Mr. Miner's Phish Thoughts

Perhaps you’ve had the pleasure to meet one of the community’s most stealth warriors, @LazyLightning55. Video taper extraordinaire and one of the nicest guys in the scene, @Lazy has spliced together HD footage of his favorite jams—and just the jams—from fall into one amazing compilation. Check out his outstanding work above. Below, I have included a little blurb about each segment of footage.

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1. “Carini” 10.18 II: Starting out this video is the jam with the most swagger of any played over Fall—Hampton’s “Carini.” Trey sets up the excursion’s bluesy, feel-good peak as the camera cuts in, and what transpires throughout the rest of this footage is some of the most hooked up playing we saw from the band all fall. The video then cuts to the laid back funk at the end of the jam, illustrating the amount of ground covered in this dynamic tour highlight.

2. “Weekapaug” 10.19 I: Next we have the meat of Hampton’s first set “Weekapaug”—super percussive and with plinko textures from Page. The whole band brings the jam on a tangent, documented here, before returning to “Weekapaug’s” theme.

3. “Ghost” 10.19 II: Hampton’s second-night “Ghost” carried an incredibly uplifting vibe and the band laid into it with a passion. In this video we see them on the way to the mountain top, and we stay with them through their glorious ascent. Trey unleashes some cascading sheets of notes as the rest of the band chugs away like a single-minded entity behind him. This footage includes the jam’s denouement—a sublime, break-beat laden soundscape that gradually becomes more and more ambient, setting up an oncoming “Disease.”

4. “Tweezer” 10.20 II: The dark and stormy Hampton “Tweezer” needs no introduction. This video comes in after the initial jam segment, as the band takes a left turn into the Netherworld. At this juncture, everyone in the building knew that fall tour was gonna be something special. This footage follows the band into the abyss, and fades out once the full descent has been made.

5. “Piper -> Taking Care of Business” 10.20 II: The next clip documents one of tour’s most memorable moments—“Piper -> Taking Care of Business.” In this footage, one can actually see the band discover the idea, communicate to each other and execute the segue. And the crowd goes wild!

6. “Twist” 10.23 II: Here we have the second segment of the Glens Fall’s “Twist,” as Trey is teasing “The Line” before anyone had heard the song. This jam signified a turning point of tour from which Phish never looked back, paving a path of gold for the duration.

7. “Waves” 10.25 II: Worcester’s “Waves” has been severely underrepresented in the post-tour chatter. A gorgeous piece of psychedelic Phish, the band moved from something far more upbeat into this dreamy ambient realm—the beginning of the footage we see here. The video tracks the jam as it moves into a heavier outro, one that sparked the idea for the move into “Carini.” This one is a gorgeous clip of Kuroda’s light work, taboot.

8. “Bathtub Gin” 10.26 I: The next clip documents the first set “Bathtub Gin” from Worcester’s second night—a version that I highlighted last week and one that has to be among the most dynamic of the year. The band locks into a swanky, airtight groove and lets it ride in a spectacular segment of musical catharsis. Even with all the jams in set two, this was the most energetic, collective peak of the entire show.

9. “Drowned” 10.26 II: Next up is the Worcester “Drowned,” a sprawling jam that the video picks up as after it had moved through a couple feels and has settled in an uptempo, “Guy Forget”-eqsue groove. We follow the band as they stop on a dime and drip into one of tour’s most sublime musical sequences—A soul-tugging, blissed out segment that eventually blends into an instrumental and chill-inducing nod to Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting in Limbo.”

10. “Tweezer” 10.27 II: The final jam before “Intermission” is the final segment of my pick for jam of tour, Hartford’s “Tweezer.” The band has navigated an extended segment of hooked up grooves, and have found their way—seamlessly—way into this melodic second part of the jam. The guys find a three chord progression that provides the melodic framework for the rest of the jam.

Setbreak: part of “Fuego”

11. “Golden Age” 10.27 II: The second part of the video picks up with Hartford’s “Golden Age,” by my estimation, the standout version of tour. We hear the band center this jam around Fishman’s rhythmic fireworks, as he consistently changes beats, adds fills and generally destroys his kit. The guys eventually blend into a more ambient soundscape towards the end of this footage, a jam that would eventually end with the onset of “Halley’s Comet.”

12. “Split Open and Melt” 10.29 I: Had the band nailed the ending of Reading’s “Split,” we’d all be talking about it as a highlight of tour, and this segment of footage shows you why—Phish got into some super-locked, menacing-as-fuck jamming. They seemed to have the piece by the jugular, but just as they were set to begin working their way back from this musical dementia, Trey pulled the string for an abrupt change into “Julius.”

13. “Down with Disease” 10.29 II: Reading’s second set was among the best of tour, and the spine-tingling peak to the set-opening “Down with Disease”—captured here—is one of the central reasons why. Trey’s magical guitar solo is among his most prolific of the past five years, and certainly one of his most original—pure transcendence on every level.

14. “Twenty Years Later” 10.29 II: But while many have focused on “Disease,” I find the true improvisational gem of Reading to lie in this “Twenty Years Later.” Patiently working their way into a pre-historic dancehall groove, the band evoked the feeling of ’97 amidst a truly sinister milieu. The entire fan base had been waiting for this moment ever since the guys debuted the song back in ’09, and boy was it worth the wait! Eventually, they pull off a back door transition into another Americana outro, this one likening “I Know You Rider.”

15. “Ghost” 10.31 III: After the band introduced us to the songs of Wingsuit, they came out and did something far more familiar—jam their faces off. This set-opening “Ghost” provided a jolt of adrenaline to a crowd half comprised of those disappointed in the Halloween set. Nonetheless, the band put a smile on everyone’s faces with this ripping rendition of a crowd favorite.

16. “Twist” 11.1 II: This sequence from the AC “Twist” is why we go. ‘Nuff said.

17. “Sneakin Sally” 11.1 E: This surprise encore of “Sneakin Sally” put the cherry on top of one of Fall’s most complete shows on the second night in Atlantic City. This night had it all, including the most hard-hitting encore of the tour.

18. “Theme from the Bottom” 11.2 II: We end this video tour through fall tour with the first set funk throwdown that emerged out of “Theme” in Atlantic City’s penultimate set. This one felt like the olden days as the band hadn’t unleashed grooves of this nature in quite some time. A truly electric moment in a tour filled with them.

Tags: 2013, Fall '13, Jams

This entry was posted on Monday, December 2nd, 2013 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.