HOW WOULD YOU SUMMARIZE ONE YEAR OF PHISH IN ONLY A 74 OR 100 MINUTE PLAYLIST?
IT will be the fortieth anniversary of Phish's first gig in about forty-some-odd days. Over the course of Phish history, fans have often considered what Phish jams they would put on a 100-minute cassette “mixed tape” (aka mixtape) or a 74-minute CD (the Regular volume CD) or, more recently, on a playlist.
But what if that playlist were limited to only 74 minutes? Or 100 minutes? And what if instead of being a playlist of your favorite Phish jams, it was a playlist of what you believed to be tracks that best represented Phish's music and history in a given year over Phish's FORTY YEAR HISTORY OF PLAYING SHOWS?
CHICAGO3 RECAP: THE BEST 2.5 STAR SHOW MONEY CAN BUY
[We would like to thank user DrAyers (Michael Ayers) for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]
Greetings from inside the United Center! This is my second night seeing the boys in Chicago, as Jimmy Carr has announced a show in Chicago months before Phish did, and thus I was already on the hook. I was seated in the 200s for both nights (Saturday night behind the stage, Sunday night Mike side), making friends with the gentleman to my left (a fellow vinyl collector) and the WSP fanatic (Narrator: Poor soul) to my right.
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CHICAGO2 RECAP: "NO QUARTER... NO WAY...!"
[We would like to thank user Farmhose, Alaina Stamatis (@Fad_Albert on Twitter), for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]
Because of *ahem* legal troubles as documented in my last .Net review I’m not permitted to leave where I live, and I don't live at the United Center, so this Phish show recap was generated in my living room instead of the NBA’s largest arena. The band came out to roars and applause but I didn’t feel compelled to stand up and instead chose to remain on my ass in my pajamas. No Hawaiian shirt, no face gems, no dudes offering me a finger dip into their mysterious baggies; just pure, unadulterated couch. And I still had a better seat than 8,000 of the nosebleeds.
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CHICAGO1 RECAP: CHILLING, THRILLING SOUNDS
[We would like to thank user Brettsinthebathtub (Brett F.) for volunteering to recap and recapping last night's show. -Ed.]
Once again, we are at Phish. This time at the United Center; a building that proudly displays the achievements of some of the greatest athletes of all time in its rafters. But you can watch The Last Dance on your own time. Tonight, the focus is another GOAT.
If there’s any uncertainty about the tone of the night, it’s made clear up front: Shit is about to get real spooky in here. The theme from Friday the 13th” plays as the band takes the stage. I’m caught off guard, as I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything other than the crowd when the band is picking up their instruments.
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DAYTON2 RECAP: THE NEVERENDING NUT(TER)
[We would like to thank user Aaron Presuhn, for volunteering to recap, and actually recapping, last night's show. -Ed.]
Phish at the Nutter Center. Fall tour. October. I love this venue and they obviously do too. It’s kind of hard to believe that these shows were only the 4th and 5th played here. Hopefully there’s more to come in the future.
Everyone knows THIS show. 12-7-97 was my soundtrack to a fun LSD-fueled sunrise hike among the woods and rocks of southwestern PA, and it holds a special place among my favorite shows.
The Nutter show in 2017, along with the Pete (Pittsburgh) show the next night were the best birthday present one could get. And now, six years later, the band returns to the Nutter for a two-night stand before the tour-ending run in Chi-town. Weather couldn’t have been more perfect for these shows, too…60s, sunny, great for spending a few hours relaxing on lot.
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DAYTON1 RECAP: RECAP IT YOURSELF
[So both the person who signed up to recap last night's show and also the backup recapper were unable to submit a recap in a timely manner today. So we respecfully request that you recap the show yourself in the Comments. My two cents:
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AN INTERVIEW OF BRIAN WEINSTEIN, THE PHISH FAN BEHIND THE ATTENDANCE BIAS PODCAST
[A Phish fan since 1996, Brian Weinstein has been running the Attendance Bias podcast since the spring of 2020. We hope you enjoy this interview of him, and subscribe to the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. -Ed.]
How did you first get into Phish, what was your first show?
