Wow!

BCGA (Dave Canny)

BCGA (Dave Canny)

What the hell just happened? In a five-week whirlwind, Phish just tore apart the nation like they haven’t in at least a decade. When the band came back in ’09 few expected them to reach any level of skill beyond nostalgia. And even when they crushed 2012—a year that has firmly been filed under “Yesterday’s News”—few expected the band to redefine itself one year later. In retrospect, the years of ’09 through ’12 were all related to their past, a sort of getting up to speed on what they had accomplished in their career while showing flashes of innovation and brilliance. This past tour, however, Phish opened the floodgates of creativity, presenting us with a forward-looking tour that was plucked from our wildest fantasies. This summer, Phish started to forge a new path again with jams that sound different from any other time in their career and an energy purer than ever. Don’t look now, but with Dick’s as a stepping stone, Fall Tour is just around the corner! 2013 is shaping up to be a year musically on par with any in Phish history.

BGCA (G.Lucas)

BGCA (Graham Lucas)

When I listened to several of my ’97 and ’98 favorites since tour ended, the jams sound far less dynamic than they do right now. I love that shit to death—trust me—but Phish is absolutely reached another level this summer. The efficiency and proficiency of their jamming is unparalleled to any point in history. The band needs exactly zero searching to find where they are going these days—as soon as they entered a jam this summer, with few exceptions, they were locked in directional, purposeful, whole-band improv. The quickness in which ideas were exchanged and built upon set a new standard for Phish, and consequently, the band was able to get far more out of their jams. This musical density had been building since Miami ’09, and has now reached a mind-boggling level. For example, go listen to the Alpharetta “Chalk Dust,” one of the best east coast jams of summer, and then try to wrap your head around the fact that it is under ten minutes long! Phish of 2013 is another beast all together. Their entire thirty-year career has led them to this point—a place where they draw on their illustrious past to create music that moves beyond their previous accomplishments.

BGCA (Graham Lucas)

BGCA (Graham Lucas)

The number of highlights from Summer Tour is nothing short of staggering. Trying to sum up this tour in writing is a task unseen in this era. Very little 3.0 Phish compares to what just went down over the past month. With only a slight dip in Chicago due to non-stop weather delays, the band launched off the “Harpua”-laced third night of the stand and never looked back, crafting two of the most memorable weeks in Phish history. Toronto’s majestic “Down With Disease” gave us a glimpse of the holy realms that we would frolic in we hit the west coast. Tour—undoubtedly—peaked at the Gorge and Lake Tahoe with several elite sets of Phish including the Tahoe “Tweezer”—in my opinion, the best jam of all-time. Finishing things with an outstanding four night run in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the guys dropped jams on the level with the previous weekend, but only sculpted one monster show in Bill Graham’s finale. At last, the band played a legit west coast run, and—go figure—it produced the best Phish we’ve seen in over a decade.

I’ll get down to analysis, but right now I’m still in awe of what we just experienced. I still have yet to spin three of the west coast shows—it was just different this time. As in the days of lore, we knew that after setbreak things would absolutely get crazy—a feeling that just hasn’t been prevalent over the past four years. But now, it’s full steam ahead! The entire community is more mature and everyone can appreciate what is transpiring quite a bit more, and I reckon the band feels the same. Nobody expected to be where we are right now, making this year of 2013 all the more magical. Hot damn, it’s good to be alive.

BGCA (Jeremy Renda)

BGCA (Jeremy Renda)

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4,964 Responses to “Wow!”

  1. Jtran Says:

    Miles Davis – trumpet
    Wayne Shorter – soprano saxophone
    John McLaughlin – electric guitar
    Chick Corea – electric piano
    Herbie Hancock – electric piano
    Joe Zawinul – organ
    Dave Holland – double bass
    Tony Williams – drums

    wow. quite the lineup on this record

  2. MiA Says:

    Allstar list

  3. Type III Jamming Personality Disorder Says:

    So my daughter was rocking out to a jibboo in our kitchen this evening, spinning, the whole nine. Anyway, I noticed Trey really sounding Keef-like and sure enough, it was the F8 jibboo from the day after the Exile set. Never really noticed it before. Comes in around the 6:15ish mark.

