Phish has only played three shows on December 10th since 1992. The 10th was an off day for the Fall tours of ’95 and ’97, while the band played in Kalamazoo in 1992, Santa Monica, California to close out Fall ’94, and a stumbled through a rather off night in Philadelphia in ’99. So instead of going with December 1oth jams today and in the interest of sticking with the numerology theme, today we turn our attention to the “Top Ten Moments in December History at The Worcester Centrum” (now affectionately known the DCU Center). With two more New Year’s Run shows at “The Centrum” around the corner, let’s look back at the best Phish had to offer in their December visits of ’93 and ’95.
Perhaps the most cathartic moment in Phish’s midnight history, the genius debut of “Down With Disease’s jam” was followed by a crushing version of “Split Open and Melt” to kick off the New Year. Here is a newly-remastered upgrade from Kevin Shapiro’s most recent “Live Bait” compilation!
A classic jam sequence that easily grabs top billing.Pure fire.
Phish has only played three shows on December 10th since 1992. The 10th was an off day for the Fall tours of ’95 and ’97, while the band played in Kalamazoo in 1992, Santa Monica, California to close out Fall ’94, and a stumbled through a rather off night in Philadelphia in ’99. So instead …
Carrying Friday’s focus into the weekend, here are two more complete shows from August ’93. Once I get the archive caught up (hopefully next week,) most of August, and much of July will be available for download in one place. Until then, enjoy a couple more from this phenomenal era.
I: Wilson, Llama, Guelah Papyrus, The Divided Sky, Weigh > Maze, Fluffhead, Fast Enough for You, Daniel Saw the Stone
II: 2001 > David Bowie, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, Rift, Suzy Greenberg, You Enjoy Myself> Purple Rain > Hold Your Head Up, My Sweet One, Cavern
DOWNLOADS OF THE WEEKEND: Carrying Friday’s focus into the weekend, here are two more complete shows from August ’93. Once I get the archive caught up (hopefully next week,) most of August, and much of July will be available for download in one place. Until then, enjoy a couple more from this phenomenal era. ***** …
In interviews these days, Phish consistently discusses the importance of striking a balance in their lives during this era of their career. Combining Phish, families, side-projects, and some down time, the band members, thankfully, seem to be prioritizing personal sustainability in round three. But this is not the way it always worked. For the first decade plus of their career, Trey, Fish, Mike and Page dedicated their entire beings to the entity of Phish. Virtually every waking hour was spent pushing, practicing, and refining their skills. Phish, unquestionably, represented the most important facet of their lives. Notoriously intense practices and improvisational exercises drove the band’s single-minded musical communication, as they lived, ate, and breathed Phish 24 hours a day. And when listening to their sublime musical output during their first massive peak of Summer ’93, one can hear the hours of intense dedication; one can hear the complete and total focus on the mastery of their music; one can actually hear their burning desire for excellence.
Laguna Seca Daze – 5/93
The summer of 1993 represented a crucial phase in Phish’s development. After touring the summer circuit in 1992 as an opening act for Santana, in ’93 the band began headlining larger amphitheatres, themselves. At the same time, Phish sought to distance themselves from the first wave of “jambands” with whom they co-billed a couple of July’s H.O.R.D.E. tour stops. At this time, the music industry grouped, and often dismissed, Phish with other neo-hippie acts such as Blues Traveler, Aquarium Rescue Unit, The Spin Doctors, and Widespread Panic. But combining a youthful exuberance with a dedication and passion rarely seen in modern music, Phish forged ahead, breaking down boundaries of live music. Ensuring that every night provided a wholly different experience for their fans, the band held themselves to rigorous standards, playing with a life-or-death urgency every time they hit the stage. All the while, Phish shows grew more adventurous then ever before; the music began to take on a life of its own.
Durham, NH – 5.8.93
The intense drive that Phish possessed in this era never wavered, in large part, due to their lack of distractions. Not yet rock stars on any level, the totality with which the band dedicated themselves to their craft crossed the line of obsession, and simply became part and parcel of who they were as people. Yet to marry or to start families, Phish – the band – was, without a doubt, the singular, most important entity in any of their lives – and it showed. Over the previous four years, they played 532 gigs – an average of 133 per year – and going into Summer ’93, Phish carried the momentum of a torrid four-month winter/spring tour that had ended only a month before. Add that run to the scorching year of 1992 in which they played 121 shows, and the band had a full head of steam. While their early years fostered the band’s burgeoning virtuosity, Phish sat on the brink of Summer ’93, primed and ready for their first massive musical peak of their career.
