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Tuesday 08/25/2015 by J_D_G

MAGNABALL 3: BALLER

How good of Phish to throw another ball!

The first one, of the Clifford variety, was at the time the biggest marker in the band’s development as a cultural juggernaut. Now comes the tenth, at a time when the band seems to be looking back and looking forward. More than six years into the post-Coventry comeback, barging toward the finale of a tour that’s one of the best of this era (it jousts with fall 2013 for the distinction of best tour in 3.0), it was time for a family gathering of the sort that Phish hadn’t hosted since Superball IX in 2011.

Photo © Aaron Stein

Americans have been using the word “ball” to mean a festive occasion since the 1920s or 30s. Its more specialized connotation, to describe a night of formal dances, was adopted into English in the 17th century from the Old French verb “baller,” which means to dance. Before that, you can trace “ball” through Latin and down to its origin in Greek, in which “ballizein” is taken to mean “to dance” but literally translates as “to throw one’s body,” and to do so in a scandalous way that might be understood only to scholars of biblical history. You see, the Council of Laodicea first used the word in the 360s C.E., while establishing in canon law that Christians should not attend weddings where ballizein – some sort of tossing of the hands in a wanton and lascivious manner – is happening.

Whether Magnaball was seen by its attendees as an invitation to dance all night, perform a wanton throwing of the hands or just to have a plain old good time, I suspect the good people of the Council of Laodicea would have objected gravely to the high ballizein levels at Watkins Glen.

Photo by Patrick Jordan © Phish From the Road

For a span of time in Phish history, festivals were an automatic part of the annual show calendar. They’ve been much harder to come by since the band returned in 2009, with Festival 8 (in Indio, California) and Super Ball IX (also at Watkins Glen) the only prior examples, and it felt like everybody onsite this weekend – band and fan alike – wanted to make the most of it.

This was my seventh Phish festival but my first since Coventry, and I was eager to see what the smaller, allegedly more-manageable festival experience in 3.0 was all about. (Thanks for the ticket, @phishsticks34!) I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t choose to deal with the eight-to-twelve-hour traffic jams again today, but there was something to be said for the slowly building excitement of driving forever into Maine, past residents of tiny towns who’d set up lawn chairs by the side of the road to watch a strange parade.

Photo © Jake Silco

There was a real feeling of leaving one’s everyday life to enter a different sort of space, a strange but familiar country to which the only passport is a ticket stub. The destination was not merely a rock festival, but a wholly fabricated alternate reality. And though the Watkins Glen experience did miss some of the inspired whimsy of the homegrown festivals produced by Great Northeast Productions, the lesson was still clear: that precious alternate reality is one that we bring along with us, no matter where the event happens to be. And the mere hour or so of stop-and-go traffic I experienced upon arrival around 2 p.m. on Friday was definitely an immeasurably valuable improvement!

Looking just at the music, Magnaball was already in very heady company after its first two nights. Judged strictly on the music alone – not considering the totality of the event, including its place in Phish history and experiential factors – it seemed strong enough to compete with IT for the title of best Phish festival other than Big Cypress. The first night’s “Bathtub Gin” and the second night’s “Prince Caspian” (of all things) were on the lips of people having conversations about things like the best-ever jams of the 3.0 era. And moreover, the “we’re all in this together” vibe felt very strong, with Trey calling back to Clifford Ball (the first Phish festival) early on, and the band very clearly seeming to want to live up to the occasion.

Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

Sunday’s first set was pretty typical for the era, and pretty much a place-setter for the real action, arriving later. “Punch You In The Eye” may be the best-ever festival opener, so it’s fortunate that Phish wrote it. Aside from “Buffalo Bill” – which brought back memories of the Great Went version – the set contained typical fare, highlighted by a nice combo of “Stash” followed by “Reba,” before an emotional “I Didn’t Know.”

For that one, Trey nodded to the band’s support staff, reading a long list of names and thank-yous. This was only the third Phish festival since 2004, so the truth is we don’t know when we’ll get to do this again. The band itself seems in a very grateful mood, and is not taking anything for granted. Of course, the emotional part of this speech was humorously undercut by the vacuum stylings of Henrietta.

"Waiting All Night" – Photo © Derek Gregory

With the amount of improvisation and goodwill that had gone into the weekend already, there was reason to hope Phish would go for the ring in the closing set of the festival. “Martian Monster” boded very well, appearing as a second-set opener for the first time in its short history. It proved a luxurious, funky runway into “Down with Disease,” which would have been the more familiar opener call.

The “Disease” is quite good, going for a bright, emotional peak. When that jam fell away, the band did what it did many times at Magnaball – it took a moment to breathe and let the next musical idea emerge. As a new jam started to take form and started to sound very hot, Trey found his way into the opening of “Scents and Subtle Sounds” and engineered another in a series of good segues from this summer. This “Scents” is not to be overlooked. Like in the song’s previous appearance at the Mann, it still didn’t feature the typical “Harry Hood”-like closing jam, instead moving straight to five minutes of pure Type-II improv. This made its way into another move familiar from earlier this tour, a drop into “What’s The Use?”

Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

After “Dirt,” the clarion call of “Mike’s Song” rang out. The jam is notable as Page forewent his customary organ vamp to explore atypical textures, underlined by Trey’s funky rhythm parts. The composed ending gave way not to the briefly resurrected “second jam,” alas, but to a “Fuego” that colored within the lines.

“Twist” was relatively short but featured a very interesting ending including a Trey/Mike duet (recalling a portion of the Coventry “Harry Hood,” under extremely different circumstances) and an out-of-nowhere blues rave-up. From there, there’s another taste of very stylish, funky, space-age jamming before an excellent transition to “Weekapaug Groove.” Even when Phish didn’t go deep this weekend, it found all sorts of interesting and creative sequences featuring pure improvisation.

"Reba" – Photo © Derek Gregory

“Weekapaug Groove” felt fresh, and the closing round of vocals was circumvented by a Trey-led transition back into “Martian Monster,” in a wonderful dose of bleeding-edge Phishiness. If history was somehow different and this sequence happened in a previous era, people would point to this “Martian Monster” reprise as vintage Phish, the sort of thing we wish they would do again. Well guess what? They’re doing it. A “You Enjoy Myself” encore left many people feeling like they were right at home, on a racetrack in New York State.

On the whole, the last set of Magnaball was a witty one with one very good jam, some excellent transitions into and out of songs, and almost zero downtime. The second-set set list is very sweet, letting the band play to the back of the field while still taking chances and moving in the moment. It’s a level of consistency and quality that should yield major replay value. Sunday’s biggest “problem,” as it were, is that it just wasn’t Saturday and it wasn’t Friday. If the same music was played at a standalone, midweek show earlier in the tour, it would have gotten good reviews and been taken as further evidence that Phish has found yet another late-period high point in creativity. And its tentpole jam, the “Disease,” is quite worthy on its own but is dwarfed by some of its brethren from the weekend, which cover similar territory.

"Reba" – Photo © Jake Silco

Looking deep into the details, the sort that ultra-experienced fans use to sort out the very excellent from the excellent from the great from the good and so on, Sunday’s music is a candidate to be underrated. By happenstance it hit a trifecta of Jaded Vet pet peeves – there not only was no “second jam” in “Mike’s,” but instead of that we got an un-jammed “Fuego.” And the transition into “Scents” bypassed the intro to the song, whose reappearance at the Mann was much celebrated by fans who associate the original arrangement with the song’s brief history as a major jam vehicle in 2003.

But as simply a great Phish show – well, it qualifies, easily. And it was an exuberant finale to one of Phish’s best-ever festivals. For years, Phish kept improving while it was unclear just how big it could get and what its broader cultural impact would be. We're now well into a period in which Phish has shown it can find creative inspiration even while its place as a pop-cultural phenomenon remains more or less static. The band has counted its blessings, and we’ve done the same.

This enchanted weekend proved another welcome indicator that we can all – fans and band included – have a ball when Phish is playing the tune.

"Martian Monster" – Photo © Derek Gregory

Phish Summer 2015 – Setlists & Recaps
07/21/15 Setlist – Recap – Bend 1
07/22/15 Setlist – Recap – Bend 2
07/24/15 Setlist – Recap, Recap2 – Shoreline
07/25/15 Setlist – Recap – LA Forum
07/28/15 Setlist – Recap – Austin
07/29/15 Setlist – Recap – Grand Prarie
07/31/15 Setlist – Recap – Atlanta 1
08/01/15 Setlist – Recap – Atlanta 2
08/02/15 Setlist – Recap – Tuscaloosa
08/04/15 Setlist – Recap – Nashville
08/05/15 Setlist – Recap – Kansas City
08/07/15 Setlist – Recap – Blossom
08/08/15 Setlist – Recap – Alpine 1
08/09/15 Setlist – Recap – Apline 2
08/11/15 Setlist – Recap – Mann 1
08/12/15 Setlist – Recap – Mann 2
08/14/15 Setlist – Recap – Raleigh
08/15/15 Setlist – Recap – Merriweather 1
08/16/15 Setlist – Recap – Merriweather 2
08/21/15 Setlist – Recap – Magnaball 1
08/22/15 Setlist – Recap – Magnaball 2
08/23/15 Setlist – Recap – Magnaball 3
09/04/15 Setlist – Recap – Dick's 1
09/05/15 Setlist – Recap – Dick's 2
09/06/15 Setlist – Recap – Dick's 3

"You Enjoy Myself" – Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

Photo © Scott Harris

Sunday 08/23/2015 by TheEmu

MAGNABALL 2: WINNER AND A MOVIE

In their more than thirty years as a band, Phish has made incredible music from coast to coast and beyond, from Toledo to Trento to Tokyo. But what sets a festival apart from any other concert I’ve seen, different from MSG or Halloween or any other celebrated event, is that the atmosphere is so overwhelmingly “home.” Magnaball, a tiny city of art and music, was created entirely for us. It’s a place for everyone to come meet and revel in all the myriad, unique ways that we express our joy and individuality. These expressions which may make us feel weird in “real” life, but in the context of a festival, with the music as our drawstring, we come together and feel unified. The experience was revelatory for me. But first, the afternoon set.

