Mr. Miner 1: Let’s call a spade a spade—that Summer Tour just wasn’t up to snuff. The band came out of the gates like a well-oiled machine, exhibiting patience and crafting thoughtful, developed jams, but their improvisation peaked at Randall’s Island. It’s kind of tough to call a tour a success when the best jams occured with three weeks left. and they never again reached that level. Trey’s patience—something praise-worthy over tour’s first two weeks—waned considerably and he got back to impatiently axing jams. I give him credit for laying back in the mix, but there is a point of diminishing returns. He is still the lead guitar player who’s leadership is crucial in the both the development and the realization of jams, and there was a serious lack of both in the second half of summer. After letting jams progress while sitting back, he rarely stepped up with strong ideas or leads in the back half of things to bring things to the top, often content to play rhythm for the duration. There were several stellar sets this shows this tour, especially towards the beginning, but the improvisation in the post-Randall’s segment of tour wasn’t on the same level, let alone the level of last summer or fall. This tour just didn’t feel like a progression to me.

Mr. Miner 2: This summer, they fully integrated their new material into their live show, found a place for most of it, while developing a new jam vehicle in “Fuego.” How could you not call that a progression? You always want new material and this summer Phish dropped a slew of it into place. In terms of improvisation, the band’s jams were more diverse than ever, and Trey’s willingness to lay back in the mix contributed to the many different sounds that were explored by the band this summer. It felt like a sort of a transitional tour to me, not just with the new material, but with an even more group-based, lead-less focus to the jams. Perhaps the lack of peaks or true jam development over the second part of tour was part of this approach, and once integrated, I have no doubt that the band will continue to play fully realized jams come Fall.

MM1: I hear that. This summer definitely felt like a transition, but looking at this summer alone, Trey’s willingness to sit back and not play lead for entire jams contributed to an unfinished and unrealized feel to many potentially huge summer excursions—even some of the tour’s better jams. Without Trey’s ideas bringing jams to a head, there was often a notable absence of leadership and many jams ended without truly having an ending. Perhaps the focus on the new material took away from a focus on improvisation, because I just don’t feel that the band was fully dialed in on too many nights after Randall’s Island. You had Chicago night three, the Charlotte/Merriweather weekend, Portsmouth night two and Orange Beach. That’s about it. That’s a lot of relatively average nights for Phish these days.

MM2: While many of this tour’s jams may not traditionally peak or resolve, perhaps that wasn’t the band’s focus this tour. Perhaps they were looking to explore as many sounds and directions as possible to see if they discovered something special. One can not argue against the incredible diversity of improvisation this tour, the band was devoted to exploration and on most nights came up with at least one gem if not two. Taking the tour at face value, its hard to say its not a success when the guys were able to cover so much ground while still integrating an album’s worth of new material into rotation. Perhaps it wasn’t their best tour musically speaking through and through, but I see this run as a step forward for Phish, even if they experienced some growing pains this summer.

MM1: Sure, when stepping back now that the tour is over and looking at it with a macro view, its easy to say that it could be a stepping stone to bigger things, both stylistically and improvisationally, but musically, I just don’t feel this tour holds as much weight as last summer or fall. The most impressive jams of tour are still the “Fuegos” and “Chalk Dusts” from early on, while there were certainly highlights along the way, there only a handful of jams that truly felt complete. I’m not saying the band wasn’t playing well—for the most part they were—but there were very few “IT” shows. There was a ton of B+ playing, but the A/A+ playing was few and far between. It was a good tour, it was an interesting tour, but not necessarily the band’s most powerful, if that makes sense.

MM2: But the first couple weeks were damn powerful and you can’t discount those shows just because they happened at the beginning of tour. Mansfield through Randall’s Island were amazing Phish shows with only a couple glitches among them in total. Those were special shows. Every tour has its own trajectory, and this one front-loaded the heat, there is no doubt about that. But there was a certain revitalization over Charlotte, Merriweather, Portsmouth night two and Orange Beach. So really, the lulls were only CMAC through the beginning of Chicago and the very end of tour. Really not all that bad, man.

MM1: I guess that is true, I just felt that those two lulls combined with such a drastic stylistic shift by Trey that left many jams feeling as “teasers” or “tasters,” combined to make the entire tour a bit of a disappointment. I have seen each tour as a musical progression throughout the modern era, and this one just didn’t feel like a significant step forward to me jam-wise. Though if looking at the first two weeks alone, I guess that’s not totally true. It was just the lack of ability to sustain that level of patience and playing that left a bad taste in my mouth. I do buy into the theory that Summer Tour could be part of a larger shift that will be realized during Fall Tour, but going through the shows night to night, the tour just felt a little thin to me,  a bit underwhelming. And Phish is not usually underwhelming.

