The second show of a smoking two-night stand in New Jersey during Phish’s final summer of Chapter One.
I: Funky Bitch, Wilson, Limb By Limb, Drowned > Rock and Roll
II: Birds of a Feather> Catapult > Heavy Things, Sand, Meatstick, Cities> Walk Away, Run Like an Antelope, Frankenstein, Wading in the Velvet Sea
E: Character Zero
Source: Unknown
What more is there to say when Phish tour starts in but a day… *** Check out a timely piece from last year: The Starting Nine. ===== Jam of the Day: “Piper > 2001” 11.4.98 II A piece of Denver history of which Phish is about to write a little bit more. ===== DOWNLOAD OF …
Yesterday, the last Phish Tickets-By-Mail emails of the year went out, notifying lottery winners of their booty and officially kicking off the final ticket-trading frenzy of 2010. With this weekend’s on-sales, just like that, the end of 2010 is in sight. It’s hard to believe that 2011 is on the horizon; Miami feels like only yesterday. As fall tour kicks off in a matter of days, the Phish scene is in full swing once again. With the band’s second Halloween and New Year’s Run of this era on the docket, we have seamlessly slid right back into a Phish-filled existence. With all of the “firsts” behind us, this upcoming season has the distinct feeling of a musical blast into the future. Ready to move mountains again, less than two years into their return, Phish has infused the entire community with unparalleled excitement, as the next 15 shows drip with limitless potential. With proficiency no longer a factor, this tour will be the first in which the band hits the ground running.
Then Phish will return to the only real venue for a New Year’s Eve blowout – Madison Square Garden in New York City. After not knowing how this era would unfold, things could not look more positive at this point in time. And for that we can be all be grateful. Austin on Friday and Colorado on Sunday…we’re almost there. The final quarter of the year looks like the best one yet!
Congrats to all lottery winners and good luck this weekend in the last Ticketmaster battles of 2010!
Another retro-nugget from a college town, this show – 19 years ago this week – comes from Oregon, a state Phish may or may not ever play again. If current trends are indicative, the Pacific Northwest, except The Gorge, isn’t even on the band’s radar screen. Here’s to some west coast Phish in 2011!
I: Chalk Dust Torture, Foam, Paul and Silas, Split Open and Melt, Bouncing Around the Room, The Landlady, Runaway Jim, It’s Ice, Eliza, Llama, Memories, Golgi Apparatus
II: Brother, Reba, Poor Heart, Cavern, Run Like an Antelope, I Didn’t Know, Sparkle, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg, Fee, Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove
E: The Squirming Coil, Fire
Note: Many copies of this show that circulate include Alumni Blues and Lizards at the end of set I but this is filler from an unknown show.
Source: SBD
Yesterday, the last Phish Tickets-By-Mail emails of the year went out, notifying lottery winners of their booty and officially kicking off the final ticket-trading frenzy of 2010. With this weekend’s on-sales, just like that, the end of 2010 is in sight. It’s hard to believe that 2011 is on the horizon; Miami feels like only …
While Phish shows represent a sanctuary from everyday life and provide a mental break from the stresses of adult responsibility, they aren’t always the easiest places to navigate. With new and unique venues each night, separated seating for GA and reserved sections and a head full of psychedelics, finding your people in the midst of the fray isn’t always a simple task. We have all wandered around venues or lawns in hope to find specific friends only to grow more and more lost in the endless ocean of people. Even more frustrating can be the post-show car-finding mission when, all of a sudden, every lot looks the same and you’re not sure what side of the venue you are on. With the inception of the cell phone long ago, coordination began looking to the future. But now, with the teeming technology of the modern era, finding and communicating with friends has never been easier.
Phish fans, Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht, have come out with GroupMe – a revolutionary new service for cell phones that will easily enable you to stay in touch all of your friends. GroupMe allows you set up a unique phone number that you can text to talk to a group of friends all at once. Any text sent to that number by one of your friends is sent to everyone in your pre-created group. It’s just like sending a group email via text to which people can easily “reply to all.” Since it works through SMS, no one needs a smart phone to use it. That’s right – GroupMe works on any phone that has can send text messages!
“New Group” Page
But it doesn’t just stop with one “group” of friends. You can set up as many “groups” as possible, and for the never-ending circles of friends at Phish shows, this feature can be incredibly useful. Let’s say you are riding with one group of friends, hang out at the show with another crew, and then always meet certain folks to puff at setbreak. No problem! Simply set up several groups and just select which one you’d like to contact and text that unique phone number. Now, when you send one text to one number, all of your selected group members will receive your message. And if things get really dire, you can select “conference call,” press one button, and all of the phones in your selected group will ring at once, creating a legitimate conference of your friends. Use GroupMe to meet up in the lot, at shows, after shows, or to simply discuss the raunchy “Tweezer” that just crushed all of your skulls while hanging in different hotels. Furthermore, stay in touch on the road and coordinate rest stops and hotels with one text message instead of a multi-pronged attack. The possibilities are endless, and GroupMe is the source.
