Thus far, the Northern Exposure Tour has exposed the fact that Trey is back and happy unleash his cosmic fury on us nightly once again.  What has also become greatly apparent is the reverence that Trey has for Tony, Russ, and Ray.  Often seen as a backdrop to Trey’s power, he has gone out of his way each and every show to discuss the musical contributions that were collectively written, and have progressed to Phish songs.  Paying tribute to his second songwriting “voice,” has been a thread running through the first weekend of shows….

…Resiliency is one of the most admirable qualities of the human spirit.  The ability to get back up when life has knocked you down, or as Trey sings in Let Me Lie, to “use [your] brakes when [you] go downhill,” inspires us, though it  is not always as easy to personally replicate.  Over the last four nights, I have been incredibly moved by Trey’s model of resiliency and personal strength.  As if addiction wasn’t enough of a monster with which to grapple, he had to fight his personal battles largely in the public eye of the Phish community.   Possessing an incredible humility, when he hit bottom, he never stopped creating music and pulled himself back to place happier than before; an example of pure personal resilience.  Persevering through an arrest, a drug program and a fourteen month relocation, Trey took a bad situation and turned it into something positive.  Garnering a new sense of enthusiasm and joy for life and music, he has again began to crank out new inspiring music.  Seeing him so happy on stage as he navigates the musical universe with us again has been heartwarming.  We can all learn something here…

…so far Trey hasn’t played Backwards Down the Number Line or Greyhound Rising- two of the songs that highlighted his comeback in Brooklyn.  Potentially holding them for the second half of tour, or for his other band, it will be interesting to see if these two songs pop up soon…I cannot wait to hear Phish play, “Light.”  It was a song made for the four of them to play- that much is clear.  I bet we see it as a second set opener in one of the three Hampton shows…A huge Mr. Completely should present itself in Providence or Boston…Trey’s voice sounds so strong and clear these days, something that can be heard noticeably during his acoustic pieces of tour…during the acoustic Sample in Wallingford, I thought of how massive the swell of energy will be when Phish drops the first 3.0 Sample…wow…

…Finally, I want to apologize for the delay in the Burlington show. I realize few were there and many want to hear it.  I hope it is up soon.  I’m trying to work out the kinks of facilitating this immediate turnaround of the shows for the first time, and since I’m not a taper, there is only so much I can control in this situation.  Rest assured that I will get you every show on Phish Thoughts as soon as I possibly can, I WANT YOU to hear what has been happening. The Wallingford second set should be up soon as well.  Hopefully this process will smooth out over over the next few shows. I appreciate your patience…

DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY: 10.19.08 Higher Ground < SENDPACE LINK

I found a copy online until I get my source up. (Thanks to Maniah)..

10.16.08- ROSELAND BALLROOM, NYC photo: Col. Forbin

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10/19/2008 Higher Ground, South Burlington, VT
I. Gotta Jibboo, Peggy, Dark and Down, Push On Til The Day, Sweet Dreams Melinda, Sand

II. Burlap Sack and Pumps, Money Love and Change, Last Tube, Let Me Lie, Drifting, Alive Again, Tube Top Flop, Windora Bug > Ruby Waves*, Moesha, Dragonfly

E: A Case Of Ice And Snow, First Tube   * debut

In his first show in Phish’s hometown since 2005, Trey greeted the tiny audience at Higher Ground with an electrifying performance that challenged, if not exceeded, any of the first three shows of tour.  An event that was larger than the concert itself, the entire evening was a benefit for Trey’s Seven Below Arts Initiative.  In conjunction with Burlington City Arts, Trey offers local visual artists grants for their work as eight-week residencies in The Barn to create uninterruptedly. Additionally, the program provides outreach arts education programs, and is looking to expand their work with children.  With a silent auction featuring Trey’s CD catalog, tickets (not for Hampton!), some old-school TAB posters and his personal artwork, every dollar- including ticket revenue- went directly to Seven Below.  With an incredibly friendly and local vibe, the crowded club was also host to quite a concert!