MM2: While the tour doesn’t necessarily have an abundance of standalone timeless gems, Phish still threw down a fair amount of them and generally played stronger start-to-finish sets with better flow than we’ve come accustomed to in recent years. That, in itself, is a huge step forward. Did Trey cut off jams? Sure. It seems that will be a part of what happens as they try to keep things fresh this era, but the overall focus on flow kind of negated the ripcord effect, ya’ know?

MM1: I guess I’d rather have fully completed jams and a bit less flow than sacrificing musical realization for flow. I get it when they use two jams as one, such as the “Carini > Ghost” from Oak Mountain, but I’d rather hear one amazing jam and one less so, with less flow than two pretty good ones that flow. It’s all about those trasndendent moments to me, and there were notably few of those after Randall’s Island this summer, regardless of what else was happening in the show, flow or no flow, ya dig? For example, you don’t think of Toronto ’13 as a choppy second set, you remember the insane “Disease” jam that froze time and space. When we think to Merriweather night one, we will remember the impeccable flow, but at no point in that second set did the band absolutely break through. You know what I’m saying? The “Ghost” is awesome and the “Light” is the jam of the show, but we can’t pull a truly timeless gem from this set. I guess it’s a matter of what you prefer at some point. I’m in it for transcendence—the times when the band hooks up with their effortless flow and weaves magic out of thin air—and quite honestly, that didn’t happen all that often over tour’s final three weeks. And the band’s last two tours were drenched it IT.

MM2: Well, Chicago night three had timeless moments and Merriweather night two was pure magic. It certainly did seem that extra-special aura lacked a bit after Merriweather, however, with high-level outings only coming at Portsmouth night two and Orange Beach, and I’m not so sure those shows or jams reached the timeless plane, possibly Portsmouth’s “Fuego” or “Meatstick” and the Beach’s “Disease” though. But did you really expect much from the Southern run?

MM1: Right, I mean last summer ended up on the west coast and this one in Alabama. Set and setting certainly makes a difference. I am on board with Summer ’14 being a very good Phish tour and potentially part of a larger transition, but it just didn’t feel like the band reached the next level too many times, those types of jams where they hook up and never look back. At some point it is what it is, but when the band reinserts well developed and peaked jams into their beefier, more well-balanced sets, then things will feel just right again. Fall, here we come!

Phish returned to Summer Tour with a monster weekend comprised of two standout shows and one for the record books in the mid-Atlantic last weekend. Following a four-day break, the band has made a concerted effort to deliver the whole package each night to each audience and were successful on three consecutive nights to begin the second half of Summer Tour 2014. Phish certainly hit a stride with these performances and their fluidity has stepped to the forefront of their shows to compliment their already present jamming. Everything has now fallen into place and the guys are in the zone as they approach the final week of a tremendously successful run.

It became quickly apparent this past weekend in Charlotte and Merriweather, that Phish is serious about their segues again. I’m not sure what, if anything, transpired during the four day break, but the band came back firing off seamless transitions at almost every juncture. Beginning in Charlotte’s second set, the guys wove “Fuego” “Twist” and “When the Circus Comes to Town “ into a seamless suite of music. Even with all of the segues that transpired at Merriwether, the slyest of them all happened when the guys unsuspectingly transformed the “Twist” jam into the tour debut of Los Lobos’ “Circus.” A definitive musical segue with not a momentary glitch, this shift actually deserves consideration beyond just its all-tour status. The transitions continued to fly on the first night in Columbia as the band slithered through a second-set sequence of “Carini -> Ghost > Steam -> Mango” with notable flow. But this second-“leg” trend, though only three days old, came to an immediate head in Sunday’s retro segue-fest, the likes of which hasn’t showed its face in oh, about two decades! Bobbing and weaving in and out of songs with spontaneity and precision, the band treated the audience to an old-school affair in which the excitement generated was as much about what would happen next as it was about the music. Totally in the moment and having a blast, the band tore off countless segues, but the most seamless movement of the night came in the musical palindrome of “Free -> Tweezer -> Simple -> Tweezer -> Free.” Delivering three songs a single piece of music, the guys took the early-set mashup theme to a whole new level with this clever vignette. The entire vibe of a set changes when the band makes smooth transitions between songs, and one would expect this trend to continue through the south.

