Superballin’
Unofficial SBIX Print (Masthay)
Sun has risen on day two of Superball, and day one was divine. To be back on the grounds of the Phish festival with the band at the top of its came felt like the days of lore. The sky was a bit bluer as the clouds floated above and the music was a bit slowed down as it blanketed the intimate concert ground. From note one Phish dropped a power-packed and poignant opening night of a festival that people will be talking about for time to come—the time when a full-powered band and their grand summer tradition came back together in the new era.
As it stands, I have little Internet access on site as I chase down friends with Droids to use their phones as a wifi hotspot. Combined with this spotty web access and the 24 hour nature of the festival, I’ll speak to you on the other side. Or when I catch up with a Droid again…
I: Possum, Peaches en Regalia, The Moma Dance, Torn and Frayed, NICU, Bathtub Gin, Life on Mars?, My Friend, My Friend, Wolfman’s Brother, Roses Are Free, Funky Bitch, Quinn the Eskimo
II: Jam > Crosseyed and Painless -> Chalk Dust Torture, Sand, The Wedge, Mike’s Song > Simple > Bug, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, Weekapaug Groove, Joy, Character Zero
E: Show of Life
*****
SBIX Mini Print (Masthay)
*****
SB IX Mini Print (Masthay)
*****
A bit more…Without having listened back, the band anchored the first set with huge versions of their classic pieces—“Moma Dance,” “Wolfman’s,” and “Bathtub Gin”—while pulling out several rarities, taboot. A scorching and cleaned-up “Peaches” came at the beginning of the set, while an out-of-the-blue “Life On Mars?” was delivered in the middle, before a jammed-out and exclamatory “Quinn the Eskimo” sent things to setbreak in high style.
The second set featured more exploratory playing from the band—peaking in a utterly sublime “Simple”—channeling the mysteries of the universe through the speaker towers of Watkins Glen. After a shredding “Crosseyed” jam, the band dropped onto an ambient path that wound a slow and enchanting route into “Chalk Dust.” This juxtaposition of styles, from shredding to abstract to shredding, kept things interesting before a way laid-back “Sand” provided a shining mid-set highlight filled with festival-sized dance grooves. A monster “Mike’s Groove”— centered around “Simple’s” cosmic trek—dominated the second half of the set, and just when it felt like “YEM” might close the set, out popped out a crunching “Character Zero.” An enthralling version of “Show of Life—and perhaps the most extensive to date—provided an indelible stamp of catharsis to a very poignant night of Phish.
The festival is back and better than ever. Love every minute of IT, folks! See you at 3pm!
Tags: Festivals, Summer 2011
Lol AJ. Are these lurker friends the same one’s that ask you to use your BB relationships to help them score tickets all the time? Next time they bust your chops, tell them to check stub hub…. 🙂
http://gothamist.com/2011/07/04/photos_phish.php#photo-1
tons of pics and another pretty decent article
more pics
http://guestofaguest.com/nightlife/best-2k/best-2k-i-ever-spent-hippies-take-new-york-for-phish-superball-9
ha yeah
“Hey ‘AJ’, ha ha, ummm can you hook me up with a couple pavs and some of that west coast OG we keep hearing about?”
Truth!
Naw, love my peeps. I think they are just a shocked as I am that I would break out of my comfort/safety zone and post on a website and then actually make real life friends with people from there. Life is funny, deal with it.
BB and Real Life, hug it out.
haha http://gothamist.com/2011/07/04/photos_phish.php#photo-18
anyone know what the hardlink is to Kenny Powers’ website?
I’m totally just fucking around @aj
I give my friends shit about anything I possibly can without regard to fairness
howdy lurkers
http://www.phishauds.com/
apparently sbix had a lot of excellent liquid around
guess the west coast was srsly representin’!
http://qkme.me/4nwu
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/4nwx/
Down in my plums!!!! Hasn’t been spoken about enough, but the sound this weekend in that field was so incredible. Perfectly crisp and clear. Helped that they were tight as shit. Sigh.
Nice Duke. After that Bowie, when they were tinkering around a bit, i thought for a second they might drop a Split. I think that might have imploded the entire racetrack though.
thanks C … knew that you’d know it.
as long as I’m asking questions …. I found a shn file of the 1997 Lakewood show on my computer that I had not trans-coded until yesterday. The track times are identical to the 320kb/s MP3 that Miner posted on his archive.
Wondering if this might be a KP special that I DL’d at some point, and whether he started with Miner’s 320kbs file or whether he started with a lossless file first.
I don’t really expect anyone to know this, but … phish fans have pretty good memories about these things.
For the record, I can’t discern a difference aurally between the two files, which is why I think this shn file might not be a true lossless file, but merely an upconverted one.
well, lo and behold this show is on KP’s front page … however the shn file folder I found had been sitting there for a while. …. hmmm
Hi all. Epic day at the creek again. 100+ degrees out, but the water is cold and clear. Salmon River still too high to swim. Never seen it this hgh, this late.
With the soundcheck, storage jam, and long long sets, I feel like I saw 5 shows, not three.
Got the shows downloaded. Night three was so magical. Will it sound that way on the recording. It seemed to me like the band was dropping new licks and soundscapes left and right.
yes! i’m totally in that official ASIHTOS video, giving trey two thumbs up
Random thought. Just saw a commercial from living social for 50% off skydiving? What the fk. Sky diving discounts. Think I’d rather pay double. Kind of like sushi back in the day. Duval poster?!? 😉
Funky Bitch> Old Zealand… is this the darien soundcheck?
@not Tom, I know Trader’s Little Helper has a widget that tests files to see if they were ever transcoded from MP3, and I think several other common apps can do it too. Just google “test for MP3 transcoding” or something. It’s a big deal on some torrent sites.
^ thanks C … did NOT know about such magical test kit.
if it ever was an MP3 it’s super obvious in the waveform I guess, mathematically speaking….easy to test for, they say
that makes sense
BTW – I’m watching Phish in Vegas and Maze is on. That song pretty much never disappoints. One of the few that they nail every single time.
I’m not really sure why.
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/4nyj/
All this work on Phish/itunes is reminding me how I spent several years recording all the episodes of Seinfeld on VHS, only to have them start releasing the entire series on DVD (not to mention syndicated on multiple networks). Needles to say I never watched the 17 VHS cassettes and eventually trashed them.
When I finally get all this done, Phish will announced a full-on streaming service of every Phish show ever.