  4. vapebraham Says:

    Get high, then Tug and a rub – An honest night of fun.

  5. kayatosh Says:

    Moon is a pale pink over the Atlantic.

  6. kayatosh Says:

    Spun bgca ’12 light today. That is the jam I like. $$$

  7. Type III Jamming Personality Disorder Says:

    Moon is a pale pink over the Atlantic.

    That’s either a song lyric waiting to happen or a piece of prose plucked from the first page of a story.

  8. BingosBrother Says:

    Moon is a pale pink over the Atlantic
    As the sun winds down in a midwest yard

  9. IrieWalton Says:

    Palmer, contact Pax customer support.

    I got a response in a few hours, quality follow up, and an express replacement part (mouthpiece) shipped overnight a few backs when one of mine got gummed up due to my negligence.

  10. IrieWalton Says:

    Gratis, too..

  11. MrCompletely Says:

    My favorite recent quote that sounded like the first line of a book was:

    “‘How many people have you had sex with that are now dead?’ my wife asked me.”

    (He didn’t answer the question)

  12. MiA Says:

    Moon is a pale pink over the Atlantic
    As the sun winds down over a Midwest yard
    The stars outside are tantric

  13. MrCompletely Says:

    lyric in progress reminds me of oldschool randy newman

    Broken windows and empty hallways,

    a pale dead moon in a sky streaked with grey.

    Human kindness is overflowing,

    and I think it’s gonna rain today.

  14. MiA Says:

    C’s got it.

  15. snow Says:

    That’s some funny shit. MMJ biz plans FTW.

    Here’s mine:
    Community Supported Concentrates

    Go for the premium market off the bat. Emphasize that each operation is vertically integrated and artisinal, small scale. Everything gets sent through the mail. the biz is just marketing and takes a cut on the transactions. Obviously, there will be a lot of product testing involved.

    The trick: can you avoid being labelled as a MJ bizness? You never handle the product, just arrange buyer and sellers. Custy’s pay however and CSC delivers payment in cash to producers.

    I think the main challenge is that concentrates are going to end up illegal in a few years and may see increased penalties in non-legal states.

  16. MiA Says:

    Moon is a pale pink over the Atlantic
    As the sun winds down over a Midwest yard
    The stars outside are tantric
    Whenever they’re sure you’re not there

  17. BingosBrother Says:

    Moon is a pale pink over the Atlantic
    As the sun winds down over a midwest yard
    The stars outside are tantric
    Making pornography out of a pretty postcard

  18. snow Says:

    @MiA- I was just trying to say that the world always is and likely always will have plenty of problems. Not that it was possible to follow the train of thought anyway.,

  19. MiA Says:

    Bingo’s is better

  20. MiA Says:

    I hear ya Snow. Life is not about making sense of this and what this could or should have been.

    It’s finding the beauty in it either way.

  21. bouncin fan Says:

    ya Palmer

    Pax will send you back anything you need. they’re great about warranty. hit em em up on pax chat yo say it’s not working right.

    they’ll hook it up

    just got $15 worth of PAX mouthpiece lube in the mail

    shit gonna get crazy yo

  22. MiA Says:

    Mouthpiece lube still makes me laugh

  23. BingosBrother Says:

    Nah, mine is too rhymey. I have trouble with that. Yours is really cool.

  24. BingosBrother Says:

    Def need Mouthpiece Lube for this.

    http://www.scarysextoyfriday.com/2012/02/spiked-chindo.html?m=1&zx=d1525a7da4b914e

  25. MrCompletely Says:

    Mouthpiece lube? I thought I was the freaky one

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