The first night of Phish’s 2016 stop in Nashville will forever be the Sirius to night two’s Canopus, the shining bright star of the binary-night run that darkens the second night in comparison. And all that because we were lucky enough to watch Bobby Weir sit in with the Phishies for pretty much the entire second set of that opening show.

That said, night two (on October 19th) was pretty darn fantastic too.

Once you put together the great joys of waking up in Music City USA, enjoying the wonderful Southern food and excellent warm weather on offer, and getting to see the band in a great, new venue right downtown, well, it was already shaping up to be a really fun evening even before the first note was played.

And when the first note did get played, it was Mike starting off one of my favourite Phish songs, Theme From The Bottom, a bit of an odd show opener and one that got me locked in immediately. They followed up with Camel Walk (a bit of a rarity for me) and then My Soul, which I always enjoy.

Next up was Trey’s brand-new orchestra-friendly epic Petrichor. It was the first time I heard the band’s compositional feat and it instantly became one of my favourites. I was shocked to discover that most fans seemed down on the song, though I got to admit the “When the rain…” lyrical bit comes off as a bit cheesy.

Suffice to say the show was off to an excellent start and it just kept coming. There was a live debut near the end of the first set (Running Out Of Time) and a super-fun second set taboot, with rollicking rockers Tweezer, Harry Hood, and Suzy Greenberg making up half of the six-song set.

Sure, when the encore started with Walls of the Cave it didn’t seem like the most burnin’ way to end the evening, but I had forgotten about Tweezer Reprise (as usual), which is of course what they actually closed the show with.

And as always, Tweeprise was the very definition of “burnin’”.

I walked out of the show feeling like I had won the lottery. These were the only concerts on Phish’s fall tour I had purchased tickets for and to my mind both shows had been super; it seems that I had chosen my shows wisely. Especially since it was just the shortest of walks to the Nashville strip, where the rest of the greatest music in the world was presented on a nightly basis.

It’s curious to note that while this ticket indicates that I was in the General Admission Pit area – right up front – I have no recollection of ever being in the pit in Nashville. I asked m’lady and she’s agrees; she doesn’t remember having pit tickets either. In my mind we were near the back of the seats on stage right. Strange.

That said, when I mentioned Petrichor to her we both had visions of hearing that song from the pit. And so we are still left to wonder.

toddmanout.com