(Published in the second edition of The Phish Companion...)

This show turned me into the "Tweezer" fanatic that I am today. The first highlight of the show is a "Possum", which is followed by the always-strange "Catapult". "Curtain>Tweezer" follows that, and it is probably my favorite "one-two" combination. This Tweezer does not disappoint! It grooves and glides effortlessly, through numerous jam segments. It seems that from Tweezers such as this one and 11/30/95 Dayton (and others, of course), that we have arrived at the epic jamming that became almost commonplace in 1997. Jams with several, distinct jam segments, such as the Ghost from 11/28 Worcester and the Jim from the next night, seem to me to be direct descendants of this Tweezer. These styles of jams work hard at establishing the Groove before launching into the Unknown. If you're not a Tweezer fan, by all means check this one out"...it may change your mind, too!

It's Turkey Day, I've already been up since 5 (currently 7:30), I'm waiting for my folks to get here, though that's gonna be a couple hours still, and I'm kinda bored. So naturally I start looking through some Fall '95 to eat up some time. The past couple weeks I've been going through and listening to the 12.95 shows I haven't heard yet as well as just generally filling in gaps from the entire tour. So far I've crossed of 12.12, 12.16, 10.11, and 10.29. But this morning I wanted to visit some familiar ground, so I threw on one of my favorite, and also pretty much completely overlooked, shows from the entire tour: 10.22! Everyone knows 10.21; hardly anybody knows 10.22. But perhaps I'm wrong.

When I first heard this show I wrote a stupid little review. I still agree with it but I'm going to write a better one right now.

10.22 is perhaps not that amazing within the common criteria used to rate shows. Namely "Are there hella long jams?" and "are said hella long jams stringed somewhat close together". At a respectable 16 minutes, Tweezer is the longest song of the show, but that's a far cry from a 30 minute monster that everyone will drool over on principle (Tahoe Tweezer anyone? though, for solidarity, I love that jam). Some might call this setlist "too song-y" or something, to which I call shenanigans. Sure, Tweezer might be the only big open-ended jammer of the show, but you see those segue arrows? The .net setlist writers ain't hot-doggin' it with those arrows; that shit's the real deal.

Tweezer -> Makisupa -> BBFCFM is really one musical thought (the segue to Makisupa is even led by Fish taboot) and it even happens to be 29 minutes long. **Commence drooling now** In fact, the flow from song to song is where the real strength of this show comes from. There are no shortage of shows out there with good flow, but I can't think of a single one that tops this. This show is up there with the best of the tour because we get a damn fine selection of songs that are played not less than perfectly (with the exception of The Sloth which is mildly butchered) and hold together as a whole remarkably well. Any show that has four bluegrass songs, a barbershop track, two semi-rarities in BBFCFM and Catapult, and a new cover that doesn't feel like they're being gimmicky or just trying to cram in as much stuff as possible has gotta be pretty awesome. A good 3.0 analog for this show would be Manchester '10, which everyone loves and, you guessed it, happens to be my favorite show of that year.

All that said, you really shouldn't discredit any of the jams this show has to offer either. The aforementioned Tweezer settles into a cool groove around 8 minutes with Fish playing a "Destiny Unbound" beat, striking his ride on the 2nd and 4th sixteenth notes of each beat. As opposed to the 1st and 3rd sixteenth (otherwise just known as just playing 1/8 notes), displacing those strikes by one sixteenth of note makes for a cool somewhat off-kilter sound. A very nice peak follows. Stash is very fiery. That's such an easy thing to say, especially for this tour, but this one is fiery like 7.8.94 (the ALO version) is fiery. It strikes the perfect balance between being crazy tension/release enough to put it above average without just feeling like it's dragging on ad nauseam. Pretty much every time I listen to any version of Possum from Fall '95 that version becomes my favorite. I'm all "how can there exist a more ragin' version than this?" And then I listen to different Fall '95 version and I'm all "how can there exist a more ragin' version than this?" and that just goes on forever. However, because of the weirdness after Possum ends and the appearance of Catapult, this version might be my actual favorite of the tour.

To sum: this show if pretty freakin' awesome. It's overshadowed from directly following an official release and not being in December, but the spoils are a-plenty should you take the time to listen. In fact, I'd say that 10.21 through 10.31 as a whole is overshadowed. Again, everyone knows those two book-ending shows, but the stuff in between is, on the whole, pretty strong. Specifically 10.22, 24, 25, and 29 are not to be missed. I don't think there's even an 8 show stretch in November that's a strong as 10.21 to 10.31.

Best Possum EVER!

What a stellar show! I really like the song selection this night and they were playing with a lot of energy. However, in the end, it's the jams that really make this show stand out.

