -ed)
Welcome back everyone!
Tonight marks the first time Phish is playing in The Natural State, one of a handful of states that the band has never played.
There’s always an air of mystery surrounding tour openers, but given everything that’s occurred over the past 18 months, I’m sure everyone had more questions than normal. What would the band open with? Would they be rusty? Would the venue still be selling $15 Bud Lights? (Spoiler, they were and they were just as bad as you remember them).
With all of these questions and more bouncing around in my head, my friend and I took up residence Page side on the lawn at the Walmart AMP (a surprisingly nice little venue that I later found out stood for “Arkansas Music Pavilion”) and got settled in for what was sure to be an interesting night.
THE PHISH LYRICS INDEX IS BACK!
Want to name a pet something besides Tela? Can't recall which song mentions Aquitana or Elihu? Remember which nine Phish songs mention birds? Now, and once again, you can. Originally published in the second edition of The Phish Companion, extended with input from forum regulars in an earlier (c.2012-2015) version, and now thoroughly rebuilt from the ground up, the Lyrics Index is coming back!
This is a selective topical index of the lyrics to 253 Phish originals1 – 26,835 words2, indexed in 2,393 references3, organized in 51 topical categories4, some more selective than others5. And it's rolling out, though still getting populated with entries (1,117 entered so far - 1,276 OTW!).
The included references follow this logic:
Soundcheck: Stash, Halfway to the Moon, Undermind, Lonely Trip
SET 1: I Never Needed You Like This Before[1], Tube > Free, Bouncing Around the Room, 46 Days, Limb By Limb, Wolfman's Brother, NICU, Drift While You're Sleeping
SET 2: Down with Disease[2] -> Simple -> Fuego -> Plasma > Runaway Jim -> Weekapaug Groove[3] -> Runaway Jim > Rift, If I Could > Rise/Come Together > Slave to the Traffic Light
ENCORE: Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.
This show featured the Phish debut of I Never Needed You Like This Before. Trey teased Let It Grow in Down with Disease, which was unfinished. Weekapaug was incomplete. This was the rescheduled date from the show that had been postponed due to coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 474
Welcome to the 474th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the final and hardest puzzle of July - shout out to @sumac22 for the clip! The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Stay safe!
20 Years Since Sharin'!
Twenty years ago today, the Mockingbird Foundation released the double-disc Sharin' in the Groove, featuring 23 artists who (with their studios, managers, producers, and more) donated their time gratis to record a Phish cover and help fundraise for music education for children. CDs still sell, believe it or not, and the digital tracks continue to raise grant funds every week, even 20 years later - and we encourage you to pick it up, at any of the 80+ outlets for it, from Amazon and the Apple Store to Spotify and beyond.
Sharin' in the Groove was unusual, as "tribute" albums go. Above all, the performers aren't bands influenced by Phish - it's the bands, acts, and genres that influenced Phish, from school bands (high school orchetra and college marching band) to the international champion barbershop quartet, and every manner of jazz, funk, soul, rock, pop, ballad, and more in between: Little Feat (who recorded "Sample in a Jar", then took it on the road) and the Wailers (doing their first track in over a decade, with their original producer); members of Talking Heads and Los Lobos; Son Seals and Arlo Guthrie - and Jimmy Buffet, with his entire Coral Reef Band.
And it's organized like a show, opening with a clean and vibrant cover of "Bouncin'" by Arlo Guthrie playing with a band that includes 2 of his kids, winding its way through a solid first set CD, then diving into some weirdness for set (CD) two - such as drum-n-bass masters Lake Trout reimagining a chunk of Picture of Nectar, and Japanese oddity The Boredoms mashing up "Free" and "End of Session" - before finishing out with the "Golgi" encore.
RUNAWAY, FITZ, AND MUSIC EDUCATION
Runaway Gin - a Tribute to Phish raised over $8,000 for the Mockingbird Foundation over the past year, donated in memory of keyboardist John "Fitz" Fitzgerald, who passed away unexpectedly in January 2020. We appreciate their support of music education for children, and encourage you to check out Fitz (and all of four of them) laying it down...
