@unoclay said:

@Wisy_Megabeth said:

@unoclay said:

Both Ghosts of the Forrest songs are terrible and need to be dropped STAT (genuinely, Drift Sleeping contains the lamest, cheesiest, and most sophomoric lyrics ever sung by this band--------paging Dr. T. Marshall, please come to the ER for a lyrical resuscitation ) but even in spite of this (now regular) strike against the set, the playing and jamming of virtually every other piece of the show felt above average.

I’m not sure how you can totally rip the GotF material. These are two of the standout songs from the album, and Drift is a strong piece of musical composition. Unless you want more in the vien of Soul Planet or Set your soul Free...I’m pretty pleased with this stuff and thought it was executed better than most songs last night.

There are a small selection of decent GotF songs--sea of stars is acceptable (though I suspect the lyrics, which I can never hear, arent good) and the new one, Wader, was good in concert. But if you think the lyrics to Soul Planet, Soul Family, Drift Sleeping, or for that matter, More, Rise Up, etc....we probably come from different eras of phish appreciation. I generally could take any of these new songs if the lyrics werent so embarrassingly bad.

I'm not a juggalo and dont need Trey acting like Shaggy 2 Dope, spilling his every thought onto the page, first pass, and calling it a day. I wince the whole time during these new songs and the Love Love Love stuff......its so embarrassing. Phish's lyrics are becoming a parody, like, exactly the nonsense non-heads always assumed phish was (rainbows and puppies and hippies loving earth....barf)

That said, the shredding guitar and general band skill level is as good as ever, if not better. 2019 will just have a weird asterisk on it--the year nobody let trey know his fisrt-draft freshman poetry needs a hard edit.

You can drift while you're sleeping
It will all feel new
You can drift while you're dreaming
And love will carry us through

We are wind, we are wind
And we can't hold on
Hold on to anything we see that's gone
We're gone in a heartbeat, fleeting, it's gone
We are wind, we are wind
We crumble into nothing, we are wind

seriously, try reciting that stuff out loud and defend it as good writing. Like a bad movie--its fine to enjoy it (i guess)... but its weird to pretend its anything other than what it is.

Unoclay - Agreed on all points. Phish playing as an ensemble in 2019 (and really, really listening to each other) is a whole new beautiful world. Honestly, one I didn't see coming. These guys can launch and travel as a unit like never before. At any point, from any song.
BUT, yes, where is Marshall? Or somebody with editing power. Someone with override and veto ability. Someone to say, "Hey Trey, love where you are going here, but this one should stay on the cutting room floor." Kind of like McCartney in Wings...who is going to say no? This is why song writing teams, not individuals, mostly decorate the annals of Song craft.
I'm sure we will take heat for ripping lyrics that have a positive message, but come on, it really amounts to laziness. You can create positive, simple lyrics without it being such a molasses sledgehammer.
And man, I know Gordon is cringing when he has to step up to the mike and back up "And love will carry us through".