In a show where Trey was particularly warm and chatty all night long, the night carried a greater sense of intimacy than any Trey related event in a long time.  With a first set constructed out of some of his best played songs of tour, the night took no time to get moving.  Opening with the tour highlight of Jibboo, the show was spinning quickly as Trey opened the vault and initiated his show with a solo in his now characteristic ’08 sound.  Deep, distorted and dirty, he began the jam layering his thoughts over a classic siren-esque loop.  While staying relatively compressed as the first song, there was no shortage of sizzling improv.  Throughout the set, each song seemed as well played as the next, remained within their thematic jam structures.  Sweet Dreams Melinda, a song that has stood out all tour for its tightly improvised melodies, again brought the smooth delight of the first set, but the no-doubt highlight was perhaps the best Sand played this week.  With scorching improvisation, Trey led the band in a high-speed chase though a post-apocalyptic wonderland.  Closing the set on the highest of notes, the crowd quickly funneled into the bar and auction room to watch the triumph of Tampa Bay Rays in Game Seven of the ALCS amidst a densely populated crowd of Red Sox fans.

A Phish family feel pervaded the set break, as well as the evening, with the number of old familiar faces multiplying from the larger venues of the run.  In a show clearly meant for Vermont locals, tickets were only sold at the Higher Ground box office after the small allotment vanished from pre-sale in less than a minute.  With nary a broker ticket to be found on the entire internet within the last few days, this one was an incredibly tough ticket to come by.

The second set was one flowing highlight, as the improvisation was some of the greatest of the run.  Opening with his new favorite song, Trey re-introduced Burlap Sack and Pumps to his hometown in shiny psychedelic fashion.  A song, that with Jibboo, has become a central vehicle of the tour, had yet another dark ambient-to-groove jam that provided one of the most exciting points of the night.  Yet, outdoing the hot set opener were the next two songs, and another deeper in.

The subsequent songs, Money, Love and Change and Last Tube absolutely blew up.  With some of hottest improv of the tour, these two songs kept the audience completely engaged for quite a long time time.  From the extended addictive funk rhythms of the former to the more aggressive Antelope-esque grooves of the latter, this combination served up some of the heartiest meat of the evening.  With the Last Tube climaxing the first three songs of the set, the crowd responded enthusiastically to the twisting adventure that their guitar hero had led them through.

The second half of the set got very interesting with some first appearances of the tour and another debut. Arguably the jam of the night, Alive Again saw Trey improvising ferociously in a seemingly sub-conscious state.  With the apropos refrain of “The time has come for you to be alive again!”, this rendition in Phish’s hometown took on significant meaning, and everyone seemed to understand.  Following up the fierce jam, was the welcome return of the slow funky intsrumental Tube Top Flop.  In past years, always paired with Push On Til the Day, its welcome breeze of slow grooves cooled down the fired up room.

As the set continued to mellow out with Windora Bug, Trey led the band in a segue into the debut of “Ruby Waves.”  With a classic Anastaio pop sensibility and with lush beautiful melodies, this song could be a preview of something to come in the near and not so near future.  As Trey was about to finish his set, he instead took a request of Moesha, a song the band hadn’t played “in five years,”  or 148 TAB shows.  The fun old school treat gave way to a rocking set ending Dragonfly.

The emotional encore combined A Case of Ice and Snow and First Tube.  Throughout the first four nights of, First Tube has transformed into a piece where Trey no longer simply plays screeching walls of sound, but improvises consistently in what now can truly be called a jam at the end of the song.  With each being distinct, no longer just set ending fire, but a piece that can be looked to for diversity.  The night ended far later than normal due to a later 9:20 start and a longer than usual second set, but everyone went off into the brisk Burlington darkness not wishing they had been anywhere else.

Check out Seven Below Arts Intiatiative website and think about donating even a little to Trey’s personal mission, as he has given so much to ours.

10/18/08 Palace Theatre Albany, NY
I: Sand, Drifting, Peggy, Cayman Review, Burlap Sack and Pumps, Shine, Dark and Down, Push On Til The Day

II: Valentine, Simple Twist Up Dave, Let Me Lie, Alaska, Gotta Jibboo, The Way I Feel, Brian and Robert*, Back On The Train* > Farmhouse*, Bathtub Gin*

E: Bug   (* solo, acoustic)

In triumphant sort-of-homecoming to the vicinity where Trey spent fourteen months after getting into, in his own words, “some legal entanglements,”  Albany’s Palace Theatre was the site of a momentum-carrying show, juiced by the energy of the Northeast.  An immediately responsive audience greeted Trey with, far and away, the largest ovations of the tour.  Picking up on the energy generated in Wallingford, Trey and his Classic TAB barraged Albany with another incredibly strong performance.  With a setlist that included only one new addition, Trey arranged a show that flowed beautifully from start to finish, and was visibly happy with the results.