Photo © Jake Silco

The weather at the southern tip of Seneca Lake has been spectacular this weekend, but when the band came on around 4pm, gloomy clouds clung stubbornly above. “Divided Sky” acted as an invocation and swept the air clean, opening the possibilities of the day. “The Moma Dance” meant it was time to get up and stretch, put on our captain hats, exercise our funk muscles and get ready for a Magna-sized day of music.

“Mound” felt like more calisthenics, hop and clap and get your chops loose. “Army of One” was perfect for that moment: the sun had warmed us through, so soak it while you can, with winter just a few short months (and one more titanic three-night stand) away. The delicate balance of “Scabbard,” a perilously intricate weave of danger and serenity, drew my attention skyward again, one of many blissful moments to come.

Photo © Andrea Nusinov

“Sample” got a huge ovation in our corner of the field, and “Tube” got everyone’s get down revved up for a surprisingly spirited “Halfway to the Moon.” You can tell that Phish does indeed love Page’s composition by the way it’s progressed these last few years, and this version was certainly a standout. The “morning” workout continued with Fish practicing his woodblock tapdancing on some funky “Camel Walk” steps, following which Mike’s “How Many People Are You?” gave us an early thrill, as Fishman’s screaming vocals will attest. “Circus” was a chance to breathe and reflect on the changing beauty of the carnival that has rolled into Watkins Glen, and for just a moment it seemed like Trey would take the Los Lobos song for a Wingsuit ride, but we instead were treated to more percussive excellence with a swaggering “Undermind.”

With all of our stretching and warm ups complete, it was time to drop into fourth gear to make sure all engines were thrumming for the main event. My show neighbor thoughtfully advised me that he would be running like an “Antelope,” and we were off. I have seen this proud beast more than any other Phish song, and this is my instant favorite, hitting all of my “Antelope” G-spots by taking a smooth detour through the trees before hitting full, spine-tingling stride and actually launching itself into low earth orbit. Not even kidding about that a little bit. Trey slyly asked if we were all now awake and ready for a Phish show. Yes, sir, and good morning!

Photo by Patrick Jordan © Phish From the Road

I thought that a huge, exploratory “Wolfman’s” would be a great way to start what I expected to be the centerpiece of our Magnaball experience. The band had different ideas, though this syncopated and fierce lycanthrope shouldn’t be ignored. “Halley’s Comet” bop would also not be the vehicle to take us to our ultimate destination, but it was a celestial harbinger of the arrival of IT. IT came in form of “46 Days,” which was played through the first chorus, but what is normally only the first jam simply became the jam. IT was recognizable by the dark fabric that used to wrap around 2.0 Phish like a holocaust cloak, but the garment IT wears is now tinged with the brighter energy of Joy and Fuego.

Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

The most exciting thing about the last two days, for me, has been the band’s willingness to take breathtaking risks. Phish’s confidence is flowing from the stage night after night, and in the most welcoming of environments, where everything has been intended all for our delight, they took full advantage. As the coals of the day ran out, a nebulous, stellar nursery emerged from the cool Finger Lakes evening, rich material for the creation of new cosmic bonfires. I am a fan of “Number Line,” so I was happy happy, even though I thought it might signify a less exploratory set of music than I had expected. I couldn’t have been more wrong about that, and I would later be happy for that touchstone of rock sanity as the band set to taking my mind apart, piece by piece, so it could be reassembled and strengthened in the process.

Photo © Derek Gregory

With “Tweezer,” IT began to work like a Guild Navigator, using the multicolored vortex located within the Ferris wheel to take us to realms both known and unknown, arriving in celebratory fashion at a place where everyone dances with abandon, arms raised and smiles wide. From there, IT ushered us through a dark corridor, an arm around the crowd to protect it from the chaotic forces in the shadows, and we boarded the Dawn Treader. I’m sure if you asked most fans to name the jam of the night, close to zero would have said “Prince Caspian.” And again, I thought those opening chords meant a pleasing though more traditional end to the set. And again, I was utterly, staggeringly wrong.

The “Caspian” jam began traditionally enough, but then just before the five minute mark, “Caspian” donned his crown and showed everyone what he is capable of. There were some hints of the menacing Dick’s version, a brief return to the “Caspian” melody, and then IT revealed what he had brought us to see. With the power of three decades of collaboration, a doctorate in quantum metaphysics, and the psychological wizardry of “Tweezer” still lingering like dry tinder, “Caspian” danced a funk-magic spell that transformed the entire site into a radiant burst of elation, joy, and oneness. During that peak at the end of “Caspian,” I experienced the spiritual unity that is, to me, the core of the Phish experience, in the most pure and transformative way since I started coming to shows in 1995. Those are the best words I can find at the moment, but it’s still only Sunday morning.

"46 Days" – Photo © Derek Gregory

And yet there was still more than an entire set of music to take in. “Meatstick” was a good way to get dancing again after the break, but I was particularly excited for “Blaze On” and its potential for good time grooves. This version did not disappoint, blazing impressive new trails in only its eighth performance. More ambient bliss, more multi-faceted rhythms, and more pressing the envelope ensued, reminding us that jaw-dropping improvisation can and will appear at any time this weekend. “Blaze On” got decidedly bizarre before the band touched home base with a happy segue into “Possum,” but “Cities” took us right back to the outer limits, just this side of the tracks from where all the rules break down.

But “Cities” just danced on the edges, where the plinko meets the darkness, before more “Light” bloomed to banish any fears of getting too far gone. Keep in mind that even being just enough far gone, we’re still floating in the iridescent atmosphere of a gas giant, populated by floating violet alien jellyfish that flit and dart to clavinet, Mu-Tron, echoplex, and otherworldly drumming, and respond with a call like a whale playing a harmonica. Somehow, in the middle of this extraterrestrial dance party, the “555” slides by, getting us out just before the locals decide to eat our minds.

Photo © Jake Silco

After such an excursion, “Wading” is like a pull from the oxygen tank, and another chance to bask in the magic of the many moments Phish has taken from their days and sent off to their fans. “Walls of the Cave” closed the third set with another fist-pumping assertion of the greatness of our four musicians, and a “Boogie On” “Tweeprise” encore put a cap on the non-secret portion of Saturday night.

As for the “Drive-In Jam,” I surely can not do adequate justice to a piece of art this dense and layered before I get carted off back to the laboratory for two final sets of experimentation. The experience was surreal, and yet completely familiar, like a recurring dream made real in the hazy, cool early morning breeze as you drift between the conscious and the other-than-conscious. It began with ample mystery and developed into a transcendent Hearts of Space ambience that I want to revisit again and again. That was just the beginning of the fifty-two minute minutes of magic as the many faces of Phish unfolded beneath the grandstands. This is a movie you’ll have to see for yourself, if you haven’t yet had the pleasure.

Photo © Scott Harris

I’ve only begun to process the experience of my first Phish festival, but I can tell you that the strongest memory I will take home is that of all the friends I encountered, some unknown until this trip, that were given the chance to gather and be quite simply their truest selves for a few brief days. A festival allows Phish, and their fans, a moment to be free to celebrate the power of music in the way we love best. Our trip is short, friends, and I can only say thank you to all of the people who worked so hard to make it as special as it can possibly be. You are all beautiful, and I’ll see you tonight.

MagnaBall Triptych by Drew Millward

Saturday 08/22/2015 by zzyzx

CLIFFORD, SUPER, MAGNABALL, WE'VE SEEN IT ALL!

With a Phish festival and Dick’s in close proximity to each other, many fans had to choose one or the other. I – of course – made my usual call of both, but the trips so close to each other required some sacrifice. Rather than a sane trip, logistics required my flight to be a red-eye into Baltimore-Washington International.

While that sounds like an insane distance, it’s actually closer than most major northeastern cities (and only two hours further than Buffalo) as Baltimore is almost directly due south of Watkins Glen. As I learned driving from Charm City to Buffalo – well Orchard Park, NY – to see the Grateful Dead in 1989, US 15 is a straight shot from Harrisburg, PA to Corning, NY. Back then it was a winding road, pretty, but slowing down for many small towns. Now it’s largely a freeway. The southern section still retains much of its history, having the occasional town slowdown and plenty of “Gentlemen’s Clubs” and tourist traps sitting on the side of the parkway; but by the time you get past the home of the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA, it’s a freeway. It even branded in part as a disembodied section of the controversial Interstate 99* for 12 miles north of the New York state line.

Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

The plan was easy. Land at BWI, drive four hours, crash in my hotel. I didn’t count on the storm. It rolled through The City that Reads right before my plane landed, causing accidents everywhere. It over two full hours to make it to the Pennsylvania state line instead of the expected 45 minutes. It was irritating at first, but it then made sense. Weather fueled traffic jams are a festival tradition. It should be expected to hit one! That wasn’t the only reference to past festivals that happened on this drive. In one of the small towns, I passed a car with the plate “GLO STK,” clearly referencing the Great Went epic war.

Not even Camp Oswego was ignored as there was an exit on US-15 with the name Camp Canoe, bringing back memories of the artist who “rowed” a canoe (actually on wheels) down the main drag of that festival in 1999. Beyond that was the fog covered hills in north-central PA which brought forth memories of the ultimate Phish festival idea: it looked like Gamehendge out there!

Photo © Derek Gregory

The trip to Magnaball was a like a highlight show of the travels to earlier events. And while there might have been a terrifying moment as the storm hit its peak and my window fogged up, leaving me desperately hitting random buttons in the unfamiliar rental car as the ethereal voice of Siri floated through the speakers, telling me that now was the moment to somehow merge onto I-180, without a sense of danger and a bit of terror, the reward would be hardly worth it.

