9-9-99 -- GM Place, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:09:03 EDT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: 9/9/99 Vancouver short review
 
09/09/99
GM Place - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Thoughts on Vancouver:  Beautiful city, the war on drugs or people is not a
priority in Canada, noone is obsessed with guns, it's safe, mellow and very
cool.  When they were searching bags they only took peeks and when this old
door guy made me finish my water I joked that it was liquid acid and he
cracked up.  At least Canada's water is delicious!  That would never happen
at the Gorge.  The people inside were very cool and eagerly awaiting
Phish...all the natives we were sitting around were very grateful for
Phish...me too.  Cheers to Ari, Danica, Roxanne, Jean-Marc, Nathan and
Ben...Wasn't even close to being sold out and GM Place is a very nice, small
place.
I (1:16): Free Thought-This was a really cool instrumental...noone seemed to
know quite what it was, but it really got the crowd moving anyway.
Axilla-It opened Halloween, it opened the NYE run...my Gal and I have a
special place in our hearts for Axilla.
Limb by Limb-Great song to hear!  Like I've never heard it before...my
favorite yet.  Very space-age.
Horn-the guitar solo in this song is heaven.
Guyute-Tight as hell...they were tight as hell all night.  Flawless.
Chalk Dust Torture-Cool stuff on this one....rocked us to a nub.  Trey is
sounding more and more bad-ass!!!
Back at the Chicken Shack-nice chilling moment...very cool to hear this on
its own.  Most groovy.
Stash-Like nothing I've ever heard before.  As the jam began Trey merely
played the Dm7 chord once and let the vibrato pedal take it away over the
rest of them being very quiet and subtle.  Coolest Stash I've ever heard.
I Didn't Know-I'm so glad they played this!!!!!!
Character Zer0-again, rocked us to a nub.  The chorus to this song is
monstrous.
 
II (1:32): Birds of a Feather-Cool 2nd set opener.  Again, we were mere
nubs.
Ha Ha Ha-Yeah Baby!!!!!  A fun quick song to throw in.
Ghost-a cool-ass ghost...neat territory covered here.  It was all a heavenly
blur.
Purple Hugh-This sure was nice.  Thanks Trey.  And thanks for not calling it
Minestrone.
First Tube-I have this song on some Trey solo show and I was hoping they's
play this one.  Hard Groove, very intense and cool-sounding.
Tweezer-Neat Tweezer...very space-age throughout this whole show.
Bug-My favorite new song...you can hear the Lou Reed coming through on this
one, reminded me of Catherine Wheel too.  Sheer beauty.  They need to play
this a little more.
You Enjoy Myself-Oh My God...tight as hell and MAN! was Mike thick on the
bass!!!!
Hello My Baby-went well with the YEM vocal jam.  I'm glad they didn't quite
end with YEM.
 
E (0:14): Sample in a Jar, Golgi Apparatus, Tweezer Reprise-They just kept
rocking us until the sweet end!!!  Great night and my favorite out of the
first 3 shows we saw.
-John Pett

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 12:00:03 -0700
From: Ian Jacobson [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: 9/9/99 Review
 
