My first show review (I'm definitely a jam-oriented listener, but love the songs):

7/28/21

If you thought Phish sounded different on this night, you’re right. They do sound different. I’m sure there are many pandemic-related reasons—being cooped up for over a year and itching to play live again, Trey’s energy coming off the Beacon Jams and the Divided Sky Foundation fundraising effort, and several pandemic releases (Sigma Oasis, December, and Lonely Trip…not to mention Trey’s many Instagram “releases”). But there are also some tangible differences.

Trey debuted a new guitar, which he has described as the “4.0 guitar.” Maybe a reference to this being Phish 4.0 (although Trey reportedly doesn’t buy into the whole 1.0, 2.0 thing), but definitely a reference to this being his fourth Koa Languadoc (way more on this guitar here: https://treysguitarrig.com/2021/07/28/2021-summer/) . Trey had recently modified some of his guitars to have two outputs, first running to an amp with more clean tone, and the other running to an amp with all his effects. This guitar seems to have been built specifically for this new rig—the first Languedoc built with two outputs. The guitar also has a warm tone, and rich sustain. So Trey just sounds a little different.

Mike’s rig is also modified. He has been using different rigs when he plays solo and with Phish. He has recently been modifying his Phish setup so that he uses the same (or very similar) rig regardless of who he’s playing with. You can listen to him discuss his rig with Tom Marshall on Under The Scales here: https://www.osirispod.com/podcasts/under-the-scales/under-the-scales-048mike-gordon-part-1/ (somewhere around the 25 minute mark).

But the first sign that Phish was going to sound different (other than Trey’s January announcement of his new guitar) was visible during the stage shot of Page’s rig during the live stream, before the show even started. Page made a MAJOR transformation to his setup, moving his Hammond Organ/Nord Stage stack from the left side of his piano to the right of his piano, and moving his Wurlitzer electric piano/Moog synth from right of his piano to left. This is huge. Think of all the classic songs that involve Page playing piano with his right hand and organ with his left—often at the end of big jams like Hood and Slave. I went back and rewatched the Slave from this show, and it looked like Page turned left to find his hand placement on his organ before remembering that the Hammond is now to the right. Then you see him playing the Hammond with both hands (no piano) at the end of the jam. So I’m expecting to see him opting for one or the other during these moments, rather than switching to piano with left hand and organ with right. Page playing organ with his left hand and piano with his right at the end of jams has helped create that “wall of sound” that makes those peaks sound so big. Is that element of their sound now gone? Why would he make such a transformational change? Well, for the past several tours it seems like Page’s go-to keys for jamming have been the Wurlitzer/synth stack (and it has been amazing!). And so I think Page is saying that when the band is jamming, he wants to play these keyboards, while also being able to see his bandmates. And this seems true for nearly the whole tour opener—Page is camped out at his Wurlitzer, and the synth is coming out with far more frequency. So I think we can expect a far more synth-heavy tour this summer. I’d also add that Page just sounds way more out front to me. He is playing very assertively, and taking a lead role during a lot of the jamming. Page-side is definitely raging!

Other differences I heard were hard to tell if it was actually different, or just a byproduct of the live stream mix (or my tv’s sound bar vs. usual headphones). But it sounded to me like Page and Mike’s vocals were louder in the mix. I’m not an expert on this stuff, but it also seemed like Mike is singing harmonies more frequently in his head voice than his chest voice. Both Mike and Page sounded a little more assertive with their singing, and I wondered if this is in response to how much Trey’s singing has developed in recent years. I think they may be hearing that change and stepping up their games as well.

Now let’s talk about the jamming. Yes, there was maybe some rust on some of the early songs, especially around endings (Bouncing Around the Room stood out). What I was actually hearing was some nerves, but also I think there was some very close listening by the band, and maybe they were trying too hard to pick up on cues from each other—triggering some mis-cues. But none of the rusty moments bothered me one bit because the energy was hot. Set one was pretty much all straight versions of songs, but with a nice intensity. Limb By Limb and 46 Days stood out to me as great “straight” versions of “type 1” jams. Wolfman’s was “type 1,” but the most stretched out performance of the first set. It was funky, and rocked hard. A great listen, but definitely not a big “type 2” exploration jam.