After a visit to Barton Hall to pay homage to 5/8/77 and a few traffic hiccups, Magnaball was achieved. It didn’t run nearly as smoothly as Super Ball IX – perhaps due to the rumored on sale of tickets at the show – but it still was reasonably easy to get there hours early. The first day at a festival is always exciting. There are the art exhibits to explore and – new for 2015 – Phish versions of game shows to play. As I walked by, I found a team looking for a fourth person, so I joined them. When we got to play, our question was, “Name a state that Phish hasn’t played.” As long as you can count on a ton of fans not answering “New York” to be annoying, there is no easier question for a Phish fan who loves geography; we swept the board! (AK, AR, HI, ND, SD, WY, for those keeping track at home).

Photo by Partick Jordan © Phish From the Road

A festival isn’t just about drives and art installations. There are also eight known sets of music. That is the underlying point of this exercise, after all. If there were any questions if the band would need a few minutes to settle into the moment, they were answered almost immediately. “Simple” was never common as a show opener, but Magnaball was its second straight time in that role. It wasn’t a perfunctory version, either; there was a brief jam filled with some beautiful Page riffs. It wouldn’t be the jam of the night by any means, but it felt like a promise.

While “The Dogs” had been played at a few shows since the Haunted House set, it usually was just that the main, high-energy jam would get thrown into the middle of another jam. This was the first complete version with the sampled introduction since the debut, showing that the song can work as a standalone as well as the filling of a jam sandwich.

Trey Anastasio and Eliza Anastasio. Photo by Partick Jordan © Phish From the Road

The first big shock of the night came next. For only the third time since Phish returned in 2009, “The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday” was chosen. It wasn’t just queued; it must have been rehearsed. Trey sometimes has problems with these early compositions, especially the ones that are rarely played, but this was nearly flawless, showing off the beauty of the piece. “Avenu Malkenu” also had a bit extra, as Mike threw a second pass into his “If I Were a Rich Man” jam. Four songs into the festival and we’ve had a doses of energy and beauty, showing that this would not be a throwaway or warm-up set by any means.

After a solid “Free,” Trey took a moment to talk about the Clifford Ball. Back then there was only one child born to the band – Eliza. He remarked that there are now eleven children, but today was Eliza’s 20th birthday. Eliza made a brief appearance on stage, Trey led us into a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” and there was a brief pause. If her quasi-eponymous song would ever get performed again, now would be the time. Instead we got “The Wedge.” Perhaps Eliza doesn’t like that the song pre-dates her by nearly five years, but it could have been worse; she could have been ‘Tela Multibeast Purple Humpback Whale Anastasio’. Regardless, “The Wedge” still resonated with the event. Nineteen years since the first major event: the discovery of the cow funk, the Indian Reservation all night set, the hiatus and the breakup, rehab and recreation, military bases, a desert oasis, and a race track, indeed: we could have come so very far in at least as many years.

"Bathtub Gin" – Photo © Derek Gregory

The surprises weren’t over yet. The first “Mock Song” of 3.0, –in fact only the second “Mock Song” ever – followed. I’m not sure that there was much of a clamor for this one, but this was a better arrangement that the one from The Gorge, with a very cool Page solo and more of a reggae feel. In addition, the line “Fewer, Pink, Kyle, Ball” was changed to “Clifford, Super, Magna Ball” – we’ve known them all, indeed. Keep this up and this will become a real song!

One of the most welcome trends of this era of Phish is what it has done for “Roggae.” The jams in it have been stunning, melodic pieces of soaring beauty. This one was no exception. They’ve gotten very good at peaking as a way of counterpointing the underlying power of the theme. It puts pressure on a song when everyone expects bliss, but they haven’t given us a reason not to yet.

Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

After what has already felt like an incredibly strong first set, Phish would be forgiven if they just played a quick peak jam in the closing “Bathtub Gin” and called it a break. That is not what happened by any means. The jam immediately leaves the structure of what the song does and runs off and plays. This “Gin” follows the pattern of many favorite jams in that it does more than one thing at a time. It’s completely improvisational, has multiple parts, but still manages to be danceable. Intense at parts, a complete dance party at others, this jam would have been an obvious highlight of many tours, let alone the first set of a festival. When it finally gets to the peak, tens of thousands of people all engaged in a massive dance party for twenty minutes. It was joyous, the kind of moment that causes us all to go to bizarre places and camp for three days. While not sounding at all similar, the bliss was reminiscent of another famous “Bathtub Gin” at a festival, the 8/17/97 Great Went version. The joy given there will not fade any time soon.

After a long setbreak filled with high-fiving and people glowing over the set, the band came back out into the chilly evening and opened with “Chalk Dust.” There used to be two kinds of “Chalk Dust Torture”: those that had a quick high energy jam followed by the chorus, and the kind – usually played to open a second set – that were open ended and never finished. Recently a third category has emerged. The song has its final chorus sung but rather than draw it to a conclusion a second jam emerges. It might not yet have the legend of the “Mike’s Song” second jam, but it is always welcome. This one went on for another eleven minutes or so. If you’re looking for a repeat of the soaring energy bliss of the “Gin,” this doesn’t reprise that, but it rather is dark and melodic. The first is great for dancing rapturously in a field at a racetrack; this is more reflective, a good listen on a Sunday morning as you’re fixing your brunch sort of track. Phish play in many styles after all and appeal to many crowds.

"Harry Hood" – Photo © Derek Gregory

The fun of Phish is that you never know what will happen. If I told you that “Ghost,” “Chalk Dust Torture,” and “Bathtub Gin” were all played in succession and two of the three had very interesting jams, no one would expect that it was “Ghost” that just got the quick run through. The jam is more brief than bad. It hits a few quick interesting spaces before resolving into “Rock and Roll.”

The Velvet Underground cover – along with the traditional prayer of “Avenu Malkenu,” the only non-originals of the night – has largely returned to its previous role of being an upbeat rocker to put an exclamation point on the show. Played this early, it promised a bit more. And indeed, it did deliver. Two or three times Trey tried to signal a return to the final chorus, but they wanted to keep going. A slow funk jam gets created. It’s beautiful and you can dance to it and I could have heard Phish play it all night. That’s why I admit to an initial groan while when the “Hood” fired up. Do you mind people? I was enjoying that!

Photo © Jake Silco

Any lingering regret though can’t really survive “Harry Hood.” If for nothing else, at a festival show with an amazing “Bathtub Gin,” it just felt right to also have a massive glowstick war during “Harry Hood.” It’s less nostalgia than an accidental homage. The “Hood” itself was quite interesting. Sacrificing the build jam for a voyage, this jam wanders all over the track. If you’re the kind of person who needs to find something – anything – to complain about with a Phish show, the “Hood” peak was sacrificed in exchange. However, if you’re reaching the point of saying, “Well they ended one cool jam but immediately followed it with another one, but that one didn’t manage to also hit a soaring peak at the very end,” just to find something to point fingers at, well that shows the power of this show.

It wasn’t over yet. After a quick breather with “Waste,” perhaps the most popular of the new songs of this tour, “No Men in No Man’s Land” had one more jam to come. This was more of a fast funky jam than the reflectiveness of the “Chalk Dust” or the “Hood,” but it’s the perfect way to start to wind things down. We’ve done a lot tonight; now let’s dance our way home! Before we do though, there’s one last thing. We’re going to give you a “Slave!”

Photo © Andrea Nusinov

Sets with both a “Hood” and a “Slave” feel somewhat unfair. We’re not going to give you one of your favorite late set songs. Here, have both of them! It might rob the other two nights of possibilities, but it it’s always great when it happens. You don’t mind if I give you one more moment of euphoria, do you?

After the encore, a pretty “Farmhouse” – appropriate for the rural setting – and the always fun “First Tube,” it was time to reflect on a great night. One of the games people like to play when they talk about Phish shows is to break it up into quarters, putting an imaginary break halfway through each set. The reason why that became popular is that there has been a bit of a rut in the past few years, where the third quarter always had the best – the more cynical would say “only good,” but let’s not listen to them, ok? – music of the night. This tour has broken with that with great first sets and jams late into the second. In fact, with the early “TMWSIY,” the great “Gin,” and the late “Hood,” “No Man’s,” and “Slave” combination, it could be argued that all three of the other quadrants managed to surpass the third, not because the third was bad, but because the others were so good. That may or may not be true, but Phish delivered an amazing complete show to open Magnaball. If this turns out to be the warmup night, Magnaball will be the stuff of legend, passed down from generation to generation to while away the long Finger Lakes region winter nights.

* The Interstate highway system has a naming convention. One aspect of it is that north-south roads have odd numbers that increase from west to east. Interstate 99 is not just kind of a weird highway that doesn’t really connect cities – well it’s now two different highways near each other that don’t connect to each other even – but it’s completely misnumbered. Having I-99 being west of I-81 annoys people who care way too much about such issues. I’d mock such people more but back in the early days of Ihoz.com, I was kind of one of them, as http://ihoz.com/I99.html shows.

Limited Edition MagnaBall Poster by Jim Pollock

Thursday 08/20/2015 by multibeast

BUNNY RADIO IS BACK!