The band displayed drill-bit focus and overwhelming creativity throughout the summer, resulting in nothing less than superlative, transcendent improvisation all season long. With their roots firmly planted in both the jazz and rock traditions, Phish crafted sublime, original music nightly, launching into vastly different universes with nearly every jam. One simply didn’t know where the music would travel each time out of the gate; their improv had zero predictability. Similar songs got different treatments on different nights, as the band explored completely divergent musical territory. The meticulous musical conversations that characterized this tour were indicative of the telekinetic connection, and unity of purpose, the band members felt at this stage of their lives. Jumping into the void multiple times per night and playing with calculated vigor, Phish locked into each others’ ideas and responded to them subconsciously, playing with a style of wizardry that would dissipate in their later years of groove to the chagrin of many fans.
Laguna Seca Daze – 5/93
During this summer, Phish sounded like they were playing for their lives every time they hit the stage, and essentially, that is exactly what they were doing. On the verge of breaking from of the pack of H.O.R.D.E-style bands, Phish dedicated the entirety of their lives to making Phish the craziest live experience and most enticing music in the scene. The scintillating surreal adventures that characterized their entire tour, solidified Phish as the preeminent force in improvisational rock. With fewer jam vehicles in their catalog than later days, each time out, songs grew more unique, moving away from previous incarnations and into uncharted domains. Open, or type II, jamming became the norm rather than the exception, as Phish explored all corners of the musical cosmos with white-hot intensity.
Also of significance,The Grateful Dead kept on truckin’ during 1993, leaving the Phish community protected from the masses with a youthful innocence that would be lost come Fall ’95. Summer ’93 still held a certain intimacy, like everyone shared a secret from the rest of the world, and secret power of Phish. Possessing shining skill sets and incredible enthusiasm, while constricted by few other cares in their lives, the band, themselves, raged Phish harder than ever before. The band never came out flat or careless. Each time they performed, the show immediately transformed into the most important event in the world, and this relentlessness pushed and pulled their musical exploits into fantastically ludicrous, mind-expanding planes. The psychedelic unknown became the defining quality of their improvisation; one took the leap of faith with Phish each time a jam dropped, trusting that whatever mania ensued, the band would, eventually, lead the way home. Giving oneself to this experience held a different meaning when there was no predictability where the music would go.
While Phish played outstanding shows throughout July, in August 1993, Phish achieved one of their all-time peaks. Alongside other career high-points of April ’92, June and November ’94, December ’95 and November / December ’97, and December ’99; August ’93 possessed a separate musical quality all to itself. Boiling down to hunger, desire, and stretching the possibilities of live music, Phish absolutely annihilated their two-month, bi-coastal jaunt. Every show during August contains genuinely outlandish moments of improvisation, pieces that one must hear to believe and digest. Providing a portrait of Phish at one of their highest musical mountaintops, Summer ’93, though seeming like ancient history, lives on 17 years later through memories, recordings, and in the hearts, minds, and souls of the Phish community.
To honor this incredible summer and the exploits within, I have compiled “Miner’s Picks: August ’93.” Because Phish had less vehicles in their repertoire at the time, I have split up the compilation into two “sets,” each with similar songs. (I left out the LivePhish releases (Murat, Tinley Park) for which I only have the official SBDs.) These selections paint a vivid, six-hour picture of a band centered in the moment, while careening towards the future. It’s truly an era that is not to be forgotten.
The “Stash” and “Tweezer” were worth the price of admission alone.
I: Sample in a Jar, All Things Reconsidered, Caravan, Runaway Jim, Fee, Paul and Silas, Stash, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird, Chalk Dust Torture
II: Rift, Tweezer, The Lizards, The Landlady, Bouncing Around the Room, Maze, Glide, Sweet Adeline, Ginseng Sullivan, Nellie Kane, Free Bird
E: Harry Hood
Source: Unknown
In interviews these days, Phish consistently discusses the importance of striking a balance in their lives during this era of their career. Combining Phish, families, side-projects, and some down time, the band members, thankfully, seem to be prioritizing personal sustainability in round three. But this is not the way it always worked. For the first …
Without a fall tour in 1993, fans were ready and waiting for December’s New Year’s Run. Salivating since a scintillating summer circuit, everyone filled with joy for the holiday season with. The epic shows on the 30th and 31st have been posted on this site, but these are the two gigs that led up to the climactic end of the year. Hitting up Washington, DC and New Haven, CT before heading north, Phish was still in the days of four-city Holiday Runs. Enjoy the relics. (Due to being away from home, torrents won’t be available until I get back on Monday.)
I: Runaway Jim, Peaches en Regalia, Foam, Glide, The Divided Sky, Wilson, Sparkle, Stash, The Squirming Coil
II: Maze, Bouncing Around the Room, Fluffhead, Run Like an Antelope, Contact, Big Black Furry Creature From Mars > Walk Away > Big Ball Jam > HYHU > If I Only Had a Brain > HYHU, Sweet Adeline, Chalk Dust Torture
One of the occasional beasts to rise from “Yamar,” this played to the sunset in Austin during the summer of’98.