I just finished up the first four shows of tour and wanted to put in my
2 cents regarding the unbelievable music thrown down on this leg of the
tour.  Suffice it to say that Phish is getting the jamming done for
working man!  Taken in its entirety, the Vancouver show was probably my
favorite of the 4.  The venue was vary small for an arena and was less
than 3/4 full.  The trip up to Vancouver across the border was long and
grueling, fortunately BC is very accommodating to "alternative"
lifestyles and the lot had most of what you needed readily available.
Sat 6th row for this show, and just about lost my mind as a result. I
haven't seen an indoor phish show since 1996 and the current light show
is nothing short of mesmerizing.  The first set was a fantastic kick off
for fall tour, very relaxed in intensity but with an unmistakable amount
of energy in the crowd and on stage.  Through to Guyute we were just
slowly moving through gears, and picking up the pace.  After seeing two
Guyute's this tour I'm fairly confident that this is the Band's tightest
tune these days.  Granted, its fully composed, but in running through
the paces the band comes out on the other side fully primed and ready to
rock!! Stash featured one of the tightest and interesting jams I had
heard, just continued to build without the typical patch of dissonance
and release, just great improv.  The 'Maybe So And Maybe Not' refrain at
the end came on soft as almost an afterthought to finish out the tune.
Character Zero hit on all cylinders giving the crowd something to chew
on until second set.  Trey had and handfull of loops running by the end,
and the set closed with him slowly pitch shifting down as the lights
faded to black in perfect unison... ominous in deed.
Part Duh:
ooooh Boy, Birds come out with the kind of Jam you've been expecting to
come out of that song for a while now. Nice, fast and rocking, trey was
loud and ready for action.  A quick HaHaHa
put the edge on things and lead into a fierce little loop intro to
Ghost.  Wham, lets talk about loud heavy loops and serious space funk, I
couldn't believe some of the jam that went down here, you've got amazing
layers of jam coming out of Trey, Page and Fish, and out of nowhere Mike
cuts through the layers like a scalpel layering in thick unifying bass
lines that just serve to build the intensity of things.  This jam was
extra thick with trey supporting several loops and ripping through lines
on top of them all.  Ghost jams itself out into a quiet moment, and the
unruly crowd is screaming at the top of its lungs!! the band members
exchange glances and Trey reaches around behind the amps and breaks out
the acoustic for Minsetrone/Purple hugh and you could suddenly hear a
pin drop in the arena, total silence and people quiet down and the
intensity in the air increases.  The Minestrone was just fantastic, and
island of composed music in this sea of shark infested jams!!
In short order, the acoustic goes down and Trey fires up mike and Phish
into First Tube.  This song is the reason Im' writing this review,  I've
really never seen anything like this First Tube.  The rocking Bass and
Drums come on strong and Trey jumped in right on top, but I could not
believe my eyes as the band moves into the jam part and trey starts
jumping.  I mean jumping like we used to do back in the early days of
bouncing!  This jam here was the highlight of the show for me, Trey is
roaring like I've seldom head before and Fishman is staring and this
jumping madman, the intensity of the jam became insane!  Trey is still
jumping higher than when he started and the crowd just starts screaming
at the tops of their lungs as the jam stops and everything just
explodes!!!
I was almost insulted the next night when First tube came back out, I
couldn't believe Trey would have the audacity to go back there when the
night before everyone around me believed the man was literally insane,
jumping up and down like a madman!!
Tweezer: Type II jamming, that's all I can say.  Check it out!
Yem, good god, the band didn't even take solo's at the end here, just
group grooving funk so thick I thought I might sink through the
floor!!!  The Mouth jam was ineffable, we left this show amazed at what
the lights had done.  And the YEM just hammered all that home.
So all I know is I have to hear each of these 4 nights again to really
figure out what all went on, but I seem to remember Mike being
unbelievably strong on this tour with intense bass lines of serious
proportions, Page cam alive by the second night of the Gorge and
Trey.... Oh my, Trey has perfected the mind blowing loop jams he
developed through his solo tour and is hammering the band with em, the
vibe I felt for this tour was like Trey was saying, "Keep up boys, cause
if you drop the ball, I'm going to come in there with half a dozen
guitar loops and burn this goddamn house down!!!"
 
So get this music and go see the band....
At all costs!!

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 22:26:54 -0700
From: Chris Garton 
To: [email protected]
Subject: Phish in Vancouver
 
How can I not chime for what was my big 50th show!  I was not to be
disappointed.  There were several things that made this show very
memorable.
 