What would a Phish festival be without The Bunny! It went live Thursday morning and will broadcast for the whole weekend of Magnaball. It will air its usual great mix of eclectic music, Magna-news, archival Phish tracks and of course, all of the live music sets of Phish music including sound checks. You can reach the Bunny in a few different ways:

Mixlr: http://mixlr.com/thebunny

LivePhish: http://webcast.livephish.com/Summer-2015-Webcasts-Magnaball.html

SiriusXM JamOn Channel 29, beginning at 9pm Eastern Time Thursday

Locally in the Watkins Glen area on WNGZ 104.9FM and also via their website: http://www.cbelmira.com/wingz/listen-live/

Once again they are asking you to Feed The Bunny - send in your station IDs and funny bumpers, which may get aired on The Bunny live. Go to http://feedthebunny.com/

Follow The Bunny on Facebook and Twitter:

https://www.facebook.com/bunnyradio

https://twitter.com/bunnyradio

Wednesday 08/19/2015 by phishnet

MANN "SCENTS AND SUBTLE SOUNDS"

0 comments - Link: http://phi.sh/b/55d52ad0

Tuesday 08/18/2015 by tweezer

BEHIND THE MUSIC: MIKE'S SONG'S SECOND JAM

[Editor’s note: after the celebratory revival of the “Mike’s Song” second jam on 8/4/15 in Nashville, the folks on the Mockingbird and phish.net teams wanted the whole scoop on what happened, since the instigator was one of our staff. We thought the story was simply too good not to share. Many of our readers will already know the basics of how Drew Hitz (professional musician, music business consultant, Mockingbird Foundation board member), with the assistance of his friend and colleague Don Hart (composer, arranger, orchestrator, collaborator with Trey on “Time Turns Elastic”), turned fan dreams into reality. If this story is new to you, check out the .net recap from that Nashville gig. -PZ]

Don Hart asked me if I was coming to Nashville for the show at the brand new Ascend Amphitheater. He ended up securing me a ticket which was DFC in the fourth row of seats behind the pit. I was hopeful that I would get into the soundcheck, but didn't find out that I would be going until that afternoon.

The soundcheck was fascinating for me. They played a bluesy jam to start, and then Fishman asked if they had time to run “Mercury.” After playing it once through, they then rehearsed and ended up rewriting parts of the second half of the tune. It was a fully democratic process. They focused on the transition getting out of Fishman's Marimba Lumina solo into the next section.

8/4/15, Ascend Amphitheater, Nashville, TN. Photo by Drew Hitz.

They were choosing harmonies, who was playing and who wasn't, how Fishman was getting from the solo into his next drumbeat, etc. They also worked on the next section of the tune. Mike asked Trey if one riff in the transition was going to happen once or twice. Trey said that it was supposed to happen once but that every time he went to play it twice. They decided it would be played twice which made Trey remark "And that puts the rhyme in the middle of the bar, which is weird, but I like weird."

They then discussed the background vocals of the next section. They first discussed whether there should be two or three-part harmony, and who was singing what part. Trey proposed a pattern for singing the backgrounds that was singing a pattern four times, and then two times, with the next two times resting. Mike then countered with singing it four times and then three times, with only time time resting, which he said would be symmetry and a callback to the beginning of the tune, which is in seven. Trey said "I love symmetry," and that is what they went with.

The process of rewriting these parts of the tune were 100% democratic. I was getting to watch a chamber group rehearse as if no one was there. There were only five of us in the audience, and one was The Dude of Life. As a musician, I have dreamed of watching Phish rehearse as a fly on the wall, and the fact that I got that kind of soundcheck was really special. But that wasn't exactly the highlight of the day...

For anyone who missed it, Trey told Don through the mic "We will be back here in about a month or so to record an album." I only pass that along because it was confirmed that it was picked up by mics just outside the venue. The “we” wasn't clear whether it was Phish or TAB, but it sure seemed like he was talking about Phish.

8/4/15, Ascend Amphitheater, Nashville, TN. Photo by Drew Hitz.

Immediately after the soundcheck, Trey met Don, myself, and Don's other two guests next to the stage and spoke with us for probably 15-20 minutes. As he has been every time I've had an encounter with him, Trey was gracious, kind, generous with his time, and genuinely interested in who he was talking to. He's really quite a remarkable guy, as many of you know.

Trey and I spoke about the NSO gig (from 5/22/13) and he mentioned how great the orchestra sounded that night and about how great Steven Reineke, the conductor, was in particular. We then spoke about the crowd clapping along in “You Enjoy Myself” and about how the orchestra clenched from the sound delay and how Reineke's eyes got really big, and he just pushed through.

Trey then asked if we (the NSO) had anything cool coming up. I explained to him that I had infiltrated the orchestra by sending an email to my friend, explaining to him that I regretted to inform him that he wasn't playing the gig and that I was in his place. Trey was very amused. He said that if it helped me get another gig with them that he would write a letter saying how the orchestra sounded great, but that the tuba player in particular was phenomenal. He was cracking himself up at this point.

I had been planning the “Mike's Song” conversation for whenever I saw him again, but only if it felt right. At one point, about ten minutes into the conversation, there was a little lull, and I expected Trey to thank us for coming. I wasn't going to interject after that point, so I thought the moment had passed, but everyone kept talking.

8/4/15, Ascend Amphitheater, Nashville, TN. Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish 2015

I finally had my opening and asked him if I could be "a pushy Phish fan for one minute." He nodded so I asked him "Would you like to break Twitter tonight?" He smiled and said "I'd love to."

I then asked him if he remembered our conversation immediately after the Kennedy Center gig about the second jam in “Mike's Song.” He said he vaguely remembered it, and that he didn't remember them ever doing it. I told him that if they played it again, he might bring down the whole internet.

It was then that he asked how it used to go. That is when I whipped out my phone and hit play. It was already cued to about five seconds before the chords that lead into the second jam of the 7/14/00 “Mike's.” I explained that they now played those three chords four times that lead to the composed ending which resolved to “I Am Hydrogen,” or whatever else they were going to play. He nodded along while listening.

I then pointed out that they used to play those chords only twice, and then would modulate down a half-step to F-major. As that happened on the recording, he said "We did?!" He then said it sounded like they were about to go into “Simple,” and I told him that they didn't. He asked what they went into, and I said an open ended jam in F. He said "Ooh, I like jamming in F." I then pointed out that this version went on for another 7:30 before dropping into “Frankie Says.” You could see he was processing.

He then told me what he told me after the Kennedy Center conversation. He said, "Well, if we ever do this, it will only be because of you because I have no memory of it whatsoever." He then said that I could come up on stage with a selfie stick and take a photo. I asked him if I could make a speech, and he said that would be fine.

8/4/15, Ascend Amphitheater, Nashville, TN. Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish 2015

I pointed out to Trey in a joking manner that he didn't even need to tell the other guys, that he could just drop down the half-step and they would follow him. This didn't even need rehearsing.

Five minutes later, at the very end of the conversation, I caught myself very quietly singing “Mike's” to myself, because I was so excited. I apologized to Trey for singing it and told him that it was subliminal, and that I got the request in and that the messaging was over. He laughed. I then told the Dude of Life in front of Trey that I needed him to sing the half-step modulation for Trey in about 30 minutes to reinforce the message. Everyone laughed.

I then watched Fishman practice for about 20 minutes, and thanked Page for getting off his tour bus in the middle of his dinner 20 years ago to talk to me and some other folks. I told him how much that inspired a kid in music school.

After I got out of there, I tweeted:

"I just played Trey the transition into the 2nd jam of the 7/14/00 Mike's Song. The rest is in God's hands." So the entire Phish twitter-verse knew about this before the show happened. My phone started blowing up after retweets from YEMblog and others. At least I thought my phone was blowing up.

The second set started with “Golden Age.” I was mildly bummed they didn't bust into “Mike's” right away, since that would have been a giveaway in that slot that it was going down. Then “Light,” and “Shade.” The ballad in the three-hole usually sets up something big, so I started to get excited, although I was trying to keep my expectations under control.

At that point Trey walked over to Page and talked to him for a few seconds, and it was all Trey talking to Page and Page simply nodding. My heart started beating a little faster. Then he walked over to Mike and they talked for almost 30 seconds, and my heart started racing. Then a brief conversation with Fishman, and he dropped into the opening notes of “Mike's Song,” at which point I almost shit myself.

I covered my mouth with my hands, and Don was staring at me and I told him that this was the tune I spoke to Trey about, and that he talked to all the other guys and I was blabbing. I do remember saying "I think this is actually @#$!ing happening," which put a huge smile on Don's face.

They got to the tramps section and for the first few minutes I was dancing like I was 19 again. But then I just stood there, since the moment of truth was coming at any point. I just stood there, clenched.

Then the three chords came once, twice, and a third time. I was like “NOOOOOOOO,” and then thought that maybe he was going to play them four times and then drop down. Then the composed ending happened and I tweeted ":(".

But then, sure as shit, as soon as they got to the end, Trey plowed right through with a little “Simple” fake out, and we were off and running. I made the touchdown salute, and then started freaking out. Don was on Cloud Nine, as we've become really good friends and he was loving me having a meltdown.

At that point my phone basically became a brick. I showed Don twenty minutes later that the notifications from Twitter were coming into my phone so fast that you literally could not make out a single word on any of them, as they scrolled by as fast as they could. My phone was blowing up for a full 24 hours afterwards. I got 800 new followers and enough offers for a free beer to get us all drunk for a full week.

"Mike's Song" – Phish, 8/4/15, Nashville, TN. Video by LazyLightning55a.

Obviously, the rest of the “Mike's Groove” was absolutely stellar. Don was mesmerized by the “Weekapaug” and the Sabbath-esque jam. And the leading back into “Weekapaug” with the “still waiting's” from the “Crosseyed” thrown in was just all surreal. And just when I begin to get about 5% of my shit under control, they encored with “Slave.”

Seeing that music, at that venue – incredible sound, great location, amazing view of the city and river – with Don (first time I'd seen a show with him) would have been an all-timer experience for me, even without my interaction with Trey or the online Phish community. Add it all up and it was one of the greatest days of my life.

One addendum to the story: After Don saw what a big deal it was to me, and after he saw the Internet meltdown that occurred afterwards, he offered to pass along a thank you email from me to Trey.

