From: Yance Davis 

Harpua Files:   11/25/94

The Truth about Cats and Dogs on Thanksgiving  (Harpua  vol. 9)

Well, though I still have two finals to look forward to on Saturday and
I
no longer have a guaranteed ticket for NYE, I got a package of tapes in
the mail today, and as anyone who's gotten good tapes in the mail before
knows, it can really brighten a bad day.  Therefore, in the spirit of
thanks, I figured I'd go over the classic 11/25/94 Thanksgiving Harpua.
Anyone who's even seen the setlist to this show, knows anyone that was
there was surely thankful after the much-ass-kicking second set. 
Harpua's
a rare enough tune that just getting it in a show at all is a fine omen,
but the placement of this one is just insane...

Set II: Also sprach Zarathustra->Mike's Song->Simple->Harpua->Weekapaug
Groove->The Mango Song, Purple Rain->Run Like an Antelope
Encore: Good Times, Bad Times

With the exception of Purple Rain, this could be on many people's "dream
set" lists.  Fine jamming can be heard throughout the entire show, and
while no song stands out as a "best ever" version, the tape's always a
joy
to listen to.  Simple is fairly long for '94 and has some fast and
frantic
jams at first, followed by some smooth melodic harmony for a while.
Toward the end, Fish's beat gets a little more snare to it and a rhythm
similar to the "Montana" jam on A Live One (which by the way was from
the
Bozeman Tweezer, two nights after this show), which seems to stop on a
dime to go into a truly unexpected "Oom Pa Pa, Oom Pa Pa..."  Seriously,
this is pulled off so well, that you'd have to label the tape
Simple->Harpua, with the first "Oom" coming in right after the last
beat,
no pause at all.

The opening is perfectly flawless.  I mean, yeah, they're great
musicians,
but even still, this song has got a weird rhythm to start with, and Mike
and Fishman aren't always completely in sync in some versions..  Around
the two minute mark, Trey steps up to the mic and begins the story...

"Welcome everyone and happy Thanksgiving."

        (standard loud applause)

"Hope you all had a good one.  I know I did.  I'm gonna tell you a
famous
Thanksgiving story, now you probably know a lot of different
Thanksgiving
stories, but this particular story you may not know.  You may know it.
This is, ahh, happened some time around the 1600s, you know, somewhere
in
New England there, there's a boat that brought some people over and uh,
they all landed somewhere around Plymouth Rock and they started this
little town.  And um, in this town there was all kinds of different
people, but one of the things that really kind of started the uh,
started
the future off on the wrong foot was that the people in this first town
in
America.. There was one person in this town that they all did not like
and
they let everybody know it.  They couldn't have love for every person in
the town, so there was one person that was a little bit different, and
because this person was different they always gave him a hard time.

"Now this person was a little bit older than the rest of them.. He was
sort of an old man.  I need a little background music here.

        (Trey fools around on the theme while Mike brings the bass down
lower and lower in the background)

"He was an old guy and he travelled around with his mangy little dog. 
You
know, the name of the song is "Harpua" and the name of the dog was also
Harpua and this is the story of Harpua and his owner.  Now, there they
were in the town and the townspeople didn't like either the dog or the
old
man very much, and they started to make it really obvious.  He started
to
feel a little more outcast and a little bit different than the rest of
the
people and as time went on, he felt more uncomfortable.. He started
acting
a little stranger, and so they saw him acting stranger, they thought he
was
even more different, they were more mean.  And eventually, it got the
the
point where he just couldn't live with them anymore, and they forced him
to move up into the mountains and away from the rest of the town, forced
him right out of the town.  So he was lonely and by himself and living
up
in the mountains.

"So he goes up into the mountains and as he's living up there, every day
he would look down at the people in the town and get madder and madder.
And he'd look down and say (in a quiet, angry voice) 'You people are
so...
You really Piss me off.  You tick me off' 

Fishman: "TICk me off.."

"but he never said anything about it, he just bottled all this anger up
inside, but he kept getting madder and madder, and as the years went on,
he'd look down every day from his little cave dwelling in the mountains
and he'd see them all having their happy little days down, walking from
house to house, and he'd get madder and madder.  One day he just
couldn't
take it anymore, so he opened up his mouth, and he looked down and he
just
let out the biggest, most awful scream of all time, a scream that was so
horrible that it shook the rafters of the town..

        (Trey lets out a long, loud, gut-wrenching scream)

"The anger poured out of his chest.  Deep in his gut the anger toward
the
town.. He was so angry, his anger was so deep, that people actually
looked
up in the mountains and they saw.. it wasn't just sound, it became this
beam of ugly red light...