I first heard Phish in the summer of 1996. I was at a summer camp in Charlton, Massachusetts, and we were driving to Mt. Washington in New Hampshire for an overnight hiking trip. At some point on the four-hour drive, the head counselor put A Picture of Nectar on the van’s CD player. It was like time froze. This was new music that I hadn’t heard before, at a breakneck tempo, and I was hooked. I loved “Llama” and “Cavern,” but it was “Glide” that sold me. Once I heard that cowbell intro and the thunderous chords interrupting it, something inside me sparked and I had to listen to the rest of the album again ASAP.
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NASHVILLE3 RECAP: NEVER REVIEW A SUNDAY SHOW
[We would like to thank user MGOLIA6 for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]
Let’s cut the bullshit, as of late, as tours come and go, an unrealistic expectation has been placed on the band. Fault can clearly be placed, at least partially, on the band, for setting such high standards to begin with. Add to that a limited set of fall tour dates, the band’s 40th anniversary, a 2000th showversary, and the proverbial let down is all but inevitable. The remainder of the blame lies with us, the listeners. Why are we so needy? Then I got to asking myself, why the fuck did I volunteer to review this show? A Sunday show, an early flight home, the list of cons goes on and on. But the answer is simple, I love this band, warts and all, regardless of expectations, seemingly because of expectations and the simple fact that in the face of all the bullshit in the world, experiencing a Phish show live is quite possibly the one place that I can find solace from the deafening external noise that abounds these days.
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NASHVILLE2 RECAP: DE GUSTIBUS NON EST DISPUTANDUM
[We would like to thank user JMART, Josh Martin, for recapping last night's show. Pax tecum. -Ed.]
Greetings, everyone, and welcome ....
Every once in a while down at the jmart household, we like to throw on our tuxedo t-shirts, compare SAT scores, and break out our most favorite Latin phrases. Never fear: If high school seems like a distant memory to you, or you just happen to be a dorkus malorkus, your old pal has you covered.
Before we get down to business in earnest, a brief caveat emptor: Your reviewer was not in attendance last night. If you were, and you're wondering why the review wasn't written by someone who was, then you understand that the answer, as it almost always does, lies within.
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NASHVILLE1 RECAP: "YUH!"
[We would like to thank user Suzy Barros (@SuzyDrano) for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]
In a lot of ways, I feel like the perfect person to be recapping this show, being a (sometimes) jaded vet who enjoys most of the songs true jaded vets deride. Perfect example of this being show opener “Julius,” which I recall getting into a bit of a heated debate on Twitter a couple of years ago in defense of it serving as the encore of a show instead of the Tweeprise that everyone had expected/hoped for. Who wouldn’t rather hear an 8ish minute bluesy boogie than 4 minutes of the same-same? Everyone else in the world apparently. But I digress….
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SURRENDER TO THE FLOW FALL 2023 25TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
[Courtesy of Christy Articola, one of the Phish community's most generous and gracious fans over the course of twenty-five years, and the Editor and Publisher of STTF. Do not miss user @farmose (formerly @fad_albert)'s "Horoscopes" in this STTF! -Ed.]
Here is Surrender to the Flow's Fall Tour 2023 issue! (www.gum.co/sttf80)!
It's our 25th Anniversary issue and it's hard to believe---but amazing for us to contemplate---that we have been putting this magazine out to Phish fans for two and a half decades! We are so thankful for your support and readership, and we think you're really going to love this one.
ON THE CONCEPTS OF IT AND THE HOSE: AN ABRIDGED SELECTION OF PHISH'S IMPROVISATIONS
[The current FAQ entry on this website for "Hose" is grossly in need of updating. The Jamming Types entry also should be modernized, if only because one can now link to the original RMP threads about it, and because while the entry somehow mentions "PornoFunk" it fails to mention the "PermaGroove" concept, which Drew Hitz coined upon seeing the 12/9/95 Albany "YEM" (by the way, Drew also coined "Fuckerpants" (aka "Prince Caspian") on RMP in fall 1997 (without an explanation), and I just popularized the term when I recapped the '97 NYE run on RMP).