In that email I was able to thank him for a bunch of stuff, including all of the money that Phish has given to The Mockingbird Foundation over the years. I told him that it helped us to fulfill our mission and made sure the thank you was from all of us.

Tuesday 08/18/2015 by phishnet

MPP TWEEZER -> NO2 -> TWEEZER

1 comment - Link: http://phi.sh/b/55d313db

Monday 08/17/2015 by bl002e

MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 196

Welcome to the 196th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday. Good luck!

LivePhish.com

16 comments - Link: http://phi.sh/b/55d26d79

Monday 08/17/2015 by pzerbo

REGULAR SEASON FINALE; ON TO THE PLAYOFFS!

Never miss a Sunday show… so “they” say. Or if you must, at least read the recap! Let’s get right to the action from Sunday’s conclusion to the regular season portion of Phish’s summer 2015 tour at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

When Phish took the stage a little after 7:30, a few overzealous (and perhaps over-served) fans in the pit cheered for “Sleeping Monkey,” which was the encore the previous night. They responded with an extended full-band “Sleeping Monkey” tease, that LivePhish actually cut into its own track. But, no, this wouldn’t be a repeat of 6/18 & 6/19/10 when “Tweezer Reprise” closed a show and opened the next. A quick “Charge!” from Page and we were off to the races with “Golgi Apparatus.” “Golgi” has kicked off dozens of shows in its almost thirty-year history, though this was the first opener since 12/29/09 in Miami; “Golgi” was also a tour debut, having last been played last this past New Year’s Eve, also in Miami.

Photo © Merriweather Post Pavilion

“Golgi” yielded to turn-on-a-dime transition to “Undermind” that saw an energetic Page piano solo, followed by Trey taking a more relaxed turn at the helm. The always punchy “Julius” was a perfect energy balance for this spot in the show, and a great way to mix things up for a song that sees most of its action in set-closing or encore roles. Mike’s “555” was a bit of a stumble as the band seemingly couldn’t find the same page, with Trey finally showing at least a little interest for his late-song solo. The delightful Anastasio/Marshall composition “Nothing” was played for the first time since 6/7/12 Worcester (139 shows) and only the sixth time ever. “Nothing” is really a great song; if you don’t know it well, take a second to dig into the lyrics – ensconced! – and check out the original Amfibian version.

Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

“No Men In No Man’s Land” continues to jump around in a utility role and found yet another great mid set spot here. It’s funny how soon many fans establish their preferences to how a new song is deployed, as many are already vocally lobbying for more “second set treatment” with the jamming jets open for firing. While “Blaze On” and “Mercury” are both very likely candidates for long-term residency in the Phish repertoire, “NMINML” is all but a lock for Rookie of the Year. “Stash” hasn’t “gone big” this tour, but this was an enjoyable version with an almost swingy and relaxed calm, contrasted with the more traditional big tension and release dynamic. Near the end, though, the “Stash” jam turned delightfully weird in the more classic sense and concluded with a sharp, punctuated peak.

A quick huddle with Mike and Trey resulted in “David Bowie,” with an actual full-fledged if mostly uneventful intro, something that is more often than not skipped these days. The composed section of “Bowie” was a little rough, but the jam more than compensated. The early part of the jam was slow, trippy, almost Floydian, then a shift to a bright major key, which has been very typical of Phish’s jamming approach this tour, though relatively atypical for “Bowie.” This excellent “Bowie” jam also featured a brief but clear flirtation by Trey, and then Page, of the bridge between “China Cat Sunflower” and “I Know You Rider.” A smoking hot “Possum” put a wrap on this very good first set, with the last 40-minutes being especially vibrant and fun.

"David Bowie" – Photo © @tweeprise

Whenever Phish strings together a few great shows fans are quick to proclaim it “the best tour since…” or “the best tour in 3.0.” They’re almost always jumping the gun – they’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin's done. That said, one thing seems unambiguous, at least to this observer: first sets have made a notable and in many cases substantial improvement this tour. The floor is still pretty low (see Shoreline, Austin, Kansas City etc) but the ceiling has been raised a ton, with truly great first sets including Bend 2, Atlanta 1, Nashville, Alpine 2 and Mann 1. That’s a pretty big deal given where we’ve come from in recent years, so kudos to the band for what seems to be a conscious investment in making first sets matter; it’s working, and appreciated!

Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

In a shocking development that sent overnight markets reeling, “Down with Disease” opened a Phish second set! If you just listen to the intro it may seem like a total trainwreck, but it seemed perhaps more likely a case of a little in-band joke, with Trey tweaking the intro line, “trying to stop these demons that are dancing in Mike’s head!” The “Disease” jam itself was solid if uneventful, staying close to the song’s vest in type-I space until the last minute or so when the “Disease” structure melted away with Trey offering hints of “Slave to the Traffic Light,” before they actually shifted into “Slave” proper. “Slave” was a great call in this spot and the unorthodox placement seemed to pump the song up with a little extra vitality, as it was more up-tempo than normal, very bright and bouncy, less lullabye-like, and very reminiscent of the 7/4/99 version in Atlanta.

The set is going well at this point, and those seeking the deep improv were thrilled to see the “Light.” This "Light" jam had a lot going for it, one potentially destined for greatness. Chris Kuroda was unleashing his full arsenal of psychedelic goodies and the band was purring along. Trey threw in a “Little Twelve Toes” (from Schoolhouse Rock) tease near the end, and we’re really going for peak liftoff, when Trey then deployed the fan's least favorite tool: the ripcord. The segue to "Twist" was pretty sweet in its own way, but Fish in particular was visibly pissed and expressed that through the transition (listen for his repeated, emphatic bass drum thumping, as if to say "no!").

"Possum" – Photo © @tweeprise

The last outing for “Twist” at The Mann was a 22-minute monster that many seasoned observers consider the best jam of the tour, so hopes were still riding high. But after a few brief minutes, Trey again shut it down, this time in favor of the Rolling Stones’ classic “Shine a Light” from Exile on Main St., the first Phish performance of the song since 7/20/13 at Chicago’s Northerly Island (91 shows). “Fuego” followed and had “under” bettors cashing their tickets early, as the jam segment of the song was omitted entirely resulting in the shortest performance of the song to date.

“Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley” came along at just the right time to give this set a much-needed lift, a little Hail Mary to evoke the spirit of 8/8/98! This version was odd and kinda cool, slower and funkier than usual, with Trey riding the echoplex and Page getting up (so that you can get… up?) over Fish and Mike’s impenetrable chunky groove. “You Enjoy Myself” would take the set home. This “YEM” was notable for Trey replacing his “boy” scream with, um, “motherfucker”! The post tramps jam featured more Trey and Mike shenanigans with close-up jamming followed by a back-to-back balance jamming routine, before they both climbed up on Fish’s drum riser pre-vocal jam. A “Backwards Down the Number Line” encore still left more than ten minutes before the 11pm curfew, but that was all she wrote.

Photo by Rene Huemer © Phish From the Road

So, Phish fans, that concludes the regular season, and quite the regular season it was! Phish dominated from coast to coast, offering a roster of shows that will – depending on what happens in the playoffs – make a very strong case for best tour of 3.0. This tour contains what is either the best or second best single show of 3.0, Mann2 (better than “FYF”? Tough call), and a roster of heavy hitters that seem to match up well with the cream of fall ‘13: MPP 1, Shoreline, Blossom, Atlanta 1, and Nashville are all solid top tier shows, while Alpine 2, Atlanta 2, Mann 1, The Forum, and even Bend 2 from so early in the tour are all worth your time to explore. We’ve had new songs, great jams, excellence spread across both sets, all the while without any major weather issues or other mishaps.

And now? The playoffs! Playoffs? On to Magnaball! And Dick’s! Be safe, folks… we’ll be back with coverage from Watkins Glen throughout next weekend. Let’s get it on!

-Phillip Zerbo

"You Enjoy Myself" – Photo © @tweeprise

Sunday 08/16/2015 by bertoletdown

MPP1: PUTTING THE 'ULTIMATE' IN PENULTIMATE

Comparing and ranking Phish shows is depraved. To suggest that one is superior to another is to make the sacred profane and in no way do we here at the Mockingbird back office condone such inhumanity. That said, if a marauding band of ISIS operatives were to seize a bus full of phish.net staffers and force us to name the consensus best show of summer tour so far, I am sad to say that a few heads might roll before we arrived at an answer.

Shoreline boasts the 45-minute electric trifecta of “BlazeTwistLight.” Atlanta 1 lays claim to the best “Kill Devil Falls” ever played and a mighty fourth quarter. Nashville’s second set has zero quit and the triumphant return of the second jam in “Mike’s Song.” Blossom’s outstanding first frame laid the foundation for its quintessential one-two “Cheezer” combination. And then there’s Mann 2, y’all. Scimitar to my throat, that gig stands shoulder to shoulder with Phish’s finest two-set performances of all-time. Don’t want to suggest it’s better than the shows I haven’t named here, like Austin for instance, but these ISIS fellows are very persuasive and have left me no choice.

Photo © Andrea Nusinov

The question is whether Saturday’s performance at Merriweather would make an exercise like this easier or harder on its merits. So, no spoilers. Let’s start from the start.

Phish practically gallops onto the stage and declares its intentions with an unexpected and pretty “Simple” that sets a loose and playful tone for what’s to come. Trey’s soloing features some Garcia-esque triplets, hammer-ons, and fluid phrasing before dissolving, then Fishman moves to the woodblocks to announce “Glide.” It was eleven years to the day after the Coventry “Glide,” but there is no such ignominy today. This version is crisp. This version is clean. This version is something for which to be glad, glad, glad, and the pit people fill the pregnant pause at the end with great rejoicing.