These artistic transitions helped contribute to the second Mid-Atlantic take away—Phish’s delivery of complete second sets. Though Summer Tour started out strong in this regard, the band’s set craftsmanship took a small dip after Randall’s Island. Phish began to bounce back in Chicago, specifically with their third-night performance, and continued this upward swing with these past three shows. With only one blemish in three main events (Charlotte’s harshly “Rift”-corded “Piper” jam), Phish’s second sets have not only been proficiently smooth, but exceptionally so. This arc was highlighted by Merriweather’s Saturday night performance in which the band threw down a bulletproof second frame. Each segue was considered and artistic, virtually every song contained a legitimate jam, and the entire set went off without hitch. Even Sunday’s wild ride was notably smooth as the band worked through countless shifts between songs and schticks. Phish’s sense of the moment—one of their defining characteristics throughout their career—has returned in full this summer, and no performance illustrates this more than Sunday’s unforgettable affair. The best versions of Phish instinctually know when to pull back and when to push things far over the edge, surfing the energy of the crowd and the moment as well as any performers in history. Sunday night’s show at Merriweather showed us that, even while pushing age 50, the guys can still blend their musical acumen with their sense of the absurd to craft a wacky though virtuoso ride through a unique universe called Phish.

And don’t look now, but two of the weekend’s three first sets were great too! Both Charlotte’s and Sunday night Merriweather’s opening frames popped with energy and musicality. Friday’s first set featured powerful versions of crowd favorites including “Mike’s Song,” “Back on the Train,” “Weekapaug,” “Possum,” “Tube” and “David Bowie,” as well as a quality version of “Wingsuit” and the most improvised “Winterqueen” to date. This amounted to a virtual non-stop barrage of serious Type I jamming throughout Charlotte’s opening set. Sunday’s first frame contained legitimate improvisational highlights in “Curtain (With),” “Sand” and “You Enjoy Myself” and also derived energy through the rarities of “Fee,” “My Sweet One” and “Saw It Again.” On each night, as the setbreak lights came on, one felt like he had already been through a legitimate musical experience, and in the modern era of Phish shows, that makes all the difference.

Meanwhile, the jams have continued to roll. This weekend’s improvisational Dean’s List has two tiers. The first is headed up by Charlotte’s “Chalk  Dust Torture” and Merriweather’s “Tweezer” while also featuring Saturday’s “Ghost” “Light” and Sunday’s “NICU.” The second tier includes Merriweather’s “Carini,” “Harry Hood,” and Charlotte’s late-set “Reba.”

As we turn to the final five shows of tour, Phish has their feet solidly under them and the creative faucet locked in the on position. They certainly seem like a band that is primed to slaughter the south in a victory lap of a successful summer tour. Crushing it night after night creatively and consistently, and having the time of their lives, this is Phish live without a net and in their prime once again. Or simply put—this is Phish en fuego.

Phish’s three-night stand at Northerly Island in Chicago was a mixed bag. Although the shows featured a handful of standout jams and shined in short stints, they simultaneously suffered from choppiness, a lack of flow and missed opportunities. “Wombat,” “Light,” “Harry Hood,” and “Ghost” stood up to any jams played this tour, and “The Wedge,” “Piper,” “Golden Age” were not far behind, but only the run’s final frame could make any true case for cohesion. Trey’s jumpiness that was largely absent during tour’s opening two weeks returned over the third, and his inability to commit to jams contributed to some lost potential throughout the three nights. The Chicago shows were certainly not bad, but they were most definitely several steps behind the fluid performances of early-tour to which we quickly got acclimated.

Some Good Points

Friday—Amidst a bumpy second set on Friday, Phish managed to squeeze out one incredible jam in “Wombat,” and two highlight stretches in “Golden Age” and “Piper.” The set kicked off with “Golden Age,” a jam that has consistently attained “B” level outings in its career, but has never sprung into that upper echelon. The Chicago version would follow this pattern, as the guys engaged in a lively conversation in groove, but never pushed the jam to the next level before entering a denouement of ambient noise and seeping into “Mango Song.” The “Pipers” of 2014 have stuck to the high-paced, frenetic jam palette that characterizes most versions, though the Chicago version had a twist. After a hard-edged sequence that got into some engaging textures, the band reached a juncture in which they could have easily dissolved into another song, but they pushed through the quasi-awkward moment and came out the other side with an infectious mid-tempo groove. Just as the piece was elevating, Trey layered the lyrics of “Halley’s Comet” over the groove and the place went nuts over the all-but-seamless segue.