As I solemnly reflect on my sucking at the Phish, I would like to thank those who have made this site what it is, especially users @SethAdam1 and @UCtweezer and @Bizarro_Jerry and @Lemuria and @ZZYZX and the members of the jamcharts teams over the years for their help curating the jam charts on this site, without which this collection would have been impossible for me to create, particularly while on my back with my right ankle elevated above my heart for 23+ hours a day (I have a few more weeks of this!). Thank you everyone who has contributed to the jam charts in the last 15 years, especially users and current/former jamchart team members @DogFacedBoy, @Westbrook, @n00b100, Rich, @cohron1, @deshpn, @ItsIce88 and @MShow96! Thanks are also due to those who worked on the jam charts published in The Phish Companion (aka the "legacy" charts), including Jeremy Goodwin, Jim Raras, Craig DeLucia, Herschel Gelman, Billy Rickards, Steve Paolini, Sean McPharlin, Jason Rose, Jeremy Welsh, Tim Wade, Syd Schwartz, Saul Wertheimer, Christian McKee, Erik Swain, Jesse Appelman, Scott Hershkowitz, Mike Preston, and Rob Kallick. (If you worked on a jam chart and I failed to mention you, PLEASE FORGIVE ME, but let me know so I can ADD YOUR NAME HERE!)
I would also like to thank the tapers for not only recording shows over the decades, but also SHARING YOUR RECORDINGS!
And, of course, THANK YOU RELISTEN! THANK YOU DANIEL SAEWITZ AND ALEC GORGE for your PRICELESS service to the improvisational rock community!
Although my primary motivation in analyzing the entirety of Phish history to create this post was to eventually bring the FAQ entries for "The Hose" and "IT" (and possibly "Jamming Types") up to date after getting Comments on the post from you, and with the assistance hopefully of other site volunteers (OR YOU??), it wasn't long before I realized I was undertaking this effort in the fortieth year of Phish's history. In honor and in acknowledgement of forty years of Phish shows, and for your amusement, this post contains photographs of sundry, material, and sometimes personal and very humiliating items and ephemera from my years as a fan. I include them here as but a small gesture of atonement for my sucking at Phish for so long.
The transcription of the NPR radio interview purportedly from spring 1994 (below) appears to be based on a recording of it that I either transcribed myself (it is in a very old TXT file on my pc) or copied from someone in the 1990's, but I cannot locate the recording in my tapes or in the RMP Google Groups archive (other than in my RMP post that includes this transcription). I say "purportedly" about the date because in this remarkable 1997 thread on RMP that I encourage you to read or at least skim about the concept of the "Hose" and "IT" and having a transcendent experience listening to music, an old friend of mine Aaron states in the thread (on April 10, 1997) that he recalls hearing this interview on NPR's Weekend Edition in his dorm room at college in fall 1994. Aaron is a brilliant dude and I have no reason to question his memory. Of course, I guess it's possible NPR re-broadcast the interview in fall 1994, as Hoist was released March 29, 1994, but I wish I had the date and recording to (re)confirm. See also this thread in September 1997, which also has some wonderful ideas from fans, and in which I explain in one of the posts in the thread why the concept of "hose" and "getting IT" aren't quite the same, as I also explain below. -charlie]
The concept of "the Hose" originated in a conversation that Trey had with Carlos Santana when Phish was opening for Santana on his tour in July 1992. In an NPR interview conducted in spring 1994 during the promotion of Hoist, Trey and Mike explained how they understood the concept:
Interviewer("Int"): I wondered how much you were all influenced by Frank Zappa?
Trey: Oh. Particularly myself and Fish, our drummer. I was heavily influenced. As a matter of fact, the two of us—(pause) I remember going and following him around for a week or so, at one point, back when he was still touring and alive. But I always liked any kind of improvised live music, be it Frank Zappa, or the Dead, or Jazz. And I think that's the One Love that we all shared. And—
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WHY "IT"?