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VIDEO OF THE WEEKEND:
“Stash” jam Red Rocks, 7.30 I
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DOWNLOADS OF THE WEEKEND: Without a fall tour in 1993, fans were ready and waiting for December’s New Year’s Run. Salivating since a scintillating summer circuit, everyone filled with joy for the holiday season with. The epic shows on the 30th and 31st have been posted on this site, but these are the two gigs …
Sixteen years ago today, Phish was in Columbus, Ohio playing the second show of a two night stand approaching the end of their Spring 1993 tour. The setting was the ornate Newport Music Hall, and one of the jams from this show would live on forever as a part of Phish history. The band busted into “Split Open and Melt” as the third song of the second set, and soon engaged in some incredibly compelling improvisation. The jam stood out to the band so much, that they decided to bring it into the studio.
Most everyone is familiar with Phish’s 1994 official release, Hoist. The last track on this album, “Demand,” is a brief musical poem with elusive meaning, ending with the lyric “Driving home to Mom and Dad / To spend a weekend with no cares.” Then, as the music ends, we hear someone get into a car, shut the door and pop in a cassette tape. As the subject starts the engine, we hear a ridiculously ripping “Split Open and Melt” jam playing in the fictional car. And here is where our stories intersect- that jam after “Demand” was plucked directly from our show in Columbus sixteen years ago. The car drives off to the soundtrack of the intensely building jam until we hear it crash, giving way a layered live mix of “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav,” and thus ending the album. Creating a sonic collage, and juxtaposing their stripped down studio work with their layered live psychedelia, Phish clearly chose this jam with intent. On its anniversary, let’s take a look back at a jam so utterly breathtaking that the band decided to add it to an album.
At the onset of their 1993 “speedjazz” era, Phish engaged this “Split” jam like a lioness attacking an innocent zebra, proceeding to tear it to shreds. This was a time where jams didn’t take time to settle, but started, earnestly, before the lyrical refrain even ended. Trey’s licks began firing early and often as Page was all over the piano like a madman- both being held together by a lightning quick groove. Fish and Gordon provided the super-glue for this stunningly tight musical conversation. Trey’s licks became more condensed, often referred to as his “machine gun” playing, as his guitar acrobatics pushed the jam forward. This amphetamine-laced music was led by Trey’s absolutely shredding guitar; far moreso than later Phish. Moving at such a break-neck pace, this was the day where Phish left your jaw on the floor in a wholedifferent way.
Building the momentum of the jam behind Gordon’s strapping basslines and Fish’s masterfully absurd beats, Trey progressed from notes to screams of tonal terror, creating a terrifying balls-to-the-wall soundtrack to an intense sci-fi movie. The band slaughtered this jam, all four at once, like four lionesses shredding that poor zebra until there was nothing left. Trey’s dissonant wails led the mission, as the band tore through the jungle, never missing a collective hit amidst the maddening psychedelia. Mike’s playing was equally impressive as he molded basslines to complement the melodic themes while also leading the insane rhythm. Page’s piano work was that of a true jazz player, using his instrument to achieve a drone effect in the jam while simultaneously playing dizzying right-hand lines. This was a piece of improv where all four members absolutely clicked during an era when the result was completely mind-bending, “can -you-handle-this” type of music.
Mike has referenced this jam as a moment where the band “got it” and figured out what they were trying to do musically. It is no coincidence that after this spring tour in 1993, which finished only two weeks later, Phish went on to crush Summer ’93; a tour that is still revered to this day as the epitome of an era. Taking Mike at face value, this “Split” jam- sixteen years ago today-kick-started one of the most well loved eras in Phish history.
Here is the complete show in which this famous “Split” was performed. A classic show of Spring ’93, this one was definitely a high point of the tour. On-point jamming characterized this evening and it featured many other highlights beyond “Split,” including a raw “Mike’s Groove” at the end of the night.
I: Buried Alive, Poor Heart, Foam, Guelah Papyrus, Maze, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent > Famous Mockingbird, Rift, Punch You in the Eye, I Didn’t Know, Run Like an Antelope
II: Possum, Mound, Split Open and Melt, The Squirming Coil, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, Big Ball Jam, Mike’s Song > Great Gig in the Sky > Weekapaug Groove, Gumbo
E: Sweet Adeline, Cavern
Source: Unknown
Sixteen years ago today, Phish was in Columbus, Ohio playing the second show of a two night stand approaching the end of their Spring 1993 tour. The setting was the ornate Newport Music Hall, and one of the jams from this show would live on forever as a part of Phish history. The band busted …