The first set included a lot of TAB staples, with quality improvised versions of Sand, Drifting, and Cayman Review, and Push On Til the Day.  Yet, the true highlights of this set came in the three song combination of- Burlap Sack and Pumps, Shine, and Dark and Down.  In the third consecutive performance of a song that Trey is clearly amped on, Burlap Sack and Pumps is quickly turning into one of the quintessential songs of this short tour, and provided another adventurous glimpse into what all-but-assuredly will be a new Phish reality.  The song’s, second, more exploratory jam, took a different path than the previous two dark psychedelic dungeons.  The band’s improvisation carried the music to a more uptempo and groovy space as Trey climaxing the piece with uptempo rhythm chords as opposed to beautifully distorted solos.  Clearly illustrating the diversity of direction the song can take- I’ll say it once more- this one seems primed for the jaws of the Phish.

As he explained after the most extended version of Peggy to date, Trey wrote a lot of his new material during his stay in the region.  In the first verbal acknowledgement that some of this new material is destined for Phish, Trey said, with a shit-eating grin, that a lot of his new songs that he was playing with his band, and would play with “that other band,” were written right in the audience’s “backyard.”  Receiving one of the loudest cheers of the night, this nod to the future certainly upped the energy in Albany’s ornate theatre.

In an improvised Shine, evoking the feeling of warm breezes on a summer afternoon, Trey delicately built a uplifting and thematic jam, spinning gorgeous melodies into the band’s refined textures.  The tour’s second Dark and Down, a track off of Bar 17‘s complimentary EP, 18 Steps, (not Shine, as I write yesterday) was the standout song of the set.  With a slower jam that strongly resembles the contours and soundscapes of Pink Floyd, this is another song that Phish could kill.  With a jam that shies from groove and leans toward whole band sound-sculpting, this backdrop provides a beautiful tapestry for Trey to paint with washes of color and soaring emotional, dissonant cries.  In what hopefully will transfer to his “other band,” Dark and Down is a odyssey for which the sky would be the limit for Phish.

The second set flowed like water from a faucet, as Trey created a set that carried a cathartic emotional thread, while providing some heavy grooves, and yet another inter-galactic Jibboo.  Opening with a wide open Valentine, the self-reflective tone of the set was put into place with Trey extending the spiritual composition slightly beyond its previous two appearances.  One of two brightest stars in the Northeastern sky last night, was the tour’s first appearance of Simple Twist Up Dave.  With an incredibly cohesive jam built on fiery improvised rhythm licks, Trey’s band shone as brightly as ever in this aggressive piece.  Bringing the audience far out with an intense fury of grooves before returning them to their realities, Trey was absolutely crushing on this top-notch show highlight.

A perfectly placed Let Me Lie blissed-out the crowd for several minutes with its newly arranged heavenly textures, upon which Trey’s guitar lines floated wistfully into the cloud-scaped ceiling of The Palace.  Yet, after this came to its proper close, Trey visited Alaska, before launching into the third consecutive focal centerpiece of Jibboo.  With smooth bass work by Tony, this jam grew into another impeccably mastered dance-a-thon that spun the entire building for over fifteen minutes.  In what seems to be Trey’s “choice of tour,” Jibboo has consistently provided the most inspired playing from the red headed Jedi on this tour, and since his return in August.  Last night providing another simply ridiculous version to stack right next to Wallingford’s, it seems that each show will contain a monster exploration of the funky piece of TAB history.  With stellar band accompaniment, specifically from Ray Paczkowski, who has been a standout player on this run, Jibboos continue to explode across the Tri-state area.

Sliding in nicely with the autobiographical nature of the set, The Way I Feel was another way for Trey to fully incorporate his band’s chops in his story telling.  In a version that stood out for the tender loving care infused into each and every note and tone, this piece slowly rocked the show into a seductive groove before Trey disappeared from stage, reemerging with his acoustic guitar for the final portion of the set.

After leaving the stage with the entire crowd vocally carrying the classic melody of Bathtub Gin throughout the entire encore break, Trey came back giving the audience their own round of applause for their role in what was a collectively introspective ride through the second set.  Seeming like an obvious First Tube encore, Trey instead chose the much more appropriately themed, Bug.  With a staggeringly emotional solo, Trey closed the book on a self-satisfying reflective return to what was his home away from home.