Photo © Jake Silco

Fish keeps the pedal mashed to the floor and plunges the band into a banging “Buried Alive,” and by now it is perfectly apparent that once again this tour, it’s on. Some have noted that setting aside an exception or two (cough, Vegas ‘04, cough), this tune tends to foreshadow relative greatness for the show in which it appears, and if I didn’t know that all Phish shows were equally awesome and weren’t so morally opposed to comparing them to each other, I might tend to agree.

This tasty morsel terminates into a lovely “McGrupp and The Watchful Hosemasters,” which gives me considerable pleasure to type. I tend to disfavor Dungeons & Dragons-style Phish songs but “McGrupp” is an exception and one of my treasured favorites. This version falls something short of sterling, perhaps, but is confidently rendered, with Trey calling some melodic audibles during the composed section. “Roggae” is one of those “anytime, anywhere” songs that seems incapable of poor placement or poor delivery, and tonight’s shimmering version is no exception.

"Big Black Furry Creature from Mars" – Photo © @tweeprise

If you appreciate great rock drumming, do yourself a favor and watch Fishman’s cymbal work in some of the closeups from the “Limb By Limb” in Saturday’s webcast. It’s the coolest part of one of the band’s most underappreciated songs, in my opinion, and this “LxL” is moving and soulful. Less so the “Big Black Furry Creature From Mars” that follows and bookends a quick run through “Your Pet Cat.” It’s a shitstorm of controlled chaos. Mike on his knees. Trey unleashing peals of feedback. Kuroda inducing motion sickness. By this point the show has crossed the goal line and all that’s left is endzone dance.

It doesn’t make much of a difference that “Horn” feels weirdly placed, or that “Blaze On” gets the first set treatment, or that the most interesting part of “Run Like an Antelope” is watching the band bat around a big red balloon during the coda. This is a scintillating first set that promises fireworks in the second. Achievement unlocked.

"Run Like an Antelope" – Photo © @tweeprise

[Hey, while we’re waiting for the second set to start, have I told you guys about the time back in college when I was making out with a girl on the lawn at Merriweather during a Howard Jones concert and she threw up in my mouth? True story. We didn’t date for long after that but... Oh, wait, Phish is back! Lucky for you.]

The second set kicks off with a spirited run at the expected “Halley’s Comet” (sans jam), then an interstellar version of “46 Days” – a song that has developed a tidy little track record at Merriweather. This “46 Days” navigates a spacey interlude before settling into a cozy, lingering, major key vamp – the kind of musical parlor you want to crawl inside to luxuriate for a while. Just gorgeous. “Bug” makes a lot of sense here as it emerges from the dappled sunset of “46 Days,” and comes off nicely.

"46 Days" –Photo © Jake Silco

The ensuing “Steam” -> “What’s The Use?” -> “Steam” sandwich is exquisite, and these two songs marry together in a very organic way, so much so that I hope they perform them together again as often as possible. “WTU?” is especially well played, with the band breathing together, and Page dusting the soundscape with perfect little runs on the Rhodes.

It’s at this point in a lesser Saturday evening Phish show (not that any Phish shows are below average, no sir) that one might expect the band to throttle back and set aside improvisation for a flight of successive, concise rockers... but one would be fucking wrong. Instead, Trey steers the band out of the steam and into the “Piper” intro. “Piper” is another song with a massive on-base percentage at Merriweather, and you can chalk this one up as a double off the corner fence.

"N2O" – Photo © @tweeprise

Page shines alternately on B-3 and piano through the early, straightforward section of the “Piper” jam, which soon veers type-II at Mike’s urging. Fishman experiments with a few different beds of rhythm before settling on one and opening up a can of whoop-ass, propelling the band to a series of glorious peaks. To reward his heroism, the band drops out and gives him the opportunity to play what’s as close to a solo as you’re likely to see Fish play – basically some swaggering fills – before spilling into “Tweezer” and setting the building on fire.

The head section of this “Tweezer” features yet more breakdown jamming around the main riff. This Phish is mad. This Phish is dangerous. This Phish eats segues and craps thunder. This is Sunday Phish on a Saturday, folks. Page is melting his Clav keys, the rhythm section is deep in a filthy pocket, and now Trey reaches for the megaphone. A balloon with “NO2” on it landed on the stage earlier in the show, and the band obliges the request. Trey and Mike run laps around the stage as Page quotes “Martian Monster” on his sampler, and when it’s all said and done the band slides slickly back into “Tweezer.”

"Tweezer Reprise" – Photo © @tweeprise

“Walls of the Cave” makes a rare second set appearance to bring home this special set of music. As he’s done all night, Trey infuses the composition with extra flourishes, and the jam’s dramatic peak is a fitting capstone for what we’ve just witnessed.

The pre-encore banter that introduces “Sleeping Monkey” is hilarious inside baseball, as Trey takes the piss out of Richard Gehr’s ranking of 333 Phish songs and by extension the wicked and indefensible act of ranking Phish in general. [For what it’s worth, I’d definitely rank this stage banter at the top of all summer 2015 stage banter.] And with a predictably heavy “Tweezer Reprise,” this one’s in the books.

It’s hard to ask for more out of this band than we got tonight, but if this tour’s trajectory is any indication, we might get it anyway.

LE Merriweather Post Pavilion poster by Nate Duval. Edition of 875.

Saturday 08/15/2015 by phishnet

RALEIGH: THE HOMESTRETCH VIA TOBACCO ROAD

[Editor's Note: this recap is by phish.net contributor James Kaminsky. –PZ]

The last two weeks of Phish tour have been the stuff of dreams. On the final night of July, The Phish from Vermont threw down a mighty “Kill Devil Falls” in Atlanta. They followed that up the next night with an unbelievable version of “Tweezer” – the longest since Tahoe. We all know about what happened in Nashville, the return of the second jam in “Mike’s Song” and one fantastic “Weekapaug.” Then came another weekend and with it, “Chalk Dust Torture” -> “Tweezer” > “The Lizards” at Blossom. The Sunday show at Alpine Valley was bust-out city. And the Martian Mannster shows were a pair of peaks, highlighted by the unbelievable “Twist.” It is an amazing time to be a Phish fan.

Earlier this year, LivePhish released a classic Raleigh show – 12/16/99, an all-timer featuring a stellar “Sand” and a terrific “Tweezer.” So what could we expect after an off day and a trip down south for the first Raleigh show since 2011? The last time we were at Walnut Creek, Phish played “Peaches en Regalia” for just the second time in 3.0 and ”Been Caught Stealing” for just the sixth time ever and first since 1998.

The show started off with the sun setting behind the lawn and a mellow but excited mood in the venue. Trey toyed around with the chords to “Llama,” before ultimately starting up the Gamehendge classic in a slower and funkier rhythm. It was a classic moment, symbolic of what Phish is all about right now – taking risks, trying new things, and just having plain old fun. There are no limits. “Llama” was super slowed-down and super funky, a must listen.

The unique opener was followed by a rocking “Chalk Dust Torture” and then the typically funky “Moma Dance.” “Yarmouth Road” came next, the first time being played since Shoreline. The 14-show gap for “Yarmouth” is the longest in the history of the song since the song’s debut at SPAC back in 2013. A lively “Tube” at times seemed to really be the one to pop off and breakthrough for a jam, and while it was nice and enjoyable, it was ultimately classic Phish blue balls.

Next came an oreo of chill and thrill. “Bouncing Around the Room” was short and sweet, before upshifting to a raging “Maze” before the mellow mood returned with “Waiting All Night” began. “Lawn Boy” and another Fuego tune, “Devotion to a Dream” rounded out the heart of this mostly uneventful set. The set’s biggest peak came (as it often does) in “Wolfman’s Brother,” a short but powerful version. “Suzy Greenberg” closed out the 12-song, cover-free set, that didn’t quite have the punch or sizzle that we heard at the Mann, but it still had some great moments, particularly that “Llama.”

The second set kicked off with “The Wedge.” This was only the third time “Wedge” had opened a second set, the first since Lemonwheel in 1998. The improvisational highlight of the night came in the first cover of the evening, “Golden Age.” The jam quickly began and delved into Funkytown U.S.A. Trey took command of the jam and it resembled the same groove in Blossom’s “Tweezer,” and was also contained strong hints of “Split Open and Melt.” After the jam died down, “Reba” emerged, to everyone’s delight. “Reba” was performed with near perfection and the jam portion featured moving play from all four guys as they worked together unison.

Next came “Mike’s Song.” I can’t speak for others but I immediately wanted to know whether there would be a second jam. The jam never came, and now we must wonder if it is gone forever. If so, what a treat the last two are. Mike’s started to fade out and out of it began an angry “Ghost.” While never truly veering too far away from the norm, “Ghost” was filled with several strong peaks from Trey. Another cover was the other big highlight of the night – Led Zeppelin’s “No Quarter.” This was just what the doc ordered to bridge the gap to “Weekapaug.” A fiery “First Tube” closed out the set with the energy and excitement that stands for everything Phish is about right now.

After Page noted that Walnut Creek was one of Phish’s favorite sheds, they closed out this phenomenal night with a two-song encore of “Farmhouse,” and then the first “Fire” since 2013. All in all, a first set with some cool jams and fun songs and a really strong second set with no dull moments. Next up, Merriweather. “Tweezer” looms.

Raleigh, NC LE poster by Ryan Lynn

Thursday 08/13/2015 by phishnet

MANN2: ALL JAM IN NO MANN'S LAND

[Editor's Note: this recap is by phish.net contributor Craig Hillwig. –PZ]

Phish concluded their two-night stand at Philadelphia’s Mann Center for the Performing Arts with yet another peak performance in a summer tour that has surpassed nearly all expectations. Let’s not mince words. This show had everything you wanted: late tour debuts, first set jams, and a five-song, second set improvisational tour de force that “type-II” aficionados will be dissecting for years to come.

