My 1st Phish show...now I had some understanding of what things may look like having been to some big concerts already, but in all reality I had no clue. My older brother had been to some Phish and Grateful Dead shows and I had heard some stories, but none of them had truly prepared me for what I was in for. My crew had just finished up mid-terms/finals the day before for we were mostly in our junior year of high school. That Saturday afternoon we walked into town after partying all night in the vacant apt. of the convalescent home my buddy's dad owned. (multiple complaints and police phone calls) Phish's tour bus drove by us and Fish yelled, "which way to the venue?" I pointed straight ahead as they drove by and my friends laughed at me and said that was the band. When we got into town I had never seen anything like this scene. Dudes walking around with foot long nugs calling out, "Kind bud" and the like. I asked my friend if it was always like this and he said with the breakup of the Grateful Dead Phish's fan base had increased tremendously. Shakedown was transforming from the Dead to Phish and I was a witness, a participant, a new fan.
The shows were incredible. The band vs. audience chess game confused me, but I loved it anyway. We had amazing second row floor seats for both nights and the tix were $20...life was good...the boys jammed hard and I believe I fell in love that weekend. I knew this would not be the end...took another 10 months to get to my next show, but I got there...thank you Phish for the good times and the bad times!

The first set is thoroughly average for the tour, but the second set is worth seeking out for a lightning-fast Reba and a very strong Mike's Groove. This Mike's is one of the most powerful type 1 versions of the song and Simple gets into a pretty nice rocking jam. Weekapaug has a percussive jam in it with Trey on the mini kit before it shifts down into an ambient outro which sounds more like a 94 jam than 95 if you ask me.

3 star show. Definitely listen to the Reba and Mike's Groove

AC/DC Bag, Suzy Greenberg, Sample in a Jar and Cavern all in the same show... that's a crazy docket of 4:30, no-jam rock songs.

It's fine, but with the dust still unsettled on all of the craziness from the first half of December 95 -- just look at the ratings of the previous two weeks of shows -- this is a starkly straightforward show.

Reba is really solid, and Mike's is sufficiently far-out. And the > Simple > Weekapaug never gets old.

But for those who like to psychoanalyze what the guys were thinking before shows, it seems like they were trying to get to Night 2 of this run and then move on to NYC.

On December 16th, 1995 I drove from Ottawa to Lake Placid for my first-ever two-night run of Phish concerts. If I’m not mistaken this was the time I got a lift to the shows with a couple from university that I barely knew; some friends of mine were attending the second night and I think I had arranged to get a ride back to Ottawa with them, which left me happy to take any ride I could to get to Lake Placid.

Though I wasn’t happy for long. As we neared the border I started to become a bit nervous about the constitution of my very laid back travelling companions and I piped up from the very messy back seat of the old clunker we were driving in.

“Hey, you guys don’t have any drugs in the car do you?” I asked as we neared the US border.

“No, I don’t think so,” came the response, but when the dude in the passenger seat opened the glovebox “to check” I was horrified to see crumbs of marijuana all over the place.

“Omigod!” I screamed. If we weren’t already on the bridge crossing the St. Lawrence River I think I would have got out right on the side of the highway. As it was the dude up front nonchalantly spent all of twenty seconds doing an entirely inadequate job of sweeping out the glovebox and brushing the illicit crumbs out the window. At the border we were waved through without a search so it was, as they say, all good.

Suffice to say I never travelled to a show (or did anything, really) with those two ever again, and as I say, I already had an alternate ride back to Canada with people I knew and trusted.

This was my first (and only) time visiting Lake Placid and with virtually no mountain-town experience at the time I found the place super-quaint and really fun to walk around. I remember a wacky store called “Where Did You Get That Hat” that had a mystifying no-trying-on-the-hats policy. I never did see any Olympic installations and regret to this day that I didn’t find the luge run, though I suppose I couldn’t have afforded to give it a try at the time anyway. I’ve always wanted to go bobsledding or luging; it’s probably my best shot at making the Olympics. I think I could be the front guy in the bobsled, like, on the world stage. Imagine…I could be professional ballast.

Then there was the concert, of course. This show consisted mostly of songs I didn’t know (whereas the second night would prove to hold most of my early Phish favourites) so it was more of a stand-and-gape-in-wonder kind of concert as opposed to a dance around and rock out type of show. Which was great because I wouldn’t have my crew of Ottawa friends with me until the next evening.

So I stood and gaped at the mind-twisting composed weirdness of Divided Sky, stared in awe at the astounding bass groove in Mike’s Song and Weekapaug, and wondered at the wackiness of Simple while the crowd around me sang along to every random lyric (“sim-bop and bebophone, skyballs and sax-scraper”). Not to mention the rather odd band versus audience chess game that played out on the big screen at setbreak.

I recognized the encore though: Fire by Jimi Hendrix. This was probably my first time (of many) hearing the band play it and while I’m generally a big fan of Phish cover songs I’ve never been crazy about their version of Fire. They play it too fast and to me the song just doesn’t work at the tempo they take it to.

Certainly a small complaint though, and as I would come to find out every Phish fan has a song (or two, or more) that they aren’t crazy about anyway. This was just my third Phish show; I had found one I didn’t like early nice and early.

toddmanout.com

SET 1: Buried Alive, AC/DC Bag: Standard. >

Taste That Surrounds: Feel like this is better than most from this tour.

Ya Mar, The Sloth, Divided Sky, Dog Faced Boy: Standard.

Julius: Hot fire! >

Suzy Greenberg: Standard.

SET 2: Sample in a Jar: Standard.

Reba: Feel like this is an under the radar version with plenty of heart. Would relisten!

Scent of a Mule: Another charted version. Can’t stand it.

Cavern: Interesting placement. >

Mike's Song: Standard. >

Simple: Charted version. Not sure why? ->

Weekapaug Groove: Charted version. If you like Trey on the drum kit like on Free from this era, you will dig this. Me? Not so much. >

The Squirming Coil: Another brilliant and lengthy Page solo. Also, the note Trey smokes and sustains going into the vocal outro is choice. Page’s Coil solo’s this tour were by and large, brilliant.

ENCORE: Fire: Standard.

Summary: A lot of this looks sexy on paper, but is not in the same universe at 12.14. Definitely middle of the road for this tour and as such I am calling this one a 3.7 out of 5 as all that I would revisit here would be the Reba.