@hdorne said:

@PhortyHairs said:

Regardless, I'll take this band's 'bad' over any other band's 'great' anytime.

I've never understood this notion, and I'm a massive longtime Phish fan. There is so much great music out there, and I'd rather listen to another artist delivering an amazing performance than Trey butchering his band's own songs.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I've said something like this many times over the years -- Phish on a below-average night are more worthwhile than a perfectly executed night of (insert pop/rock group of your choice here). It's silly, but it speaks to something important, and I *think* I know what I mean by it:

With Phish, the outcome -- the product, the recording -- is much less important than the process by which it's generated on the night through improvisation. That process is the 'sacred' thing. The extraordinary sense of possibility, openness, risk, which is central to the Phish experience: that's the feeling you don't actually get from other bands. Not because Phish are 'better at jamming' than everyone, but because they go about their job in a way that leaves them weirdly present and vulnerable night after night, and we in the audience can feel it.

I haven't heard Sunday's show. It may've been shit; sometimes you get a bad show. It doesn't happen often to Phish, but they do play clunkers. That said, 'all "Type I"' does not equal 'clunker' in my estimation, not at all. But that's a separate set of questions.

We can't help feeling disappointed, obviously. 'Fan' is short for 'fanatic,' which is not a compliment.

But we can make an effort to talk about what happened without rancor and (if possible) ego, to listen hard to the music and figure out what's going on, to see that as part of the same process that produces classic shows -- a continuum of musical experience rather than two buckets labeled 'hear at all costs' and 'you are dumb for listening to these' -- and then to shrug and laugh because the whole thing's utterly ludicrous. The best show is the next one; it has to be. I know that for me, the best thing I can do when it comes to Phish is try to embrace that attitude, and not get bummed out because the show didn't sound like I wanted.

So for instance complaining about slow/quiet songs, or about Twist not being an exploratory jam vehicle on a given night, or about Trey preferring a stretch of shorter songs to a final blowout in the 'fourth quarter'...get yer feelings out, say you don't like it, these things are important. But then we put it behind us, because Trey's song choices aren't our business, and the band's mood really actually is four adults' shared private feelings, and when the band is on fire Phish's 'Type I' jamming really is harder and more rewarding than almost anything your second-favourite band does. So as long as we can temper our disappointment with the grownup sense that we're not owed anything -- this is hard to do and I fail at it all the time -- then we're doing fine and no one's actually hurt by a Bad Review or indeed even a case of what the kids call 'Butthurt.'

@chillwig speaks for himself and, to an extent, for a crew of likeminded fans. If you don't think he speaks for you, then speak up, and try to make it about your experiences and not The Other Person Having BadWrongFun or whatever.

Meanwhile I'll be over here in the corner listening to Milton Nascimento's MINAS, which (when the handwringing is done) I recommend to everyone else, too.