(I wasn't there, but I talked to a few people who were and mentioned
that
as Trey talked of the red and other lights throughout the story, Chris
would follow along with the real lights around the stage as smoothly as
he
follows along with them during jams...)

"...coming out of his mouth, and over and over out of his mouth in a big
arc out of his mouth just a giant ..Beam of light.  And it came bursting
down through the town, coming down, leaving a trail of death and
destruction behind it, anger, ugly horrible screaming sound...

        (Again, Trey screams out to make his point...)

"...knocking out buildings, knocking cars off, kicking boats out of the
water
        (Another scream, even louder)

"and it came bursting down through suburban streets.. until it came upon
the house of our friend .. JIMMY!

        (huge applause from audience, music which has been building up
throughout the story peaks through the applause before quieting to near
silence for the Jimmy section of the story)

"That's right, Jimmy was in his house when the angry beam of vocal
hatred
came through and, Jimmy is the other person in the story.  Jimmy was
sitting in this particular day.  Jimmy was in his house, and he had no
idea that the angry beam of ugly sound was coming towards his house,
because he was too busy watching TV and listening to movies and petting
his cat, his pet cat, who he loved so much.  His house was filled with
love.  He looked at his cat and pet the little cat..

Fishman: "ah, nice cat"

"And he looked into its eyes and said 'You are nothing but love.  When
you
open up your mouth, I see a beautiful green love beam coming out at me.
He
pet the cat.  That's why..

        (At this point, I cant tell if Chris lets off a burst of green
around the stage or someone pegs a glow stick at Trey...)

Fishman: "Much like, that love beam.  Trey, someone's beaming love at
you."

"Green love beam...coming out, hitting him.  And he feels kind of.. He'd
look at the cat and .. ahh, they're coming out everywhere!  Beautiful
green love beams (must be glowsticks.. loud applause here).   So he
looked
down and said 'I love your beautiful green love beams you.. handsome
cat,
you beautiful feline friend of mine, my sweet...

Fishman: "beautiful red love beams as well"

        (At this point there's a fairly large break in the story while
Page fools around with this weird affect and the audience is going
consistently nutty in the background)

"...flying out of everywhere.. He said 'I love that beautiful green love
beam!  That's why ... I named you---POSTER NUTBAG!

Fishman and Trey in high voices: "Poster.. oh Poster. Poster Nutbag.
Poster!" 

"Poster Nutbag.  Anyway, it was at this point in time, that Poster
Nutbag,
standing in front of his door..  Suddenly the door was blasted open by
the
red beam of vocal hatred from the guy who had been.. at the beginning of
the story (Trey sounds nearly out of breath here.)  His door comes
bursting off his hinges, smashing him in the chest, flying him back up
against the wall.  Meanwhile, he loses Poster Nutbag who drops upon the
ground, Poster Nutbag.. runs out into the street.  Gone, out in the
street.  Meanwhile, the old man's vocal scream was so incredibly intense
that it had opened up a giant fissure in the earth, and Poster Nutbag
stepped into the fissure, and fell in the bottomless pit, into the lava
in
the middle of the earth, disappearing forever.  Jimmy, meanwhile, lying
in
the house, gets up, pushs the door off, doesn't know what happened to
Poster Nutbag but suddenly his father walks in the door...

"Look!  The angry red vocal hate beam is gone"

        (From here, the 'song' part of Harpua continues normally...)

Truly, this is one of my favorite Harpuas, just based on all the fun
they
seem to be having up on stage (though they always seem to have a good
time
during Harpua.  The version itself is very different from a lot of the
others.  No reference to Gamehendge at all, having the story take place
right here in America, as well as no song tease, and a lot more focus on
how the people Made the old man into the mean old man that he was,
rather
than just starting him off as a mean old man like usual.  Most noteably
though, aside from a brief mention very early on, the title mutt played
no
part in the story whatsoever.  I don't really rate Harpuas since it's
more
story than jam (well, all story, no jam actually) but this one (as well
as
the tape it's on) is well worth hearing.  Having that Weekapaug beat
come
in right after the closing notes is a great treat too.  My tape recorder
honesly is broken, but I'll be spending a lot of the holidays at my
parent's so I'll have that one to dub this tape for a few people who
happen to get to me first.  Not too much though, as they aren't the
biggest Phish fans in the world, but if you don't have this show, you
should get it.  Just, if I tape it for you, Please Please Please spin a
few of it for random other people on the 'net...