Already admired in the tech world and used en masse by everyday people, GroupMe is an official partner of Austin City Limits Festival. In addition to GroupMe’s regular text service, at ACL one can set reminder texts to inform their groups fifteen minutes before the selected bands hit the stage. Revolutionizing the festival experience, coordination has never been so easy and 100,000 person crowd simply don’t pose the obstacle they once did. (This assumes your phone will work at all at these over-sized gatherings! But talk to AT & T about that!)
GroupMe for iPhone
Though any phone with text message service can join group GroupMe via text or computer, the start-up has also rolled out an iPhone interface for that is now available in the App Store. Download the App for free, register your number, and start forming your groups today! For those without an iPhone, head to groupme.com, enter your name and phone number and begin to change the face of the way you communicate. All commands and changes can be and managed via SMS text messaging, making iPhones, Blackberrys, and flip phones one in the same. Never get at shows again, regardless of your mind state. Get GroupMe for Fall 2010 and you’ll find your friends in no time.
This first setter from the LA Forum on Valentine’s Day in 2003 often flies under the radar in the tour’s opening frame.
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Skidmore College
Let’s hop in the DeLorean today and speed back twenty years to the day – October 5, 1990. A young Phish played a gig at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and this is what happened.
I: I Didn’t Know, Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen* > Weekapaug Groove, My Sweet One, The Landlady, Tela, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg, Stash, The Asse Festival, Bouncing Around the Room, Run Like an Antelope
II: Golgi Apparatus, The Curtain > Ya Mar, Alumni Blues > Letter to Jimmy Page > Alumni Blues, Uncle Pen, Split Open and Melt, Fee, Possum
E: Good Times Bad Times
*The beginning of “Hydrogen” included the lyrics “I walk awakening on the misty fields of forever.”
Source: Unknown
While Phish shows represent a sanctuary from everyday life and provide a mental break from the stresses of adult responsibility, they aren’t always the easiest places to navigate. With new and unique venues each night, separated seating for GA and reserved sections and a head full of psychedelics, finding your people in the midst of …
With less than a week to go until both Austin and Broomfield, we have entered the final countdown for Phish’s highly-anticipated fall tour of mid-size venues and secondary markets. In the name of prognostication, here are five likely and unlikely scenarios for fall tour, as well as five scenarios that I’d like to see. Feel free to add your own in Comments below.
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It is likely that…
The Gorge (A. Headington)
1. Trey will only become more dexterous and dynamic with The Ocedoc, returning to a level of skill and creativity many thought he would never reach again.
2. Phish will play several of their best shows since returning in ’09 during this tour. Since they’re comeback, they have been on a consistent upswing and this fall looks to be the first tour in which all band members are up to speed from day one. With the return of Fishman and Trey during August, October holds endless possibilities.
3. This tour will be the most fun since the return – not only for the predicted best music of the modern era, but for the intimate, GA environs each night. Every show has a GA floor – every show will be a communal throwdown without worrying about being in aisles or seats.
4. “Light” will remain the band’s most exploratory vehicle and continue pushing the boundaries of Phish music. At the same time, “Disease” will always be a classic lens into the band’s future direction.
5. The Mullins Center stand will become one of the central talking points of fall tour. The site of several mid-’90s Phish shows of lore, and located smack dab in the middle of New England, these shows have the recipe for explosion. Circle them on your calendar and get there.
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It’s pretty unlikely that…
12.29.09 (W.Rogell)
1. Phish’s jamming will stagnate – much like Fall ’09 – and they will fall back on “energy shows” again.
2. Phish will play “Summer of ’89” during the Fall. Just not gonna work.
3. “Mike’s” will get the old-school, two-jam treatment again. Though with the retro-venues, the band just might dive bomb back in time, and drop into the real segment of creativity formerly known as “Mike’s Song.”
4. The Atlantic City run will suck. Set up as a three-night, end-of-tour Halloween blow-out, these shows will punctuate the tour with force. Look for the 29th or 30th to be one of the more intense evenings of the fall. And with everyone staying within a mile or two of each other, this will be the perfect end of tour party.
5. Phish will play Gamehendge for Halloween. While anything is fair game this time around, I don’t see it happening. But if they really did up the stage and made it a Halloween production with Trey narrating, I think the saga could be great. There are six other sets on the shore to get loose, so no one would need to worry about a thing. It could actually be the perfect context for a last visit to the mystical land. But, again, this is filed under “unlikely,” and its probability is slim to none.
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I would like to see...
12.30.09 (W.Rogell)
1. Phish to let loose on a more-than-groove “Tweezer” in the ballpark of thirty minutes.
2. “Free,” “Tube,” “Gumbo,”…we’ve been over this.
3. Everyone relish the joy of every show. It sure seems like Phish is here to stay, but only moment is now.
4. The band to cover something other than Led Zeppelin for Halloween. Though I love and respect the British rockers, I’d like to see something more psychedelic and less guitar-centric. Then again, last year I lobbied against “Exile” and loved it. But two classic rock albums from England in two years? Let’s try something else.
