This week, I figured I’d highlight some of the outstanding jams that didn’t make my personal “Top Ten” last week. This Friday’s playlist comes from the many Honorable Mentions from last Friday’s post. But as they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so any “ranking” is purely opinion-based. Enjoy these ten gems—in no particular order—from the last year, while the 2012 rumor mill is already churning.
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“Down With Disease > No Quarter” 7/3, Watkins Glen, NY
There were so many great “Diseases” last year that Super Ball’s version, which is quite impressive, doesn’t often get mentioned. Powerful whole-band interplay laces this festival outing before the guys gradually moved into “No Quarter.”
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“Roggae” 8/5, The Gorge, Quincy, WA
This best-ever version of “Roggae” graced The Gorge at sunset before the band came out at night and dropped the defining music of this era.
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“Sneakin’ Sally” 6/4, Cuyahoga Falls, OH
The band builds from robofunk into some out-of-character psychedelia in one of the year’s most satisfying groove-based excursions.
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“Seven Below” 9/2, Denver, CO
This part of the “S” show was, perhaps, the most innovative jam from the summer’s final run.
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“Boogie -> Waves > Caspian” 5/27, Bethel, NY
The sequence that started 2011’s improvisational focus on the very first night of summer.
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“Simple” 1/1, NYC, NY
This blissful piece of improv moves into an ending so good that it could have been composed.
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“Drowned > Maze” 5/31, Holmdel, NJ
Phish gets into some dark and abstract music in “Drowned” that foreshadowed the Storage Jam at Super Ball.
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“Carini -> Tweezer” 12/28, NYC, NY
A dark-to-light “Carini” blended seamlessly into a funked-out “Tweezer—a high point of the New Year’s Run.
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“Light -> Dirt” 8/15, Chicago, IL
Another bass-led adventure through a musical wormhole.
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“After Midnight” 5/31, Holmdel, NJ
This surprise opener of PNC’s second set of four, went deeper than any version since Big Cypress.
