Get this soundcheck (it exists is SBD quality) and listen to "Check 1", which is titled "Jam" above. It is my all-time favorite half hour of Phish (narrowly edging out the first 30 minutes of the IT Soundcheck), and is the most expressive and creative jam they ever played, in my humble opinion. I touch upon it some in my review for 8-12-04, but I will rehash here: The band is able to capture their feelings in such a way that it almost defies the improvisational realm - no way could they have been able to express themselves as deeply and clearly all in one take. But perhaps that is the charm of 2004. When they connected, it was definitive material. When they missed, on the other hand...look out. This 30-plus minute masterpiece begins in a rather jazzy and upbeat fashion, with the band kickin' it until Trey joins around 5 minutes in. The rest is a roller coaster of emotion that is perfectly paced and perfectly fluid - so fluid in fact that the movements bleed together in a dreamlike manner. What you hear is the band saying goodbye. It's heart-wrenching and melancholy as Hell...but it's REAL. They laugh, jossle and joke with their instruments, they get dark, they build and build until they BURST into tears, crying with their instruments. And in the end, they reminicsce, looking out into the Vermont sunset, as Mike wistfully says: "Sometimes...sometimes..."

They cried with their instruments. It was the end. And they captured it like lightning in a bottle. Hear this jam.

This is seriously quite possibly the best jamming the band ever performed. The way they languidly move through such smokey, chill jazzy Floyd grooves and find their way to the most emotional of jam peaks at the end is fucking beautiful.

Everybody is awake, active, and contributing. Trey fumbling a couple chords can't even bring this down. The first 29 minutes of this soundcheck are just.... its Phish heaven.

Trey's ending theme of the jam is so triumphant, it makes you cry. This is pure Emotion Hose. And then the wave crashes...

Nigel and Gumbo really describe this jam well but I don't think it can be overstated how awesome this jam is...

To my ears it's a different animal than anything played over the next two nights and kind of explains/justifies/makes easier to swallow the horror show that would follow (not that some parts of 8/14-15 aren't incredible too i.e. Bag, SOAM etc).

The first three movements are really 2.0ish, cohesive and funky, yet thick and murky. Trey starts to build on a riff he's been repeating around the 24 min mark and a melody emerges from it that the band locks into and all of the sudden BOOM. It's like when it's sunny and raining. It's triumphant devastation. Intensely emotional and incredibly powerful. Absolutely must hear stuff. Essential Phish

This Sound Check may be (to put it in seemingly unphriendly terms, but this is meant academically) the most lucid performance of the Coventry festival. It's definitely worth listening to. I'm a hog for long jams, and Check 1 (as it's named on LivePhish.com, where you can buy the show) is about 36 minutes long, definitely satisfies. I'd like to think that this soundcheck was a kind of group focussing exercise before the bittersweet bacchanalia of the festival proper, but saying that robs Coventry of some of its poignancy. Emotions are mixed about Coventry, but I personally hold it near and dear.

So glad I drove up here only to turn around. But having heard the reviews and tracks, glad I passed.

After about 28 hours in the car leaving at 6pm the day before and taking some super secret back roads through upstate NY across a ferry to Burlington, going out of the way to avoid all traffic coming from the south, we successfully merged in the line about 1 mile from the venue. I was here for my first Phish show and was parked and camped in the mud and got to hear this sound check from off in the distance as well as on the radio. I had no idea what I was hearing since all I knew of Phish was on either Junta, Hoist or A Live One, but it was nice to hear some music nonetheless as I waited for my first real Phish show.

took a nice back road (or 3) up from Albany...at one point there was def a wooden sign that pointed in 3 or 4 different directions. Anyway, the jams were good. Clinch on harmonica was neat. The Bunny rocks!

We listened to the first two jams on the radio while waiting for the unending traffic line to move. It never did, and these jams were possibly the highlight of a forgettable weekend.