HA haaaa!!! Phish opening for rock God Carlos Santana why more people arent reveiwng this is strange. A great show of the mindset of the band. They ripped the Garden a few months ago and yet here they are paying omage to a mentor. The timing of this show, context,its all here. Their second show after the earth-shattering new years 95 run at MSG
their last show was the first at New Orleans jazz Fest . Their last for 20 years.
Jim starts out sloppy but fun and interesting. 95 was Phish enjoying their loudness. They were a runaway train. 96 is marked by better sound quality from the stage and tapes. this jim is an interesting listen with that in mind. sound problems delay trey from just laying into this but by the 8 minute mar ( lol!) they are flying and you can hear clifford ball seeds.
this stash is bananas at the 7 minute mark (lol) it gets other worldly ang has the crowd in a frenzy . Trey and Fish are spraying the crowd this last for a full 3 minutes at least . Monster stash.
Sparkle is my fav Phish diddy. nice call here
Santana andPerazzo joins the boys for Taste. the rhytms get crazy, interesting. llamam is fire

This show and the week to follow is probably the best evidence of the counterfactual, "More and/or longer is better." You can listen to and enjoy something that is just a small sample set or a shorter more rich jam.

Why this show, albeit short, is not rated higher is criminal at best and apocalyptic at worse. Anyone that voted this less than 4 stars should be ashamed of themselves.

You need to sit down with 7/3 - 7/10 and apologize to them for not having them in a regular rotation at some point in your phish-go-round.

Runaway Jim is always Runaway Jim.

Stash has a very nice jam where you can hear all of the members contributing in what can only be described at ear porn that suffuses your brain with orgasmic sound waves. Maybe so, maybe not.

Sparkle goes way up tempo between the laughing. While short it is again an example that it doesn't always have to be long to be good. It doesn't branch much from the studio cut but it does seem to be a bit more up tempo.

Taste, wow! First the notes are a bit deceiving Trey stumbles a bit but when I think flubbed lyrics this doesn't come to mind. He recovers it easily and it was a pretty minor hiccup, still getting my favorite line of, "Someone controlled by the phone and TV, 'cause what it's doing to me is fine" in there. But what you really want to listen for is at the 3:15 mark when Carlos Santana joins in and adds to the jam. This is the part that makes this show so incredibly special and why you should all be ashamed.

In my opinion Trey has surpassed Carlos in ability but in 1996? Maybe so, maybe not.

For Llama the transition was flawless. Taste spaces out and llama rolls in to do its thing. Again here the notes are misleading, Trey doesn't so much flub lyrics as just allows Carlos to take over. Carlos proceeds to sort of mumble out the lyrics, but I don't feel like Trey screwed it up he just stepped back and let Carlos. He stops at, "cold steady rain..." I mean surely he could have remembered, "rain coming down" but it feels like he stops and Santana picks up a line or two later. The jamming on this one is worth a listen. It has a steady build up into a lengthy spacey jam with a nice steady drum roll to step it up a bit.

The setting and the scene were unique in my Phish experience, and I will never forget seeing Santana play with the band. Trey was not at his best, but that did not quell the excitement of seeing the band perform in the outskirts of Trento, surrounded by mountains and a few fields, with the locals looking quizzically at us when we walked by wearing our overalls and patches and backpacks.

That tour in Italy was also fun because we were usually able to talk with members of the band before each show.

My friend Aaron and I slept in a field on the outskirts of Trento, and got Trento Stadium early, eagerly awaiting our first show since NYE 95 (after the night before was cancelled due to rain). Trento is beautiful, mountains everywhere!
Phish was sandwiched between a Joe Satriani set and the main act, Carlos Santana. Contrary to the review above, I remember being very disappointed in Phish's playing this night. There were equipment issues, Trey kept missing lyrics and while it's tough to tell from the tapes, Santana fans in front of the stage started throwing things at the band. All of this resulted in a quick 43 minute set. We spoke with the band after the show (they were outside the venues on most of these European stops) and they were equally disappointed in the way the first two nights of the tour had gone. They said they would make it up to us by playing at a bar after the Rome show - unfortunately this never materialized.