The folks at this show are PUMPED! I love listening to Japanese people scream. They had me laughing A LOT while listening to this show. I also enjoy listening to Japanese girls giggle and talk. Well, the creepy old-man side of me does anyway. Great way to start the show with the NICU->Chalkdust Bag sequence. I would take it any day. I love this Ghost! Holy poop. For some reason I just can’t get the image of hang gliding during this version. Some nice smooth drifting around way up in the clouds with the sun shinning and birds singing and all the other happy shit. Love a long build up…this song just soars. The rest of the set is fine. I especially like how quiet everyone is during the “pause” part of Divided Sky. The energy, again, is great during this Divided. I really enjoy Frankie Says. To my ears it’s such a trippy song. I LOVE TRIPPY! I wish they would play it more often.

SET II!

Wow…DWD. Trey’s sound during the first part of this jam is probably my most favorite of his sounds. Dark and dirty. Super gritty delay/ flanger/phased out dirty space rock. Totally pumps my nads!!! What doesn’t pump my nads is Trey on that stupid keyboard. Did he ever sound good on that thing? I think a toddler could do a better job. Lizards is great and I’m sure a lot of the Japanese folks were happy to hear it. Bike is my favorite Fishman song with I Wanna Be Like You coming in at a close second (which hasn’t been played since 94 so we’ll probably never hear it again…boo). Bike really works here. It’s a nice break after the DWD/Lizards and it’s another reason why I love this band so much. It’s really silly, weird and totally awesome all at once. The YEM that followed was a great treat for the Japanese fan and as far as I can remember was pretty standard. I’ve been in a YEM slump recently so maybe it’s just me. I do love the really quiet vocal jam at the end though. Don’t think they could pull that off in front of a 16,000 person crowd here in the states. The Jibboo encore is a lot of fun and has some really nice guitar work by Trey. I’m more of a fan of later Jibboo’s than earlier ones. I don’t like when Mike plays that same line over and over and over.

Will we ever be able to see Phish in small clubs like this again? Even if they did a Europe tour these days I bet they could fill some pretty big places. I’ve always thought about how much it would suck to be a fan overseas. Whenever I see those commercials on TV about starving kids in Africa or crazy civil war ripping apart countries, I always think to myself “sure food and clothes are good to have but what these people really need is some Phish!”. I know it’s a completely ridiculous thought but I guess I feel really lucky to live in the time and place I do. USA! PHISH! USA! PHISH!

BB
Jibboo Crew