The jam of the night, however, came in “Wombat.” Placing the quirky Fuego piece in the second set, Phish completely blew out its jam into a profound improvisational excursion. Trey provided a signpost lick amidst the funk, and the band dutifully followed, taking the exercise far beyond groove and into a wide-open space. Morphing into a piece of free-form improv, the band crafted a moving soundscape that Trey navigated with a blissful sensibility. Though they had played some solid jams in this set, everything clicked during “Wombat” and the band set sail on a more timeless journey into the unknown.

Saturday—Phish salvaged Saturday night’s performance with two jaw-dropping jams in the fourth quarter of the show—“Light” and “Harry Hood.” An uneventful first half of the set gave way to a table-setter version of “Twist” that saw the band engage in the tightest improvisation to that point in the night. Using this momentum, they launched into “Light” with enthusiasm, and the night’s first open jam was upon us.  And what a jam it was! Standing up to any piece of tour, the band coalesced into an avant-garde experiment in astral jazz that brought echoes of Randall’s Island “Chalk Dust Torture.” Fishman’s fluttery, cymbal-heavy beats provided the backbone for the band’s course from groove into abstraction. This intricate and ever-darkening exchange was characterized by the advanced, cerebral jamming on display in Summer Tour’s most impressive pieces, and now we can add Chicago’s “Light to this growing list.

The second stunning takeaway from Saturday night came in the set-closing “Harry Hood.” Phish had pushed every single “Hood” this summer out of structure and into an open jam, and Chicago’s would be the fifth such consecutive version. Each 2014 “Hood” has also been incredibly diverse, and while this one started in traditional territory, it wasn’t long before the guys had seamless morphed into a rootsier, bluesy feel reminiscent of the Grateful Dead. For a few moments, in fact the rhythmic shuffle of the jam resembled the structure of “Not Fade Away.” The beauty of this piece was just how far away the band got from the traditional sounds of “Harry Hood,” and how effortlessly they left and returned to the song’s theme. And the peak they hit before making the turn for home is something to behold! Notch another huge victory for Summer ’14 “Harry Hoods,” as the classic song is the leading candidate for MVP of tour as we hit the midway point.

Sunday—Much like Saturday’s performance, Phish succeeded in saving the show in the 11th hour with two very creative late-set jams out “The Wedge” and “Ghost.” Midway through the second set, it seemed that Troy had turned on cruise control with the run of “Winterqueen,” “Theme,” “Mike’s Song” and “The Wedge.” But just as the “Wedge” was set to end, the band modulated into a surprise jam! Phish took a couple minutes to find its way in this jam, as they hadn’t truly hooked up all night. But after some searching, things fell into place as Trey happened upon the chord progression shared by Guns N Roses’ “Paradise City” and REO Speedwagon’s “Keep It Rolling,” and the jam absolutely took off! (Seeing that Trey was in his 23 when “Paradise City” dropped in 1987, I have little doubt as to which song he was playing, but nobody can truly know without confirmation as the songs are nearly identical.) The band must have gained some confidence through this soaring sequence, because when “The Wedge” ended, they dropped into “Ghost.”

One of the notable things about 2014’s standout jams has been their utter originality in sound and direction, and Chicago’s “Ghost” fell in line with this pattern. Within a moment of entering the jam, Mike and Fish charted a coarse with a drone, repetitive pocket that pulled the jam into a completely fresh, psych-based sound. Trey never played lead in this jam—another trend of the Chicago shows—and as a result its vibe leans towards an art rock sound sculpture rather than a traditional Phish jam. As Trey focused on tonal color and sound effects during this “Ghost,” Page stepped up and offered lead piano lines over the dissonant canvas. This jam stood out immediately for its diversion from the norm and its eclectic sound, and it certainly represents one of the top few pieces from Northerly Island. A fiery, tease-ridden “Weekapaug” closed out another show-salvaging sequence.

