The first two nights of New Year’s Run ’92 took place in The Palace Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut – home of the best pizza in the nation. Before moving north to Springfield and Boston, Massachusetts, Phish blew up The Nutmeg State on their way to 1993. Enjoy the old school shows, and most importantly enjoy the weekend. Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers that make the world go ’round!
I: Funky Bitch, Runaway Jim, Guelah Papyrus, Llama, My Friend, My Friend, The Divided Sky, Wilson, Uncle Pen, Stash, Tela, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg
II: The Curtain > Tweezer, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, My Sweet One > Big Ball Jam, Fast Enough for You, All Things Reconsidered, Mike’s Song* > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove Hold Your Head Up > Terrapin > Hold Your Head Up, The Squirming Coil, Tweezer Reprise
E: Big Ball Jam, Carolina*, Rocky Top
Source: SBD > DAT > Cass/x, Patch Source Schoeps MK4/CMC5 > Sonosax SX-M2 > Sony D10 (FOB)
These tracks had to be patched with the FOB source due to a tape flip in Mike’s song, and the Carolina being absent from the SBD.
DOWNLOADS OF THE WEEKEND: The first two nights of New Year’s Run ’92 took place in The Palace Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut – home of the best pizza in the nation. Before moving north to Springfield and Boston, Massachusetts, Phish blew up The Nutmeg State on their way to 1993. Enjoy the old school …
Friday has come back around, bringing ten more songs to kick off your weekend. This round, I featured musical couplets, delivering ten tracks in five selections. This week, I mixed a couple post-hiatus highlights into the mix,. Enjoy the pairings and have a great weekend!
This is the third consecutive version of “Lifeboy” that dripped out of “Tweezer” during June 1994. This “Tweezer” features prominent jamming on Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love.” (Excuse the nasty tape flip at the end of “Tweezer.”
A rare time when a guest enhanced a show, Peter Apfelbaum, on tenor sax, added a whole new element to this sequence, pushing the vibe in the direction of Phish fusion.
On the first night of Miami ’03, this unlikely combo formed a significant chunk of set two. Diving far from the structure of “Suzy,” the band entered a menacing passage in which Trey offered a stunning guitar confessional.
A devestating “Bowie” from the night before Halloween ’95, in Louisville, Kentucky.
Friday has come back around, bringing ten more songs to kick off your weekend. This round, I featured musical couplets, delivering ten tracks in five selections. This week, I mixed a couple post-hiatus highlights into the mix,. Enjoy the pairings and have a great weekend! *** “Tweezer > Lifeboy” 6.23.94 II This is the third …
When Phish steps into the next stage of their career in a little more than a month, they are bound to discover new styles of musical expression. With a foundation year behind them, one would imagine that Phish will start down the path of reinvention this summer, forging a new sound for 2010. As the band evolves, and their music takes new forms, they will incorporate elements of their past endeavors, a trend throughout their history. Building upon the previous year’s stylistic successes from their onset through Summer 1996, Phish hit the reset button in Fall ’96, beginning a completely new evolutionary arc for the late ’90s.
12.30.09 (W.Rogell)
Starting off last year with a focus on straight-forward jamming, Phish came out of the gates conservatively, making sure they had their footing before trying to run. However, one element of their playing stood out right from the beginning of Hampton – their precise execution of composed sections, as well as their full compositions. Turning their glaring weakness of 2.0 into an immediate strength of 2009, Phish opened the era with two of their most complex pieces in “Fluffhead” and “Divided Sky.” Evoking memories of the early-’90’s, when Phish ran through fugues like wind-sprints, their precision and prowess on their multi-part compositions stood out all year long. The complex sections of their larger pieces also became revitalized as the year wore on, and tackling the openings of pieces like “Reba,” “YEM,” and “Bowie” became second nature. Sure, there were speed bumps along the way, but Phish’s precision and accuracy became a strong suit in 2009.
Bonnaroo – (G.Burwell)
By the end of fall tour and in Miami, Phish began playing compact, full-on jams that more resembled the fury of the mid-90’s, an approach I labeled “musical density.” The band started to improvise in a more concentrated manner, offering many original ideas over a shorter amount of time. Jams that illustrate this retro-style include Miami’s “Piper,” “Ghost,” and “Back On The Train, “Charlottesville’s “Light,” and MSG’s “Disease > Piper.” With a take-no-prisoners approach, Phish annihilated these pieces with fast, thematic communication, leaving no time for loops, vamping, or repetitive funk chords. This emerging sound that featured shorter, too-the-point, jams evoked memories of the band’s most adventurous improvisational era from ’93 to ’95, albeit not quite as insane. Nonetheless, the band integrated similarly tight, no-nonsense communication that characterized a point in their history into their modern soundscapes.