5. “Number Line” remain a jam vehicle that reaches diverse musical places. Whether exploring the dark side (Blossom) or upbeat jamming (Jones Beach), this song has been the springboard to a couple of the year’s most outstanding jams. But after seeing where the song can go, standard, guitar-solo versions, in my opinion, fall flat every time.
There’s nothing like kicking off the week with a blissful “Reba.” And just when you get deep into your daydream, “Carini” will, undoubtedly, wake you up.
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DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY:
NYE ’96 Pass
I’m not sure how this New Year’s extravaganza has slipped the archives, but somehow it’s not in there. So here is the finale of 1996 in which the band referenced their former style of arena rock as opposed to their emerging style of groove. This three-set show delivered from start to finish on a frigid night in Boston that few will ever forget. The first set carried a great flow, the second set brought a sublime sequence of “Simple > Swept > Steep >Hood,” and the third set featured a stellar “2001 > Auld Lang Syne,” a crushing “Antelope,” and a surprise cover that just about blew my mind.
As a side note, my wife, at age 19, snuck into this tough ticketed-affair after first getting booted for flagrantly trying to slide in under someone’s dress. Then, she convinced a cop that someone had ran by and ripped her ticket while posturing with an already-used stub. The policeman had her escorted to “her” VIP seat by the head of security in plenty of time for note one.
I: Axilla, Peaches en Regalia, Punch You In the Eye, Cars Trucks Buses, Stash, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, The Divided Sky, Sample in a Jar, Tweezer Reprise
II: Chalk Dust Torture, Wilson, Sparkle, Simple > Swept Away > Steep > Harry Hood > Prince Caspian, Character Zero
III: Also Sprach Zarathustra > Auld Lang Syne > Down with Disease, Suzy Greenberg, Run Like an Antelope, Bohemian Rhapsody*, Julius**
E: Amazing Grace**
*Phish debut; w/ Boston Community Choir.
** w/ Boston Community Choir.
Source: FM SBD
(Torrent site has been acting up the last few days…)
With less than a week to go until both Austin and Broomfield, we have entered the final countdown for Phish’s highly-anticipated fall tour of mid-size venues and secondary markets. In the name of prognostication, here are five likely and unlikely scenarios for fall tour, as well as five scenarios that I’d like to see. Feel …
Before the modern world of navigation systems and the hand-held GPS, Phish tour and atlases went hand in hand. Without any electronic voice guidance or little blue ball to follow, everyone had to make sense of maps that often likened piles of spaghetti after mind-altering shows. But with each subsequent era of Phish, things got a little bit easier. Cell phones burst onto the scene in the latter part of 1.0, integrated navigation systems and Garmins seeped into the scene in 2.0, but hardly anyone had them. And by the time 2009 rolled around, we all carried the Internet in our pocket. Smart phones have rendered Rand McNally useless, and now we don’t even think as we are guided by multiple systems from point A to point B. And now, in Fall 2010, everything just got a little bit easier.
Phish fan, Marc Pechaitis, has rolled out iTour, an iPhone application designed to streamline tour navigation just in time for fall. Instead of Googling your way to venue addresses, restaurants, and liquor stores, let iTour do your work for you. Integrated with Google Maps on your iPhone, simply click on one of seven categories per venue, and iTour flips you to a map with your locales of choice already pinpointed. Choose from “Venue,” “Hotels,” “Restaurants,” Gas,” “Groceries,” “Liquor,” and “Campgrounds,” and the application will inform you of the nearest facilities around the venue. Perfect for both on-the-fly adventure and advance tour planning, iTour is the touring companion that has been begging to be made since Phish and iPhones collided. Available now in Apple’s App Store and at theiTourapp.com, the kicker is that it is completely free!
Utica “Home Page”
The home page for each show contains the address, phone number, and capacity of each venue, as well the ticket and door times. And as an extra perk, once the shows start happening, the app links directly to each setlist via Phish.net. Beta-tested on summer tour, Pechaitis is debuting the first version of iTour this fall with plans to update and enhance the service with each subsequent tour. He also plans to expand this platform for other touring bands, thus any feedback about iTour is welcome at www.theiTourapp.com.
Download iTour for for free here, or in the app store here, or search for “iTour.phish” at the App Store on your iPhone. Check it out…
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Five Tunes For Friday:
Here are five selections from last week’s Type II Trivia quiz.
Type II Trivia Update: This week’s quiz is still wide-open with nobody taking a sizable lead in the first day. A few contestants are neck in neck, but no one has an unbeatable or intimidating score. Get those entries in by 7 pm tonight for a chance to win a free TAB or Mike Gordon CD! See yesterday’s post for audio clips and contest.
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Before the modern world of navigation systems and the hand-held GPS, Phish tour and atlases went hand in hand. Without any electronic voice guidance or little blue ball to follow, everyone had to make sense of maps that often likened piles of spaghetti after mind-altering shows. But with each subsequent era of Phish, things got …