Tonight, we are going home.

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DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY:

LINK FOR WALLINGFORD SET 2 SHOULD BE UP TODAY!

All props due to Matt Quinn for turning the show around in a flash and getting to you right here on Phish Thoughts!

I: Sand, Cayman Review, Let Me Lie, Gotta Jibboo, Dragonfly, First Tube

II: Alaska, Last Tube, Sweet Dreams Melinda, Valentine, Drifting, Brian and Robert¹, Chalk Dust Torture¹, The Way I Feel, Spin

E: Heavy Things, Burlap Sack and Pumps

¹ Solo acoustic

In a solid tour opener that featured some significant Phish foreshadowing, and some flashes of fiery Trey, Roseland was a fun, if not crowded, way to get things going.  At these “Classic TAB” shows, only three old, a pattern is already emerging.  The known Trey classics- a la Sand, Jiboo, Night Speaks, and Cayman Review will still be played as a nostalgic platforms for Trey to shred on, while other songs have begun to transform into previews for what is to come with Phish.  Tonight, the shredding-spotlight was centrally focused on the first set explosion of Jibboo.   As Trey first spoke with a disgustingly dirty tone reminiscent of ’03, specifically the darker voice of the 12.29 Philly Twist, he built a scorching solo from these distorted tones, improvising heartily in what will sure be talked about as the “highlight of the show.”

However, the highlights of the Classic TAB shows, are not always the most significant moments for the future world of Phish.  Tonight, two new developments occurred that should see ripples in the new pond.  “Let Me Lie,” appearing as the third song of the show, featured a new arrangement with a mellow backing groove that served as a palate for some minor improvisation.  When put in context of Phish’s reemergence, this seems like it will surely be a calm launching pad for a layered Phish jam.  With a lyrically appropriate theme of recovery, and the song’s significant placement and rearrangement, it certainly signifies a probable entry into Phish’s new repertoire.

The second major development couldn’t have come from a more unlikely place.  In what seemed like an afterthought to the encore of Heavy Things, Trey stepped to the mic and began to explain the genesis of what would be the final song.  Reminding the audience that such Phish songs as Jibboo, Sand, and First Tube were originally co-written by his band members, bassist, Tony Markelis and, drummer, Russ Lawton, he introduced the last song, “Burlap Sack and Pumps.”  Also written by the Classic TAB duo, this song appeared for the first time ever played by a four piece band.  A staple of Trey’s Afro- Cuban “big-band” era, Burlap Sack and Pumps has always been a song that featured horns, percussion, and multi-layered textures.  Tonight, it was completely different.

Arranged for a four-piece, introduced as the next in a tradition of TAB-to-Phish songs, and with a new psychedelic and exploratory jam, this seems like a shoo-in as a new Phish improvisational vehicle.  What seemed like the denoument of the show was potentially the most significant part, as we look forward to March.  Out of nowhere, this song which Trey explained started as “a little dance number,”  emerged a new launch pad for improvisation that Phish could absolutely slaughter.  You can stop thinking about the big-band, call-and-response tradition of the song- this was a whole ‘nother thing all together.

Throughout the show, Trey sounded clean, precise, and tight, and seemed noticeably more comfortable on stage than at his comeback show in Brooklyn.  Despite a relatively lackluster setlist, and a momentum-killing acoustic segment of Brian and Robert, and an awkward Chalkdust, Trey still put together an intriguing and exciting show.  The second appearance of Valentine, although no more extended than in Brooklyn, reaffirmed its potential as a monstrous Phish launchpad, while the set closer of Spin, featured an adventurous outro jam that moved into more groovy territory than usual, providing a upbeat ending to the mellow twenty-plus minutes of the second set that had preceded.

A sure sign that the next seven shows will be fun and meaningful, Roseland was a tasteful preview of what is to come.  In the over-sized bar scene, a large part of the New York City audience seemed unfocused and overtly social the majority of the evening, treating it as a night out rather than a night with Trey.  The other portion of the crowd was noticeably enthused by the goings on, especially throughout the more uptempo first set.  With what is sure to be a less metropolitan crowd in Wallingford, CT, tonight, look for Trey to extend more of his songs with more fun and improvisation in the musically focused theatre.

And perhaps a big second set Burlap Sack and Pumps?

ROSELAND JIBBOO