Phish returned to Georgia last night for the band's 41st performance in the state, dating back to 2/1/90. For a band that traces its roots to the Green Mountains of Vermont, Phish has logged a healthy amount of its road time in the Peach State. In fact, while Georgia ranks ninth in terms of most visited states, Atlanta stands a proud third in terms of most frequented cities, trailing only Burlington, VT, and New York City. And Phish has returned to Georgia every full performing year since 1990 with only two exceptions, 2004 and 2009. Over these years, Atlantans and nearby Athenenians have witnessed some spectacular Phish shows. And amidst a long, long list of exceptional individual song performances, here's a quick year-by-year sampling of some especially noteworthy Georgian renditions:

Read more...

We now bring you live to another after-school special edition of Phish.net's Mystery Jam Monday! You know the drill: be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip and win one MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. 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!

Answer: With his fifth win in the last seventeen MJMs, @PhreePhish wins this week's MP3 download by identifying the 7/12/00 Crosseyed And Painless. Well done!

MJM CLIII in V.

In the lot before last night’s show at Merriweather Post Pavilion, @mikh2wg, @the_Crested_Hogchoker, @GhettoSloth, @ivy_light and myself were discussing how many people (including some of us) had a strongly negative reaction the first time we heard Phish. It seems so unthinkable to me now that there was a time when a friend gleefully played for me a newly acquired tape of 8/14/93 and my response was something along the lines of “Well, that’s nice, dear. But do you realize that idiot is trying to play a vacuum cleaner?” Sloth speculated that 30% of people hate Phish’s music the first time they hear it. I was one of those people once, but almost two decades later, here I was about to see my 30th show. Ain’t love funny?

Read more...

The band and everyone in attendance at last night’s show in Columbia, MD were right where they were supposed to be. This band was never supposed to stay on hiatus after 2000. They were never meant to stay retired after 2004. There was simply too much left to be said. Thank God they came back to let us hear it.

Everything simply feels right these days with this band who have been blowing our minds now for three decades. Some shows in the current state of Phish feature multiple extended jams. Others, like the previous night’s show at Jones Beach, feature one “you have to hear this to believe it” segue after another. Still other nights, like last night, are far less exploratory and still have the ability to take the audience on a stunning musical journey. You never know what you are going to get in 2013 and that is an exciting place to find yourself as an audience member.

Read more...

"The rain had let up and leveled out to its usual winter-long pace ... not so much a rain as a dreamy smear of blue-gray that wipes over the land instead of falling on it, making patient spectral shades of the tree trunks and a pathic, placid, and cordial sighing sound all along the broad river. A friendly sound, even. It was nothing fearful after all. The same old rain, and, if not welcomed, at least accepted — an old gray aunt who came to visit every winter and stayed till spring. You learn to live with her. You learn to reconcile yourself to the little inconveniences and not get annoyed. You remember she is seldom angry or vicious and nothing to get in a stew about, and if she is a bore and stays overlong you can train yourself not to notice her, or at least not to stew about her." – Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion

A common debate in the comments section of these recaps centers around who is better suited to offer a review, someone who attended the show or someone who has listened to the “tapes.” Proponents of reviews by attendees only will generally claim that the show is an experience that can’t be completely distilled to ones and zeros via the modern miracle of livephish.com. To authentically offer a review of a show, they will say, you have to have lived the full sensory experience.

Read more...

I had a discussion last night about the summer tour so far (Bangor, SPAC and to some extent PNC) with Stephen Olker, the producer and host of TypeIIcast, and Dave "Miner" Calarco of PhishThoughts. There are clips of some of the tour's jams (e.g., Bangor Golden Age, SPAC SOAM, Carini, Light), interspersed within the discussion. You can listen to our two cents here.

Read more...

Last night marked Phish’s tenth performance – eighth if you’re only counting headlining gigs – at the PNC Garden Bank State Arts Center. If there’s been an ongoing trend to the preshow atmosphere on the current tour thus far, it could be the blazingly hot, 1999 Summer Tour-esque weather. So being mindful of that theme, please try to keep what’s important (water), and know who’s your friend (hydration).

Alas, sometimes an excess of water is the problem, as we saw Tuesday night with Phish’s return to Canada being postponed due to the after-effects of flooding. Whether an intentional nod to a previous Phish show that rain threatened to undermine or just a fortunate coincidence, “Llama” took the leadoff spot. Because the song has been relegated to a once-or-twice-a-year rarity in the 3.0 era, it’s easy to forget what an effective show opener it is.

Read more...

Welcome to part 151 of Phish.net's Mystery Jam Monday. Once again, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip and win one MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. 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.

Answer: By, er, discerning this week's Mystery Jam (the 7/8/03 Discern -- played ten years ago to the day it was posted), @mainegabe wins this week's MP3 download. Great job!

See you all next week for number 152.

The last time Phish ended a run at SPAC, it was the cherry on top of a sweet 2012 first leg. This time around, the band is still gearing up for the summer and their 30th anniversary, as well as adjusting to a new/old configuration with Fish in the middle. In short, tours rarely seem to hit the jackpot right off the bat. SPAC3 2013 cashes in on a few jams, breaks even on others, and occasionally loses out. The takeaway from the evening, though, is that this slightly-above-average-great show means that the big bucks are still on the way.

Read more...

You know the drill, so let’s cut right to the action from SPAC2.

“Crowd Control” starts off in its now-traditional show-opening slot (it has opened the show in each of its six appearances since Phish returned to the stage in 2009), giving way to a spirited if standard “Chalk Dust Torture,” the first repeat of the tour. “The Wedge” and “Funky Bitch” maintain an upbeat and solidly played opening stanza.

“Heavy Things” saw some minor vocal struggles from Trey but was otherwise well-played, and was followed by a one-two punch from Farmhouse with an unexpected “Bug,” the first performance of the song in the first set in over a dozen years (9/25/00, Bonner Springs, KS). The first set seems like a potentially better fit for “Bug” – a song that many fans (including this one) love, but that can often fall fairly flat when positioned in the more common prominent, late-second-set or encore slots. “Bouncing” offers a breather before “Tube” that teases at some delicious grooves that could have offered the first extended improv of the set, but is cut far too short (and even at 6:44 is comparatively long for 3.0). Then the best “Julius” EVER... hint: they are all the “best ever” – “Julius” rarely varies, and always rages.

Read more...

Phish is sort of like golf.

It’s hard to step onto the tee box after six months without swinging a club and blast a drive right down the middle. Hitting buckets in the off-season can help keep the swing in tune, but sometimes it’s hard to make time for that when you’re a parent, or you just debuted your first Broadway musical, or there are elite symphonies who want to play with you. That kind of stuff.

Phish didn’t slice one out of bounds in Bangor on Wednesday, but let’s just say they missed the fairway wide right and dropped an uneven tour opener that was destined to be largely forgotten by time Dick’s rolls around, save for a few sparkling moments. But if anybody deserves a mulligan now and then, it’s Phish, no?

Fore!

Read more...