Through this compact style, and by trimming the fat off their musical excursions, 2009 Phish piqued the interest of more than a few old-schoolers who had lost touch with the band during the the late-90’s era of groove, or during the post-hiatus era of abstract exploration. Phish sounded like the band these fans had loved through the mid-’90’s, pushing the boundaries of experimental rock while retaining a focused intensity to their playing. They could once again tear though “Foam,” had no problem shredding “It’s Ice,” and Phish music shifted back towards the form that made them famous to begin with. But not without brushstrokes of their latter years.
Miami ’09
While Phish certainly didn’t focus on funk grooves last year, they did use certain vehicles to reach those swanky places. Though reined in quite a bit, their danceadelic style shined through many times throughout the year, and perhaps none more brightly than Red Rock’s “Tweezer.” After a relatively groove-less June, when Phish dropped this version (still illegal in some states), they let the floodgates of groove crash open in an all-out rhythmic explosion. All year long, but from August on specifically, versions of “Ghost,” “Wolfman’s,” and “Tweezer” routinely explored gooier territory, incorporating ideas of ’97 and ’98, but never delving nearly as deep into the musical molasses that defined those years. (Perhaps the most direct reference to this era came in the methodical funk turned ambient “46 Days” from Detroit last fall.)
11.18.09 (M.Stein)
The percussive jams that dotted so many setlists last year, growing out of “Rock and Roll,” “Piper” and “Drowned,” also represented carry-over from the late ’90s. Once Phish learned the polyrhythms of Remain In Light in 1996, this type of jam immediately jumped into their repertoire the next show with 11.2.96’s “Crosseyed > Antelope,” and remained in their bag of tricks all the way through, refined throughout the years. These sparser and faster grooves of ’09 brought back the feel of ’99 and ’00, as well as some post-hiatus adventures. Additionally, the many ambient interludes and amorphous jams that popped up throughout the year can be directly traced to the aural experiments that blossomed in Fall ’98, and fully developed in 1999. Using ambient textures and “amoeba-jamming,” Phish brought a new sound to the table that fall; a sound they resurrected more than a few times last year to varying degrees of success. Some standout examples include Deer Creek’s “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing,” The Gorge’s “Sneakin’ Sally,” SPAC’s “Number Line, and the latter half of Miami’s “Tweezer.”
Thus, as Phish forges a path into the future, their past is undeniably coming with them. But just as these musical elements from different years were incorporated into 2009, a new direction awaits in 2010. Just what that will be remains the mystery of the summer. Answers await only 36 days away.
Here’s the completion of the stellar New Year’s 1998 run. Somehow, this one has skirted the archive. The most mellow of the four evenings still carried some legit highlights, specifically, “Disease > Piper.” The first set brought the bombastic beginning of “Chalk Dust,” “BBFCFM,” “Wilson,” and peaked with the surprise, set-ending “Reba.”
I: Chalk Dust Torture, Big Black Furry Creature from Mars, Wilson, Roggae, Sparkle, The Moma Dance, The Old Home Place, Sample in a Jar, Frankie Says, Maze, Loving Cup, Reba
II: Down with Disease > Piper, Prince Caspian, The Squirming Coil> Slave to the Traffic Light
When Phish steps into the next stage of their career in a little more than a month, they are bound to discover new styles of musical expression. With a foundation year behind them, one would imagine that Phish will start down the path of reinvention this summer, forging a new sound for 2010. As the …
While some fans are willing to travel to the end of the earth to see Phish – from Copenhagen to Tokyo and Telluride to Prague – many simply can’t make these treks due to life circumstances and responsibilities. As Phish 3.0’s second year begins to unfold, Phish fans on the west coast are still left wondering why the band refuses to come their way, playing virtually no shows on the west coast and southwest since their return. While west coast swings used to be hallowed summer traditions, providing the most gorgeous drives of the tour, the band’s overwhelming focus on the eastern seaboard has left many Phish-less fans on the left coast out in cold.
Using this summer as an example, the only shows west of the Rocky Mountains are the three at The Greek, and everyone knows how hard those tickets have been to come by. Last summer, Phish graced the west coast for exactly the same amount of shows – one at Shoreline and two at The Gorge – and then returned for Festival 8, for a grand total of 6 out of 50 shows. While Phish hails from the east coast and have a concentration of fans, friends, and families there, they have seemingly forgot how many people long for them to come westward. Or maybe they just don’t care.