Stash, though not as adventurous as a couple others from Fall '95, is great, and is as good as a 12 minute Stash will get. This ridiculous Possum has the description balls-out written all over it. Top 5 version for sure. A nice recitation of Catapult follows it taboot. Tweezer rages super hard and the segue into Makisupa is silky smooth. Those are the standout jams, in my opinion, but all the other songs with jam sections like Bag, Jim, Ice, and Slave get a nice workout as well.

Personally, I think this show is just as good as anything from December and I would rather have had this show released instead of Pershing from the night before.

WOW! That's all I can say about this show. If you have not listen to any of this I would STRONGLY recommend Listening to this show in its entirely. Absolutely well played with several Unique versions such as AC/DC Bag, Possum, Tweezer and Slave! The Tweezer and Possum might be one of the best versions of all time. A MUST HEAR! This show is a solid 4.6/5 stars.

cont.....DC Bag is shredding. Trey is into it. They all were tight as fuk & playing my jams bag, mind, sloth, jim, nicu, fefy TO OPEN?!?!. Really.

Set 2 fuked me. Possom had energy I'd never seen from Trey. Like, rocket to stratosphere energy. Prob best 1 I ever saw. Curtain>Tweez>Makisupa is perfect & unique. Very entertaining. Back to back Mars songs were rare & unexpected. Then Slaveclosed. Best song of the night. This one has sharp muthafukin teeth bruh. MONSTER SLAVE!!! did I say that slave closer was good? Damnit.

This one is a sleeper among giants that are prevalent during fall of 95. No hype leading up to this, mostly b/c Halloween was the next week & I had received the cool new mail order ticket which was also in a prime location. So this whole week was just a warm up for what I hoped was Joe's Garage on All Hallows' Eve. This day became very special as soon as we arrived b/c within 10 min I ran into Page back bye the bus. He was always courteous to me even though I was obviously an overzealous, crazed phan. So I kept it short & simple. I asked, mispronouncing the title, "what happened to Guyute?" (Guyute had debuted the previous fall & last played at the epic Providence show 12/29/94). He smiled sheepishly, corrected me & said "oh, it still there". To which my pleading reply was, HALLOWEEN!...pleeeeese. It was my favorite song then, I caught all but one the fall before & the Prov Guyute was the shit. So when they didn't play it at all on summer tour or yet that fall, I was very concerned. Page gave me a chuckle & walked inside. A week later, I was dressed up as the ugly pig at Halloween, and had one of the most amazingly beautiful moments of my life. They busted it out around mid 1st set w a new arrangement & whistling!!! I nearly fainted from joy.

Anyway that whole experience started when I first arrived at Champaign. Having zero expectations of this show, aside from some teases of poss musical costumes, we went in pretty early. Sat up top in the back & smoked oooooout then went down by Page for the show. They came in HOT!

Wow - no bod eee talked in depth about this version of Makisupa, so here weeee go: not only is it my favorite version ever, but most importantly, most unique, most trippy of all is that TREY is whispering throughout this rather long version saying mindbending things for six minutes like "Maki in my bed" and "Palooska on my head" and "Goldstein on my head" and "Lets hear one for Fred." TREY is whispering in a Zappa inspired hold on to your hat sort of way. Blew me away. I play this on minidisc all the time 10/22/95 Look OUT!

I remember this!

"During Adeline the band kept rotating the direction they were facing to sing to the entire crowd."

This show is Fall '95 FIRE at it's finest!

the possum from this show is absolute must-listen phish. possible the best (read: my favorite) version ever. really wish there was a SBD for even just that song, but the AUD available on the spreadsheet/relisten is pretty sweet bc you can really feel the energy of the crowd. peak after peak in the classic, frenetic-but-controlled fall 95 style. fishman is bonkers, trey shreds and mike and page build tension like it's nobody's business. another sick one is niagara from a month and a half later, just ftr.

This was my first show. I still can't believe that. What a way to start 23 years of musical adventure. As far as the show, all I really knew was Weigh, Fast Enough for You, and Sample In a Jar. I had heard Rift and Hoist but that was about it. But, this second set. All the way from Tweezer through Cavern, just unbelievable. I remember it was such a beautiful Sunday in October and just a great show. A funny story, when I first got to the venue we had to park kind of far away. I learned after an hour it was because they had to clean up the garbage from the football game the day before. Once they got that cleaned up we were able to park right outside the main entrance. What a great way to start what will be a run of 100 shows by the end of 2018.

My first show. Holy shit - how could I not have become instantly addicted?! I had only really listened to Rift thru a boyfriend & I went to this show seeking solace in a show...any show. Jerry's passing took me to Phish & I didn't expect much. My God. By "Poor Heart," I was sold. Can you imagine this show's setlist being your introduction to Phish??? I still get Phishbumps. I had no expectations of being struck twice by lightning; I was a solid Deadhead. What a gift to have another band that can take me to THAT PLACE. The entire show is a heater. Still the best Slave I've ever heard. If you haven't heard this show, do it right now! Fall 95 @ it's PHINEST.