THE "GOOD KARMA, HOPE YOU GET YOUR TOUR WISH" MOCKINGBIRD FUNDRAISER
Looking for a certain bustout this summer? Hoping to catch a certain song at a certain venue? Looking for more long jams and fewer micro-jams? Create some good vibes towards making your wish come true by making a conditional pledge to a charitable cause!
Here’s how it works:
1. Go to this form: Google Form For Good Karma Hope You Get Your Tour Wish Fundraiser
The only personal information we ask for in the form is your first name and an email address to reach you if your conditional pledge comes to fruition.
2. Enter the donation amount you would like to conditionally pledge. Your choice.
3. Tell us the condition you want to attach to your pledge. We created six ideas (below), but there is an option to create your own. (For example: "I want "Tweezer" to open Deer Creek night 1" or "I want "More" to encore at Walmart" or "'Dog Log' at Dicks" or "For 'Guelah Papryus' to go Type II").
4. If the condition you selected comes true, we will reach out to you and ask you to honor your pledge. It is a strictly voluntary pledge and we ask for no payment or payment information up front.
5. Spread the word!
LOST GAMEHENDGE CD-ROM FOOTAGE RELEASED 30 YEARS LATER
Thanks to John Greene, Matt Laurence, and Clinton Vadnais, Phish.net is pleased to announce the release of the previously-uncirculated video footage that was shot 30 years ago last week for the planned-but-never-completed Gamehendge CD-ROM. This video comes from a VHS cassette labeled "John's Special Tape":
I had the pleasure of interviewing John Greene (formerly of yeP!, currently of Chum) over beers last week in Marin County to get the straight dope on the backstory of this footage. I transcribed the important details and worked them into a more linear narrative, with John’s blessing of course. Here's what John told me:
When I was a college student at UMass (‘88 to ’93), I worked in this animation lab – this is where I met Jack [Carson] from yeP! – my concentration was computer animation, and Jack and I wound up doing music and sound for all these computer animated educational videos. That’s what funded the lab, we made these videos, and that’s how Jack and I essentially started yeP!. Back then, in 1990, the computer software for the Mac IIfx was terrible. These guys in the animation lab had started their own software company to make a better computer animation package for the Mac than what existed. The short version is that they got to demo their software in the Apple booth at MacWorld in San Francisco – this was like January ’91.
MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 473
Welcome to the 473rd edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the second (and second-to-last) of July. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Stay safe!
LOST GAMEHENDGE CD-ROM FOOTAGE WORLD PREMIERE SATURDAY @ 8 PM EST!
In celebration of the 30 year anniversary this week of the video footage taken by John Greene (formerly of yeP!, currently of Chum) in July 1991 (7/12/91 - 7/19/91) that was slated to be included in the planned-but-never-completed Gamehendge CD-ROM, Clinton Vadnais (@cleantone here / @cleantones on Twitter and YouTube) will be streaming the footage he restored and cleaned up on his YouTube channel (youtube.com/cleantones) for the fanbase for the first time Saturday (tomorrow) at 8 pm EST / 5 pm PST!
Mockingbird Celebrates Pride
In celebration of Pride Month, an all-volunteer nonprofit founded and run entirely by Phish fans has announced an unsolicited $1,500 grant to the Los Angeles LGBT Center's Youth Services. The Mockingbird Foundation grant will support musical arts programming for approximately 120 youth.
Mockingbird Tops 500 Grants!!
The Mockingbird Foundation has announced fifteen new grants totaling $113,600 to support music education of children nationwide. These grants - the 26th round of competitive grants considered and awarded by Mockingbird - brings to 508 the total number of grants (and $1.9M the total granted) in the history of the all-volunteer charity started by Phish fans in 1996.
Mockingbird Sessions Lineup Released
The Mockingbird Foundation has announced the schedule for this weekend's free, 3-day livestream celebrating 25 years of music education! Follow more news here, at mbird.org/mbird25, and on Twitter with the hashtag #mbird25.
Mockingbird Grants, Mapped
The Mockingbird Foundation has put all 493 of its grants (so far) into an interactive map. Find one (or more) near you, supporting music education and funded by Phish fans. Explore at mbird.org/grantsmap – or start with this intro tour:
Phish.net
The Mockingbird Foundation