In Phish’s previous eras, the west coast always comprised an integral part of the summer circuit. Some of the venues changed and others stayed the same, but west coast Phish always provided one of the best segments of tour with notably laid-back atmospheres, less crowds, and stellar weather. A far cry from the overrun amphitheatres of the east, Phish’s music adjusted to the calmer settings, often taking a different direction than east coast jams. Thus far in this era, however, unless a west coast fan lives in the Bay Area, outside LA, or in rural Washington, they haven’t even been able make a reasonable drive to a Phish show.
Phish’s current family-based touring model must play a role in their lack of desire to travel far for shows. Only selecting the most choice venues, west coast shows are now reserved for “special events,” neglecting many fans across the region. With limited vacation days, a less-than-ideal economy, and more mature responsibilities, many core Phish fans can’t just drop things and fly across the country for a week; it’s no longer as feasible as it was ten years ago. Just as the band has changed and matured, so has their primary fan base, and one would think their routing would reflect this understanding.
Coors Amphitheatre – Chula Vista, CA
Throughout the modern era of Phish, the band has chosen venues and tour schedules according to their own desires, leaving fans to figure out ways to navigate smaller shows and harder tickets. In this golden age of their career, it seems that Phish will do what makes them happiest without caring about ease of access to shows or tickets, and they have certainly earned that right. Unfortunately, the lack of west coast shows fits right into this pattern, like it or not.
With an over-saturation of east coast gigs this summer, sixteen shows have, ironically, yet to sell out. Staple venues like Deer Creek, SPAC, Walnut Creek and Camden still have tickets on sale. Other shows with stubs still up for grabs include both Hartford dates, Charlotte, Blossom, and Chicago. And the reasoning is hardly a mystery. Without an expanding fan base at this point, Phish, largely, has a “set” number of fans who want to see them play. With so many opportunities within short drives for most fans on the east coast, many of these shows are not selling out because people are picking and choosing what shows to hit. With an aging demographic and no younger generation to fill in the holes, less Phish fans than ever are doing the entire tour – or even extended runs. With most fans seeing less shows in total, more tickets are left available.
Out West, Fall ’95
Logic would have it that less shows in one area would cause them all to sell out, but by scheduling multiple two-night stands within a couple hours of each other every weekend, most fans don’t have the capacity – or need – to hit each one. I don’t think that there are less people trying to see Phish, but the same number are spread out over 16 eastern shows. If Phish cut that number to 10, I bet most tickets would be gone. We can theorize all day, but when it comes down to it, I don’t think Phish or Red Light much cares what we think. Phish paid their dues, playing every village, town, and city throughout the 80’s and 90’s, and this is their time to schedule their lives out of convenience, not necessity. They have their fans, they have their money, why do they need to play where they don’t want to play? I can certainly see their side of the coin.
Though Phish will only play three west coast shows this summer, rumors have started to swirl about a Fall run down the coast. I don’t have specifics, but we shall see. Murmurs of Indio being rescheduled for Halloween weekend have also surfaced, potentially coinciding with such a western swing. With west cost weather holding strong through the autumn months, an eventful run could be in the works; one can only hope. West coast Phish not only offers locals a chance to see shows without boarding a plane, it also provides a totally diverse live experience for those fans traveling from other parts of the country, balancing the clusterfucks of the east.
Portland ’98
Hopefully, Phish will escape from the vortex of Verizon Wireless venues of the east, and figure out a way to unveil more western dates before the year is up; but without any real incentive, west coasters shouldn’t hold their breaths. For the time being, west coast fans will have to live with quality over quantity, as some of last year’s most stellar shows took place at The Gorge and Red Rocks, and this summer the band will hit up the Greek and Telluride. (Though let’s not pretend that Colorado is a west coast state.) With their roots firmly planted on the east coast, it remains to be seen how geographically diverse modern tours will become. But for now, west coasters, score those Greek tickets, keep your luggage accessible, and save those frequent flier miles, because who knows when Phish will be back on the left coast.
A dark-horse show from outside of Houston, along the Texas run of Summer ’98.
I: The Moma Dance, Runaway Jim, Bouncing Around the Room, Stash, My Soul, Taste, Golgi Apparatus, Loving Cup
II: Wolfman’s Brother > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Scent of a Mule > Ha Ha Ha > Scent of a Mule, Slave to the Traffic Light, Chalk Dust Torture
E: Character Zero
Source: SBD
While some fans are willing to travel to the end of the earth to see Phish – from Copenhagen to Tokyo and Telluride to Prague – many simply can’t make these treks due to life circumstances and responsibilities. As Phish 3.0’s second year begins to unfold, Phish fans on the west coast are still left …