As last summer’s pair of Mann shows demonstrated, few things have the potential to weigh down a show more than a sweltering northeast shed during the dog days of summer. Mercifully, the atmospheric conditions were nearly perfect for this mid-August evening on Fairmount Park’s Belmont Plateau, setting the stage for fully engaged and energized band and crowd.

The tour debut of “AC/DC Bag” – the 300th lifetime performance – had everyone dancing hard right out of the gate. Usually a tour staple, this Gamehendge classic was long overdue after its biggest gap (sixteen) since Vegas 2000. The “Free” that followed kept the crowd rocking. Trey immediately called an audible at the top of the jam, transitioning the band seamlessly into more “Martian Monster” shenanigans before resolving back into “Free.” “Martian Monster” has been a versatile weapon in this summer’s arsenal, but its pairing with the “Free” jam (which also occurred on 11/2/14 in Vegas) seems so natural and obvious given their similar tempos and crunchy power chords on the first and second beats. Spirited versions of “Ya Mar” and “Sample in a Jar” followed, maintaining the high energy level.

A couple moments of seeming indecision led to the 2015 debut of the Talking Heads’ cover “Cities” (gap: nineteen). Clocking in at about twelve minutes, this version was like no other in recent memory. Following the final chorus, which typically leads to a short outro jam and soft denouement, the band abruptly pivoted into a staccato funk jam that veered hard into type-II territory before fading into ambiance. A typically (for this tour) solid version of “Stash” followed, with its usually patient build-up leading to its patented explosive ending. Another extended on-stage huddle led to the fourth “Birds of a Feather” of the tour complete with the “They Attack!” sample at the beginning. This “Birds” was of a standard first set variety with Trey’s thematic solos hewing closely to the melody of the song’s chorus. Yet another huddle led to a much needed cool down with a perfectly placed version of “The Line.”

“It’s Ice” was next, unleashing yet another staccato funk jam with Clavinet and Mu-Tron that sounded right at home in any 1970’s cop movie soundtrack. A raucous “Character Zero” brought down the house to finish the set. This was no perfunctory set closer, as Trey abandoned his microphone and turned to face the drum riser, egging Fishman on with highly animated power chord vamping. The song soon reached peak intensity with Trey literally bouncing all over the stage with a look of sheer exuberance on his face.

Can we talk? I haven’t seen Trey play with such a consistently high level of enthusiasm, confidence, intensity, virtuosity and joy in quite some time. He is fully present and engaged in the music in a way that is palpable to all in attendance, making it seem effortless even when he’s working hard to find the groove and elevate the jams. It feels like a renaissance of Trey, and I personally feel privileged to witness it in real time.

Last night’s second set was no exception, as Phish delivered a stunning five-song masterwork that wove numerous improvisational themes through an eclectic mix of classics and new material. “Bathtub Gin” (13:07) opened the second set for only the second time since Hampton 1998. This version cruised through a fiery but straightforward “type-I” jam until climaxing with a barrage of machine-gun Mu-Tron that foreshadowed the next song, “No Men In No Man’s Land.” “NMINML” (12:07) still seems to be looking for its proper home in the Phish repertoire, as the band has been kicking the new song’s tires in various locations in both sets. This version cooled down a little bit in the middle before picking up steam again and finishing strong before dissolving into “Twist” (22:42 LP timing, though a shade under 20:00 real-time).

Along with “Chalk Dust Torture,” “Twist” has become one of Phish’s most prominent jam vehicles in recent years, and you never know what you’re going to get when the song pops up deep in the second set. This version of “Twist” quickly went ambient, moody and minimalist, with Trey playing delicate leads through several layers of effects against the backdrop of Page’s soft electronic piano fills, Mike’s envelope filtered bass, and Fishman’s rolling rhythms. This was a patient jam and, while it felt like they were actively searching for a launching point at times, it comes across as effortless and sensual on relisten. At about 14:00 minutes in, Trey switched on the Mu-Tron again and Mike responded with the fight bell, signaling a progression into a much more upbeat, blissful peak before finishing “Twist.”

Yet another cluster of huddles followed. The cheers of anticipation waned, and out of the silence it came: the long awaited “Scents and Subtle Sounds” (15:21), complete with the original introduction that seemed to have been abandoned but for a cameo appearance at SuperBall IX. It seems obvious in hindsight that the band has been wrestling with the “Scents” intro for some time, so it was promising when they began working through the segment during several sound checks this tour (including before the first Mann Center show). The persistence and hard work paid off in spades last night, as they nailed the introduction and took a brief self-congratulatory breath before launching into the meat of the song. Harkening back to the legendary Camden 2003 version, this “Scents” had it all. The jam was gorgeous, a ten minute journey of tension and release that started softly with gentle themes on the chorus, and building slowly with layers of rock riffs before pulling back slightly, only to finish strong and confidently before ending with the final chorus.

After a short pause, the only question was what kind of sendoff we would receive. The easy money was on “You Enjoy Myself,” which had not been played since the Starlight Theatre show. But a performance like this one clearly called for the higher peaks that only “Harry Hood” (13:36) can deliver. This classic version had solid and straightforward slow-build jamming that finished strong and capped the night off perfectly.

Before the bows, Trey thanked the audience and admonished us to live in the moment with this year’s favorite catchphrase, “Your trip is short.” A triumphant “Loving Cup” (6:27) sent everyone home smiling after hugging it out with Phish for a solid 76 minutes.

Next up, Raleigh.

L-R: Adam Scheinberg, Mockingbird Foundation Vice President and Director of Technology; Artist AJ Masthay; Marco Walsh, Mockingbird Foundation President; Jack Lebowitz, Mockingbird Foundation Secretary & General Counsel at Wednesday's PhanArt Presents: A World Café Live One poster show. Visit The Mockingbird Foundation's site to learn more about our charitable efforts benefiting music education for children, and read more about The Phish Companion print series in support of our upcoming book,The Phish Companion Vol. 3, due out this fall.

AJ Masthay signs his posters created for The Phish Companion Vol. 3 print series at Wednesday's's PhanArt Presents: A World Café Live One poster show.

Wednesday 08/12/2015 by phishnet

MANN1 RECAP: MARTIAN MANNSTER

[Editor's Note: this recap is by musicologist and phish.net contributor Jake Cohen. Jake's blog is at: smoothatonalsound.com. –PZ]

When Phish catches fire, we all win. Whether you’re at the shows, listening at home, or just following along through setlists and recaps, there is a certain energy and excitement that permeates every thought and every discussion we have about this band. Make no mistake, Phish is on fire right now. While it’s far to early to prognosticate, I wouldn’t be surprised if some day in the future we’re talking about August 2015 as one of “those months.” Since Atlanta the band has been on a tear that has been truly impressive, creating legendary moments at almost every show.

Sunday’s oldie/rarity bust-out-fest at Alpine Valley was an altogether different kind of affair, with the band improbably combining as many of their most beloved, oldest, Gamehendge-iest songs into one first set. Often, when the band decides to play that show where they go deep in their catalog, the trend continues for a show or two, with the band plumbing the depths of their repertoire and pulling out a few stops that no one expected, even if they don’t pack the same punch as, say, a “Harpua” or a “Forbin’s” or an “Icculus” or “Sanity” bustout (think 7/30/03 following the bustout-heavy 7/29/03). Tonight’s first set was cut from that mold.

Thankfully, the band included plenty of improv in the first set alongside a number of tour debuts and one huge bustout that made this one of the most enjoyable first sets I’ve seen in a long time. And although the show started with the rare – though perhaps not on anyone’s “must-hear” list – “Crowd Control,” it was the second song, “Martian Monster,” that would provide a connective thread throughout the set, making this one of the most fun and enjoyable first sets of tour.

That said, the “Crowd Control” opener with its easy-going groove was a nice way to ease into the madness that was about to unfold. Trey continues to show that his GD50 woodshedding is paying tasty dividends, as he’s acquired more comfort soloing around the melody line. His solo featured the same long lines and smoothness that has characterized a lot of his type 1 soloing on first set songs where he riffs on the melody.

It’s tough for me to remember the crowd reacting to any song the same way we react to the opening of “Martian Monster.” They’ve been starting the song even before Laura Olsher’s voice finishes the narration, and this was an especially thick, swampy groove. Trey immediately started playing a highly percussive bit of riffing and strumming, and turned on his favorite new pedal, the Mu-Tron, for an especially funky, deep, nasty bit of soloing. I think that it’s not only fantastic that they’re playing a song from last Halloween regularly, but that they continue to improve on it. Page has gotten very adept with the samples, and is using them very creatively, becoming much better at playing around with the rhythms to the point that it almost sounds like DJ scratching at points, but also introducing a pitch shifter to some of them, something I haven’t heard him do until last night.

Leonard Fishman and Tom Marshall (soundcheck photos via Tom Marshall)

The band took the energy from the “Monster” and immediately parlayed that into some big head banging rock in “Axilla.” This song is always a great infusion of intensity and excitement into any first set, and coming so early last night it kept the rocketship in blastoff mode. As the next song began, I initially thought it was “555,” but the turnaround was something different….and then. “Skin It Back!” This is probably my favorite Little Feat tune, and although I was there when they busted it out at Jones Beach on 7/3/12, this was still a major deal for me. Right away I noticed how much it sounds like “Martian Monster.” In fact, I joked to my friends that I think Little Feat wrote the entire Haunted House set.

The “Skin in Back” jam immediately started teasing “Martian Monster.” But more than a tease, this was a full-on “Martian Monster” jam. But this wasn’t so much a segue back into “Martian Monster,” since many aspects of “Skin it Back” remained, including Page’s organ work and the signature riff. I’d really call it “Skin it Back” with a full “Martian Monster” jam and lots of “Monster” samples as well, including one well-placed primal scream, with more pitch shifting from Page. Trey responded to the excitement by not just doing a typical pentatonic funk jam, but introducing some Dorian modal flavor to his solo, giving it that especially “jammy,” psychedelic feel. Anytime you hear that kind of jamming, it feels like it’s somehow deeper and more prone to extension into the ether, and to have that in the first set was such a treat.

