My Boston Weekend

it was very nice to head to boston to see my friends and phriends. hanging out with jon, laura, thea, jess, doug, and all the related company in the beautiful weather was a nice treat. having an old-school bbq was a nice treat. walking around the city was a nice treat. and going to fenway was a nice treat.

going to fenway to see phish was also a nice treat. seeing phish at fenway was the confluence of two of my favorite things: phish and baseball. there was a huge baseball vibe going through the park on sunday night, because, duh, we were in fenway! but we weren't there to see a baseball game, we were there to see phish, but boston being boston there was more red sox gear to be seen than heady tye-dye. significant phillies gear too, as was the case in hampton. so the baseball theme was strong. just sitting in the seats of fenway sends the feeling of baseball up your ass (in a good way). oddly enough, the most prominent feature of fenway, the green monster, was not to be felt at all because the stage was placed in front of it. fenway is just so special. as is phish.

its interesting seeing phish these days. the crowd is different. the music is still great. super high-energy. in enjoyed the first set. it was a nice way to get things started. sample was a safe opener. moma was a way to get some dancing going. the new song, oscelot, was interesting. need to hear it a few more times. stash was great to get started, but as with some of the other songs the ending felt a bit contrived (see: bowie, david). poor heart was a great highlight. one of things that makes phish phish and not some second-rate "jamband". no other band can drop styles like that, from funk to psychedelic to hippy-dippy to sweet bluegrass. that is classic phish. the other highlight of the first set was OBVIOUSLY destiny unbound. so far i've seen both post-'91 destinies. very few people knew what it was. it was an interesting juxtaposition: for the most part the crowd knew all the songs, with the exception of the new songs when all the newbies would sit and us old heads would stand and listen, but it was obvious that no one knew the song, whereas for destiny 95% of the crowd had no idea what it was so assumed it was a new song but the other 5% knew how rare destiny is and went nuts. it was fun being in that 5%.

the second set had some great parts to it, but went astray in some others. as i called at setbreak the second set would open up with a new song or something awesome, and with tweezer we got something awesome. but i thought the jam drifted. i did, however, like the new song "light". it had a more of an indie-rock feel to it than your typical phish song, and it sounded good. bathtub was great. i like the bathtub jam, very straightforward and felt right. i was psyched for bowie. i picked up on the high-hat and had to play the "bowie or maze" game. short intro. the bowie jam was great, as always, but i felt the end didn't work right. i can't quite figure it out, but they jumped the gun somehow on the end. came in too soon and rushed it so the end release wasn't as good as it could have been. time turns elastic is kinda sucky. the sections don't make much sense together and the song doesn't go anywhere. the older compositions had disparate sections too, but the songs actually went somewhere. TTE is just a jumbled mess of sections with no real big finish. but oh, well. from free to the end of the show was dy-no-mite! free was well played rock, but the real, real, real highlight treat was curtis loew. hasn't been played since 8/2/93 (no, i did not know that at the show but i knew that it hadn't been played in a long, long time). such a sweet tune and such a great treat. i told the dude next to me that after curits they were going to play either YEM or hood. YEM it was. dude was impressed. and the sweet, sweet encore. dude was again impressed that i knew the tweeprise was coming. people always forget the tweeprise, but it is the greatest way to close out a show. love the tweeprise.

so it was good. phish is back. summer tour is on.