"Crimes of the Mind" tease from Trey at 2:42 of the Slave.

AC/DC Bag: let’s get this show on the road. Powerful version

My Mind’s Got A Mind Of Its Own: some lyrical struggles from Mike

The Sloth: standard

Runaway Jim: some tension in the jam which leads to a great peak

Weigh: 40 show gap. Rare treat

NICU: standard

Fast Enough For You: beautiful

It’s Ice: nice eerie jam

Poor Heart: Fish getting his energy out

Sample In A Jar: standard

I’m Blue I’m Lonesome: acoustic break. Afterwards we get a simpsons signal

Stash: great way to close the set. Stays type 1 but great tension building and peak with a unique ending

Golgi Apparatus: unusual second set opener

Possum: improvisational intro, jam starts out quiet with and builds nicely to a lasting peak

Catapult: sick

The Curtain: standard

Tweezer: our first taste of type 2 in this show. Early on there’s a Tweezer Reprise jam which is pretty cool. After a bit Trey briefly switches to percussion and leaves some feedback from his guitar and by now it’s gotten completely free of any hint of the Tweezer theme. This portion is very creative and fun. The intensity grows and reaches a peak, before winding down again with Fish leading a seamless transition into

Makisupa Policeman: dank. Pretty average ambience jam in the middle

Big Black Furry Creature From Mars: fun and craziness

Life On Mars?: standard

Uncle Pen: standard

Slave To The Traffic Light: great patient build to a glorious peak

Cavern: good choice to close the set

Sweet Adeline: acapella with some interesting antics

The Squirming Coil: Page closes it out with a long and gorgeous solo

Solid show from the middle of the chess tour. Nice type 1 in the first set along with some less common treats, and the second set showcases one of the best and most creative jams of the tour up until this point. This is a 6.5/10 show. Highlights are Bag, Stash, Possum, Tweezer, Makisupa, and Coil

SET 1: AC/DC Bag: Killer jam to open this show, band and crowd are both locked. This is smoked!

My Mind's Got a Mind of its Own: Yes it does!

The Sloth: Standard, love it in this slot.

Runaway Jim: Another soaring version, rips hard.

Weigh: Page’s work on the baby grand gets plenty of praise from the crowd, rightly so. >

NICU: Standard.

Fast Enough for You: Would encourage everyone to take a few moments out of their day, tune this one up and bask in the glory that is Phish from Fall 95. So clean, so beautiful. Glorious.

It's Ice: Page sounds amazing on the baby grand during the breakdown >

Poor Heart > Sample in a Jar, I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome: Standard.

Stash: Gets dark for a couple of minutes and then has two huge peaks. Awesome Stash and phenomenal way to close out the set. People had to have been bug eyed at setbreak after that!

First set summary: Outstanding! It is all great but as for replay value I would point out Jim, FEFY, and Stash. Stash is awesome!

SET 2: Golgi Apparatus: Standard.

Possum -> Catapult, The Curtain > This section is why we all Phish, right? Surely, we can agree. That Possum is ridiculous. It just seemingly goes on forever, it’s absolutely raucous! Check out all the trilling and the unique ending that segues into Catapult. And then we get The Curtain? Wow!!! First one of the tour, finally!

Tweezer -> Makisupa Policeman -> Big Black Furry Creature from Mars: Another amazing segment. This Tweezer’s middle section is so cool, at times with the effects it feels as if they are underwater, hard for me to explain. Picks up a Wolfman’s not long after this, dance party USA time – this section is incredible – if you are having a tough day and need a pick me up, I would suggest throwing this on. It gets blissy/major key, rare for the era. But they ride this puppy hard and I bet folks were getting down so hard. Makisupa is awesome and unique in the fact that Trey whispers, "Maki in my bed" and "Palooska on my head" and "Goldstein on my head" and "Let’s hear one for Fred." This segues nicely into BBFCM.

Life on Mars?, Uncle Pen: Standard.

Slave to the Traffic Light: Outstanding Slave, check out Cactus laying it down. >

Cavern: ENCORE: Sweet Adeline, The Squirming Coil: Good stuff here, the perfect wind down to an amazing Phish show. Fish is all kinds of crazy during Sweet Adeline.

Second set summary: Just chock full of greatness. I will always reach for this Possum, Tweezer, Makisupa, and Slave. This tour is officially on fire as the night before in Lincoln and now this show has the freight train rolling downhill with significant momentum. I would rate this show as a 4.7 out of 5, it is exceptional and the best of the tour so far.

This was on of the absolute finest nights I've shared with you'll! We really had a flow between us in that ship, on that brisk fall night. It was our 1st time the building, it proved sufficient for future stops. People of Champagne, Surrender! You've been conquered!

"It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show?"