“Vultures” was another minor bustout so I was very pumped to get this. I’d like to take a brief aside about the “wooing” here, because I think that during “Vultures” I finally made my peace with the “woo”-ers. There’s been a bit of talk recently on Twitter and other avenues about the woos, with people seemingly coming down on either side. I’m pretty firmly in the anti-woo camp, as I think that Phish chooses when to have a moment of silence in their sound and we shouldn’t feel the need to fill every one with a woo. Where it really bugs me is the composed songs that have a moment of silence in them, like “Vultures” or as we found out Sunday, “Weigh.” So last night when the woos started I cringed a little. But then I saw Trey’s face during the woos at the end of the tune, and I realized just how much he’s getting off on it. He loves the woos, he was leaning hard into every one, egging the audience on. And I realized that this is now just part of Phish, and the Phish experience, and who are we to criticize what the band clearly loves doing? So while I won’t start woo-ing during “Vultures” or any start/stop jam any time soon, I’ve made my peace with it. You can have your woo and scream it too.

The delicate “Dog-Faced Boy” may be a song about a breakup, but it’s also a love song, and so on the eve of my 8th wedding anniversary, I put my arm around my wife and we swayed along and enjoyed the gorgeous tune. As the final harmony faded out, and another “spaceship is about to blast off” from Page, into a relatively rare mid-set “David Bowie.” This “Bowie” jam initially found its way into a slightly sunnier area, but otherwise was a mostly standard-amazing “Bowie” jam. Trey seemed to offer a little extra mustard on the final build.

The “Farmhouse” that I thought was coming earlier finally did come, and this version didn’t have any of the nice slow build qualities as the Bend version from earlier this summer. “Scent of a Mule” got everyone bouncing again, Page did another “Martian Monster” sample at the end of his part of the Mule Duel, and Fishman took an extended Marimba Lumina solo as his half of the Mule Duel. It sounds like Fish has been practicing, as he did some really nimble mallet work on chromatic notes that worked really well in the space of the klezmer “Mule” riff. He also utilized a pitch shifter slider to bend around the heavy bass notes that were erupting out of the instrument. Kudos to Fishman for taking this on, it’s been really cool seeing him learn a new instrument.

After “Mule,” it was clearly time for the closer, and with “Bowie” already out of the way, the band pulled a huge surprised and closed with…”Ghost”?! Of course, in this set there had to be some alien monsters along with the ghosts, with Page adding a bunch of ghost moaning sounds along with a few other Haunted House sounds. In the space right after “I simply haven’t looked,” the band did another big “Martian Monster” tease, highlighting the connection between all these big first set dark funk grooves. “Ghost” is a wonderfully malleable song – it’s jam seems to always meet the setlist placement needs perfectly. At Dick’s in 2013, the show opening “Ghost” was built like a show opener, with a straight-ahead big energy jam. This “Ghost” was built perfectly as a set closer. After some more “Martian Monster” teases at the start of the jam, Trey sat back and brought everything down to a very quiet and subdued place. Essentially, they were crafting a jam structured very much like an “Antelope” or “Slave” or “Bowie” jam, more typical set one closing fare.

This “Ghost” entered into a nice modal space again, avoiding the usual funky blues jamming and instead giving it that nice psychedelic aura, with Trey again exploring along the Dorian mode. Trey mostly sat back gently noodling and let Mike do a lot of work in here, while Page was highly active on the electric piano. A brief shift to the subdominant kicked Trey’s soloing into a Mixolydian feel, in other words, still modal but now sunnier and bright rather than dark and brooding, but then everything fell back to the tonic and Trey leaned on the Dorian 6th hard, accentuating the modal character of the jam. The jam didn’t so much peak in the conventional sense, but instead Trey returned to a bit of minor blues jamming before going back to the “Ghost” riff and playing it for quite a few bars, getting gritty and chunky. As a cap to the standout first set, the band gave us one more little mini-rarity, the a cappella “Grind.” While not technically accurate, “Ghost” definitely felt like the set closer though.

My friend had been calling not only a “Fuego” at this show, but in his words, a “20-minute Fuego!” I was skeptical of this, seeing as that the first night of the Mann last summer was centered around a huge 20+ minute “Fuego,” but when the piano chords of the tune opened set two, my buddy turned to me and mouthed the words “20 minutes!” Despite being three minutes short, he was right; Phish again took “Fuego” deep for the first time since last year’s Portsmouth, Mann, and SPAC blowouts. The audience has really embraced everything about this song, and it’s a legitimate powerhouse in Phish’s catalog these days. The jam went in the usual direction, but rather than coming out of the gates swinging, the band seemed to sit back on it a little, as if to invite the opportunity to spread out. Spread they did, with Trey going to Mu-Tron after a bit of standard “Fuego” jamming. Trey was content to just play single chords with some nice delay effects, giving this section of the jam over entirely to Mike and Page. Fishman quietly kept everything from getting too ambient in the background, and CK5 of course set the psychedelic, spacey mood perfectly. When Trey finally did start playing chords again, he built a beautiful double plagal chord progression (the same one as the outro to “Hey Jude” or “St. Stephen”), which is especially perfect in Phish’s current jamming language because they’ve been all about the I-IV alteration in their big type-II jams, and in this scenario you basically get that twice in one phrase.

Trey switched over to a slightly countrified tone for a second, almost reminding me of an Allman Brothers tune, before falling into gorgeous circular descending riffs while Page and Fish built the overall sound up, Page hammering away on piano. A truly glorious “Fuego” jam. The fast rock strumming faded into ambience but then came back big time with the opening of “Rock and Roll.” This was a relatively short but fiery version of what is often a second set monster jam, but it filled its role nicely coming after the big opening “Fuego.” Trey eventually went for some fast strumming with the wah-wah pedal which was really nice, and the jam felt like it was settling into something more for an extended walkout. But then Page actually started singing the “it was alright!” refrain again, which ended any chance for further improvisation on this tune. Instead, the band went back to the gritty, dark, murky sound that’s been a frequent visitor this summer and took it into the chunky opening chords of “46 Days.” Even though it only clocked in at eight minutes, there was still a bit of something unique in parts of the “Rock and Roll,” a trend that continued in “46 Days.” Don’t judge these jams by their timings, Phish packed a ton of interesting music into these eight-minute segments.

They decided to forego their usual plan of blasting out of the gates of the “46 Days” jam with a big rock and roll solo, and instead Trey went right back to that murky darkness, low-necking the crap out of the early part of the jam with a variety of effects filters turned on to give this a really gritty quality, the same type of sound that’s come to characterize a lot of the dark jams this summer like the Bend “Simple,” the Atlanta “Tweezer” and “Kill Devil Falls,” and the Shoreline “Twist.” It was quiet and low in pitch, so this “46 Days” jam actually had somewhere to go. After a reprise of the lyrics the band led into a very funky, quiet, psychedelic jam, with Trey again taking a back seat to Mike and Fishman. It sounded almost Pink Floyd-y in that combination of psychedelia and funk, sort of like the middle “Echoes” jam or “Breathe.” This jam then turned bright and major key, with lots of great effects from Page. The major key flip turned out to be a nice way to get into the first “Taste” of summer. Totally a beautiful, buttery segue. The “Taste” jam was, like many other tunes in this show, peppered with a high dose of creativity and a modal feel. As he did on parts of the “Fuego” and “46 Days” jams, Trey again sat back playing fast chord strums with the wah effect turned on, while Mike and Page got a minor blues jam going, which is a big contrast to the usual “Taste” sound, before peaking the jam as usual.

The opening segment of “Fuego” through “Taste” was fantastic psychedelic rock, with lots of modal type-II jamming in both “Fuego” and “46 Days.” The next segment of the show was just a big dance party. A big meaty “2001” was perfect here, and Trey again sat back just offering chords with a nice bit of delay while Page did his thing on the Rhodes. The drop into “Sand” kept the party going, with Page controlling the early part of the jam on clavinet and Trey going to the Mu-Tron for his longest foray into that sound, giving a nice big envelope-heavy solo that had a sinister sound to it, rather than the bounciness of “No Man’s Land,” for example. This “Sand” jam had a really nice swing to it, and while it didn’t peak with the same force as usual, it was very pleasing nonetheless.

The set closed with a series of Phish pop/rock, as we got the now-rare “Horse” accompaniment to “Silent in the Morning” (and yes, this exact thing did happen just last year: it again rained really hard and the band played a monster “Fuego” on the first night of the Mann). “Cavern” seemed to be the closer, but then Trey opted for an extended “Number Line” to close things out. Again, when Phish wants to jam the hell out of “Number Line,” they really nail it, and anyone who might groan to think of this closing the second set needs to listen to the all-out shredfest that put a cap on this great show. “Julius” kept the poppy rock vibe going into the encore, and with that we were off.

In retrospect, I think last night’s first set may have actually trumped the second! The “Martian Monster” silliness not only provided a fun connection throughout the set, but highlighted the ways that Phish has really taken their influences and put it into their new compositions. Phish is on fire now, last night was just another example of this. See this band on this tour at any cost.

Philadelphia LE poster by David Welker. Edition of 800.

Tuesday 08/11/2015 by phishnet

TUSCALOOSA "SEVEN BELOW"

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Monday 08/10/2015 by bl002e

MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 195

Welcome to the 195th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday. Good luck!

Hint (Posted 2015-08-11 12:05 pm): Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Answer: Congrats to @WayIFeel, who IDed the 11/19/98 Gumbo, played in Winston-Salem.

LivePhish.com

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