1)  The lot scene was really small and not a whole lot going on.  The
band's buses were parked in the same lot as we were, which was right
across the street from the venue.  One time when I walked past their
buses, the sunlight was shining in the front windows of the bus.  I
turned to look at them and who else is there in the front seat on his
cell phone but Mike Gordon.  I've seen him in the lot many a time, but
never on a cell phone.
 
2)   The three new Trey songs that they debuted.  [Of all they played
during the first four shows, "First Tube", "Circles", "Heavy Things",
and "Last Tube" are the best respectively (in my opinion of course).  If
you've yet to hear Phish or Trey's band do this. . . get ready for some
great stuff!]
 
3)  How many of you can say that you've seen a show with the vacuum ("I
Didn't Know"), an accapella song ("Hello My Baby"), trampolines ("YEM"
of course), and Trey singing and playing a song on acoustic guitar
("Minestrone") all by himself in one show?  I'm willing to bet nobody
has.
 
4)  The many older songs (Chalkdust, Horn, Stash, & Golgi) that they
played which I also heard at my first show at the Crest Theater
(gamehendge show!).
 
5)  There were only 12,000 tickets available for the show and I've heard
that only about 8,000 were sold.  To see Phish in that small of company
is really special these days and I can only speculate that the band
enjoys those size audiences from time to time as well.
 
6)  Finally, the many many many many many joints going around the place
was dizzying.  Vancouver has a lot to offer in that department.  Most
people were having to go back across the border after the show and
didn't want any trouble like some got going into Canada.  Therefore, the
only thing to do was to puff it all down.
 
A great show in a great city!  My lucky number seventh tour opener was
certainly worth the extra effort to get up there and experience it.
 
"I love this band!  Phish. . . they're phantastic!"

Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 04:12:24 EDT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: vancouver

Coming from Denver it took me almost a week to make it to Vancouver.  Let
me tell you it was well worth the trip.  The first set kicked ass.  What
was really cool though was that mail order hooked me second row right in
front of Page!!!!  What was even better than that was that everyone around
me was also from Colorado.  Colorado was well represented in Vancouver, Go
Broncos!!!! But anyways it gets even cooler than that.  At the end of the
first set this dude in front of me waves a joint in the air as Page is
walking off the stage.  Page gives a nod, like saying give it up, so the
guy tosses it and Page gives a grin as he picks it up.  The guy then turns
to me and my girlfriend and says, "did you see that?  I just threw Page
some of my homegrown and he picked it up!!!" This dude was all stoked, as
should everyone at the show.  When the boys walked out for the second set
Page gave the guy in front of me the thumbs up and a big grin.  Page
looked way high and Trey looked even higher. Everyone at this show should
thank the dude in front of me.  Without him the band wouldn't have played
so amazingly.  Thanks man.

 

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 15:02:00 PDT
From: Gregory Betts [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Phishing in Vancouver
 
 
What a great show! Haven't payed much attention to what Phish has been doing
for the past few years, but the First Set was a sweet re-introduction.
They've really matured, and you could feel their patience right off the bat.
Letting the jams emerge rather than forcing them (and the audience along).
Stash rocked, as did Character Zero.
 
Second Set was much more developed adn unique. I enjoyed themselves, and it
was obvious they were too. The vocal section even hit a distinct 2001
harmony (not the theme song) which deserves to be labeled as separate from
You Enjoy Myself. It was haunting, perfect. Somebody yelled out behind us,
"Music and Religion" It had that kind of a mystical feel.
 
The new tunes were great. Most notably was the solo Trey moment. Kind of a
cross between Landslide and Little Martha. The encores were solid versions
of each. I can't believe I'm not on fall tour right now. Vancouver was
beautiful, the scene, though small, was warm and the venue was incredible.
Best indoor acoustics I've heard.
 
grassroots

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:56:43 -0700
From: Anne Marie [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: phish concert, Vancouver,B.C. September 9,1999

 
This was the first Phish concert I'd ever seen. (I'm in my forties) I
thought it was terrific and thoroughly enjoyed myself. How  did it rate
with the other fans?


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