Quite the Site
10/30 1:29 am
Indio Sunset (A.Lansing)
As people continue to trickle into Festival 8, this site is shaping up to be quite the host for a weekend of Phish. Speckled with palm trees and carpeted with soft grass, the lush desert surroundings of California provide a completely different vibe than past Northeast weekends. The Empire Polo Grounds boasts a walk-ability that creates an atmosphere of over-sized intimacy very different from the endless airforce bases of lore. With campgrounds – all named, as expected, for eight remaining albums – within a 10-15 minute walk of the concert grounds, the entire festival feels a bit more within reach.
From The Archives Video Show (A.Lansing)
A relatively thorough search greeted everyone at the gate; but no harm no foul. Getting in and setting up, I was busy watching the Yankees tie the World Series while The Bunny broadcast Phish’s soundcheck. Through word of mouth, the band broke out a few new songs off Party Time, highlighted by a ten-minute jam of “Liquid Time.” Look forward for that one coming up this weekend! The evening was highlighted by video “From the Archives” show at The Overlook, the central part of Festival 8 with multiple bars, food stands, and tented areas. Featuring amazing Halloween footage from all of Phish’s past musical costumes, fans congregated, danced, smoked, and drank while watching the massive video screen. When the video mix broke into an unknown “Tube” followed by a “Tube Reprise” we soon realized we were seeing exclusive footage of 11.2.98. When the “Tube” jam ended, the video spliced into the beginning of Dark Side of the Moon, and proceeded to play highlights from the memorable performance. After the Utah portion ended, it had grown freakin’ cold and I headed back to the RV to listen to Shapiro’s archives show on The Bunny, which so far had unleashed two of my favorite jams ever in re-upped SBD quality – the Cypress “Split” and the Winston-Salem “Bathtub Gin!” That’s all for now, the festival calls.
10/30 11:13 am
Just wakin’ up to a gorgeous Indio day. The sun in shining bright and coffee tastes good as we prepare for day one of the weekend. California’ Dreamin…
2:37 pm
Got the turntables set up, and have been enjoying a daytime Phish set spun by myself and various others. Highlights included the the “Rebas” from The Gorge in ’98 and Laguna Seca ’94, the Barcelona ’98 “Tweezer,” Lemonwheel’s “Ghost” and assorted other summer funk. The vibe here is beyond chill once you are through the gates, and the weather seems to be coming through perfectly. Got a chance to hear “Liquid Time;” definitely carries the sound of a new Trey song, and certainly has a wide open door to psychedelic improvisation. The band really took it out during soundcheck, and we are looking forward to what they will do come gametime. I would expect we’ll be hearing this song in a few hours from the stage. Still no real clue as to the Halloween album. Have given up thinking about it since we arrived and set up camp. Desert mountains, palm trees and Phish. Life is good.
6:01 am 10.31
A phenomenal start to the weekend. A deep-dive into a first-set “Stash” provided the improvisational moment of the set after an explosive beginning of “Party Time,” “Chalk Dust.” The second set offered a high powered festival-sized Phish sequence, highlighted by “Disease > Caspian > Wolfman’s.” The “Wolfman’s” had a distinct point when it moved from groove to Halloween music, summoning the spirits of the night before All-Hallowed’s Eve.
1:11 pm
Exile! They are handing out Phishbills on site. With singer Sharon Jones – let’s see about this one.
I called Party Time too. I won 100 bucks in my pool too.
“The show was a good one, but not great by any measure”
^^i fully agree col
megaupload.com/?d=N7QCWDHS
Festival 8 10-30-09
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking JP. Slept late this morning and it’s cool and cloudy here, which is very conducive for a 2 pm nap…that should help. Will also give my wife, who’s a night owl, the TV remote…if she’s up working and watching the tube, it’ll be easier for me to stay awake. Headphones are getting a good workout this weekend.
set 2 was good, and i did like beauty of a broken heart from set 1 a lot – but epic is definitely ahead of them. my guess for best set is set 3 sat.
so is everybody coining my “chainsaw jam” comment now? Haha, kidding.
But think: They just did a 2-set warm up show, with a few really big jams, and we still have 6 sets to go.
Tonight will slay
@El Dude, no, talking about the sirius stream
@beep, I called it too, I was just talking shit
flacs in about 10
i think you guys are already underrating this show quite a bit. I do agree it’s a warmup but I think it’s a really good show with lots of highlights. I think the TTE and Caspian really warp perceptions and those are song choice criticisms and not related to poor playing. IMO pretty much all the “straight ahead” stuff last night was smokin’ hot, and there were a couple tasty ~10 minute open jams. IMO this show would have landed in the top of the second tier of second leg summer, just below the obvious RR2/Gorge/Hartford highlight shows…
just my $0.02
BK – livephish should def insert a * w/chainsaw jam nice call!
Holy skyballs! 69 pages!! craziness.
For a good laugh go check out:
http://kvrx.org
The post about Phish is mine. Be sure to read the comments. (The leader of the indie rock majority speaks out and I rebut.) Feel free to leave a comment, too. The pro-Phish crowd is quite the minority at our college radio station. I could use all the help I can get.
i agree that last night was a nice second level leg II show – good description. tonight they take it to top level for sure.
ahhhh, this takes me back to the halcyon days of my youth
http://bayimg.com/image/daeijaack.jpg
if I literally ROFLMAO’d at that, does that make me a bad person?
mr. c
hilarious photo!
funny photo, deep space for sure there
for some of you numbers/business types out there. How much would Sirius need to pay phish – and then how many subscriptions @$15/month would they need to make it worth everyone’s while to have an exclusive Phish channel that streamed all live shows? Would enough people bite at this prosepect to listen to shows like we did last night on a regular basis (despite the relatively small number of yearly dates that this new incarnation is probably going to do)
OK, here are the MP3s again http://tinyurl.com/8-Friday-MP3
Now here are the FLACs http://tinyurl.com/8-Friday-FLAC
again I’d appreciate it if someone could re-up these somewhere else so I can pull em down in a bit
Mr C … where did you get that photo of SOAM?
PYITE was a big surprise and i really enjoyed Joy.
Not to be a negative Nancy but: Both the 1st set closer and Encore are songs that leave me with a foul taste in my mouth. Me and my buddies backpacks got stolen in the second set. I guess we shouldn’t have set them were we did. Nothing super valuable in them like wallets or keys, but important comfort items for tour nonetheless. Oh well, I’m taking it as a freeing up thing. I don’t have to lug that backpack and all my crap around the rest of the festival. I might be naked walking around the grounds by Sunday at this rate.
HAHAHAHAHA
I made it my avatar, can’t wait til it pops up
Well crap @butter, that royally sucks giant hairy ass
mr. c thanks for the ups! What source is this?
^^yea, its a super kind vibe here, it just takes a couple trolls tho
listened to last night on xm in the car. Over all, it sounded like the summer shows – but more focused. The “stash” was nice. Other than that, and this is just from listening 3,000 miles away, the first set seemed like a warm up. They seemed to get a lot of “standard” tunes out of the way to make room for the bigger jam songs in set two. Still, they sounded tight and eager to bust out of the box a bit.
Anyone else hear trey go “here is a hint about the halloween album” during the “DAVID BOWIE” intro? are they gonna play that other bowie album tonight?
I have a feeling that all of last night was just a warm up and tonight and sunday are gonna be the life changing, groundbreaking, fully functional phish that fishman was talking about of sirius earlier this week.
the bunny is playing Bilbo Baggins sung by Leonard Nimoy …. awesome!
WT: Stash was great. It has been killer every time they bust i out 3.0. Listening to the one I saw at RR still gives me goose bumps.