[This article was published in the newspaper distributed on the grounds of the IT Festival twenty years ago in early August 2003 courtesy of Dean Budnick of Relix and his team. I also wish to apologize to the ~87 of you who may have seen this post appear on the home page for a very brief time earlier today. I was planning for this to go "live" on the site Monday morning, but I wasn't paying attention to the publication date, and I managed to briefly publish it on the site earlier today in error. I regret the error. You did not imagine... ... ... it. -charlie]
Since IT was announced, fans began speculating about the meaning of IT. Some immediately thought that Stephen King's book of the same name, published in 1986, inspired IT, because the setting of that horror tale also takes place in Maine. Others thought that maybe the festival got its name because the band and its management often wondered whether they would do "it" again -- that is, put on another festival after the hiatus—and IT stuck. Whatever the meaning of "IT," Phish could not have picked a more ambiguous name for a festival. After all, our nation was recently inundated by marketing for a device originally known as "It," which was (is?) supposed to revolutionize human transportation. (Mike has already played bass on a "Segway Human Transporter" live-in-concert on more than one occasion.)
But what about the history of "IT" before IT became the name of Phish's 2003 festival? What is the (sur)real story behind IT in the improvisational rock community?
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EVERY SUMMER TOUR SHOW RATED ON A FIVE STAR SCALE (OR HOW TO RATE PHISH SHOWS IN A RUTHLESSLY OFFENSIVE AND ALIENATING MANNER)
[The views expressed in this article—which are extreme and outrageous, and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community—are not necessarily shared by any of the volunteers who manage this site. You the reader agree to hold Phish.net and its volunteers harmless from any and all liability for the contents of this post. The opinions expressed in this post are those of its author alone, unless the author otherwise indicates or expressly disclaims such opinions, at any time.]
IT has been made plain in the “Comments” to my screed about Phish show ratings on this site that some of the views obtusely and abstrusely expressed therein created confusion and vitriol, arousing and inflaming the passions of the most ignorant and noobtarded of this site’s beloved user community. For this, I insincerely do not apologize. The blog post was at times deliberately and maliciously perverse, and often baffling, and while it did diminish what little credibility I may have had with many of you, this is your fault entirely, as you wasted your time reading it, and I should never have been esteemed by anyone at any time in the first place. You're welcome.
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ON THE (UN)BEARABLE LIGHTNESS, AND DARKNESS, OF RATING PHISH SHOWS
[The views expressed in this article do not necessarily comport with the views of any of the many volunteers who help run this site and manage its content. The author of this post is also not in control of his faculties, and you the reader agree to hold Phish.Net harmless from any and all liability for this blog’s contents. If this article appears TOO LONG and you DON’T want to READ it: Trust show ratings at your peril, as there is no truth in them. The only truth is in you.]
IT is well-known that users can and do rate Phish shows on this site by awarding them one, two, three, four or five stars. A logged-in user simply views a setlist’s "permalink page"—for example, this beauty right here—and, behold! Beneath the setlist in the section headed “SHOW RATING,” you the user are invited to provide “Your rating:” of the show by clicking on one-to-five blank stars that fill-in the moment your mouse hovers over them. If you’ve already rated the show, one or more of the stars will be filled-in and not blank when you first view the section. And after you’ve rated a show, you can change the rating with ease, if you wish, by hovering a mouse over the stars and rating the show anew. The “Show Ratings” section also states the number of times the show has been rated by unique users and its “Overall” average rating out to three decimal places, with one point calculated per star. One of the greatest musical performances in the history of music by any group of musicians in recorded history, for example, is currently rated an average of 4.761 by 1400 users.
What is less well-known or even understood is how much Phish the Typical Fan Who Rates Shows on this site has actually heard, or seen. How many users of this site who rate shows only rate shows they’ve attended? How many users who rate shows on this site have heard every or nearly every circulating note of Phish—all shows in Phish history, the recordings of which stream on Relisten.net or Phish.in or LivePhish—and thus wield a judicious sense of what characteristics constitute an above, below, or “Average Typically Great” Phish show? A few hundred perhaps?
It is thus forgivable that some (perhaps you yourself) find this site’s “Show Ratings” to be at least hilariously if not outrageously unreliable, often so grossly inflated that it’s prudent to distrust and disregard them with the most extreme prejudice.
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