Some Bad Points

Second Set Openers—Over the first weeks of tour, Phish front-loaded the second set with centerpiece jams and jam pairings that made for powerful and extended chunks of improvisation. In Chicago, however, the band threw down three fairly standard second set openers that hurt the flow to the second sets right off the bat. Friday’s “Golden Age” was the most impressive second set opener of the run, but even so, it never progressed into something more than a funk jam and the band deflated their own momentum with a “Mango Song” in the second slot. Saturday’s “Carini” seemed primed to explode, but the band couldn’t hook up once they reached open waters and Trey pulled the string for “Waves” before anything truly developed. The band went on to play standard versions of “Waves” and “Fuego,” leaving us half way through the second set before they took an upward turn with “Twist.” Phish gave it a solid effort with Sunday night’s “Disease,” hitting some cool groove textures within the jam, but they were never able to find that one idea to develop and give the jam a direction. Although it featured some cool interplay in the erstwhile, this “Disease,” though serviceable, was largely unsuccessful and easily the fourth out of the four version played this summer. Trey determined that they weren’t finding anything worthwhile and moved on “Winterqueen” in a place where something heavier-hitting would have been more appropriate.

Choppiness and TreyDD—One of the glaring lacks of the Chicago show was natural, set-long flow. Part of this had to do with the aforementioned lack of beefy improv at the front of the second sets, but another part of it seemed to do with Trey’s jumpiness and lack of focus. Both “Carini” and “Disease” could have pushed beyond their transitional junctures, but Trey’s patience and willingness to maintain through adversity just wasn’t there. Perhaps he didn’t feel anything would develop, and that call is resepectable, but there is no arguing that the moves into “Waves” and “Winterqueen” were moments of deflation.

On each night, Trey made the call to follow up set-opening jams with compositions instead of assembling strong and more customary 1-2 combos. This created an up and down contour to sets and the solid 30 to 40 minute improvisational sequences that kicked off most east coast sets were sorely missed. On Friday night, Trey pulled a harsh ripcord in the middle of “Sand” that brought the band into “Piper,” but certainly jarred the crowd and the set’s flow. “Piper” then segued smoothly into “Halley’s Comet.” At this point, Phish had the crowd in the palm of their hands as the audience anticipated the first “Halley’s” jam in three years. This slowed down version was primed for a second-set explosion, but as the piece reached the beginning of the jam, the band all but stopped playing and Trey bailed out with an awkward transition into “Wombat.” Ouch—that was like a punch in the nuts.

Saturday’s second set simply had nothing going on until a mid-set “Twist,” a dynamic not dissimilar to Sunday’s show that struggled until “The Wedge.” In each of these sets, the band just kept the songs rolling until they felt comfortable to take one out. (In all fairness, they tried with “Disease,” but it just didn’t get there.) And with the type of first sets that the band has been playing these days—tasteful but largely uneventful—these voids left us with almost two and a half hours until something truly popped off on either of the last two nights. And that’s just too long. Perhaps it took the band that long to connect in both these shows, but the flow and contour of each had been irreparably damaged in each case. Though two stellar late set jams can save a performance, it’s tough to pull that off two days in a row.

All in all,

Phish’s run at Northerly Island contained several highlight jams, but the shows never transcended and became more than the sum of their individual parts. If these Chicago shows happened the weekend before the east coast shows, they would have made a lot more sense, but after Phish set the bar incredibly high during the first two weeks of tour, they have struggled to play an entire show, and more specifically, an entire second set with the focus and artistry they displayed early on. Now, as the band looks to the second half of tour, they have eight shows in which to correct their course and to ultimately determine the legacy of Summer Tour 2014.

I: 555, Kill Devil Falls, Bouncing Around the Room, Reba, Waiting All Night, Birds of a Feather, Halfway to the Moon, Sparkle, Sample in a Jar, A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing, Stash, The Squirming Coil

II: Golden Age > The Mango Song, Sand > Piper -> Halley’s Comet > Wombat > Chalk Dust Torture, Slave to the Traffic Light

E: Julius

***

I: The Moma Dance, Wolfman’s Brother, Devotion To a Dream, 46 Days, Yarmouth Road, Brian and Robert, Wingsuit, Tube, Free, Roggae, Heavy Things, Run Like an Antelope

II: Carini > Waves > Fuego, Twist > Light > Twenty Years Later, Harry Hood, Cavern

E: Grind, Bug, Suzy Greenberg

***

I: Gumbo, Runaway Jim, Tela, The Line, Scent of a Mule, Bathtub Gin, Silent in the Morning, Maze, Ocelot, Walls of the Cave

II: Down with Disease > Winterqueen, Theme From the Bottom, Mike’s Song > The Wedge, Ghost -> Weekapaug Groove, First Tube

E: Character Zero