Set two was a different story. The first 4 songs (Disease, Simple, Fuego, and Plasma) all featured “type 2” jamming, and segued—so this was sort of one big block of music. I’ll return to this part of the show in a moment. The rest of the set was pretty straight. During the first jam section of Jim, Trey transitioned into Weekapaug, and they actually played a whole chorus before snapping back into Jim. Call it a segue, call it a tease. On the Live Phish app, they only list it as Jim, so I guess that makes it an extended tease. And there was some sort of vocal sample going on during Slave. During the jam, Trey was holding this one long, extended note, and there was some sort of vocal sample that kept playing. It sounded like Page at his Nord, but on re-watching, I can’t see him anywhere near the Nord. I’m still not quite sure what was going on there. Fish seemed to be smiling, and Trey seemed to be totally into the jam and not responding at all. It seemed a little distracting to me, but I’m curious to know more about it.

Returning to the first four songs of the set, there was a lot of jamming! Down with Disease and Plasma were both great. The Disease was much more exploratory than the Plasma, and would have been the standout jam in a lot of shows. Trey seemed to surprise his bandmates with the end of Plasma, but it was a great version nonetheless. Both jams were moody and the band sounded locked-in a la pre-pandemic late 3.0. Fantastic! But the highlight for me was definitely Simple. This was an EXTRAORDINARY jam. I hate to say “the first” about anything Phish, because who knows. But I heard something I hadn’t heard before, and I hope to hear again! During the “type 2” jamming, Trey improvised a theme—and in that sense, it’s similar to some of the huge major key “bliss” jamming of the late 3.0 era—but what was different was that he didn’t keep playing the theme while the band laid down an incredible groove. Instead, he played the theme twice, then re-joined the exploratory jamming with the rest of the band. Then as the jam went in a new direction, he revisited that theme over the new groove. He did this several times. It sort of reminded me of Chopin’s nocturnes…developing a theme, then exploring variation on that theme. If you listen along with the Live Phish version of the song, I’ll point out the times for the original theme, and its variations. The jam starts to go into “type 2” territory around the 5:25 (or around 6:00, depending on how much of a purist you are). Then the theme makes its first appearance at the seven-minute mark, playing it a few times between 7:00-7:40. That part of the jam still had a very “Simple” sound to it—and had that been the entire jam, it would have been noteworthy. Then we go through a slightly darker, synth-heavy passage before Trey’s theme emerges again at 8:43 and 9:06. Then, just as the jam starts to brighten up, Trey plays his theme at the 10:06 mark, this time through a gnarly, distorted tone (followed immediately by another run through a cleaner tone), and one more time at 10:34. From here, the jam goes into another movement—sort of reminiscent of a Light jam (?)—and Trey bounces around the theme several times, without playing it directly, at around 11:00. Then at 11:37 he plays it again through another effects-laden tone (followed by a variation of the theme by Mike). The theme emerges again, this time coming out of a fairly abstract jam, right at 12:45. And at 13:01 Trey plays it a final few times, through VERY heavy effects. Again, I’m not saying they’ve never jammed like this before, I just can’t think of another example. This was simply brilliant playing.

The jam gets pretty abstract towards the end. The time isn’t standard, and Trey and Mike are both using a lot of effects. And out of this abstract moment, Trey starts playing the opening chords to Fuego. But Trey’s still using tons of effects, Page is playing a synth, and the time doesn’t seem to be quite back to standard as Trey starts singing the first verse. It’s like they didn’t quite fully segue out of the crazy Simple jam into Fuego, and are now playing Fuego half-standard, half in a different (fully improvised) arrangement. Man, what an incredible band! Somewhere around the 2-minute mark, it sort of pops into a standard Fuego (albeit very effects-heavy). From there, it’s basically a “type 1” jam, but a really good one. I’ve listened to the Simple>Fuego several times, and it’s sort of hard to listen to the Simple without listening to the Fuego. For me, the Simple>Fuego is the clear highlight of the show…and it could turn out to be a highlight of the tour.

And all this on my birthday—happy birthday to me! https://treysguitarrig.com/2021/07/28/2021-summer/ https://www.osirispod.com/podcasts/under-the-scales/under-the-scales-048mike-gordon-part-1/