Tour

if i wrote my tour in setlist-speak, it would look something like this (actual shows in bold):

I: new york>buffalo, delaware park, albright-knox museum, niagara falls, ft. niagara state park, darien lake>syracuse
II: syracuse>hartford>albany
III: albany>saratoga, boat on the lake, house party, saratoga racetrack, SPAC
E: 5 am wake-up, amtrak to new york

show thoughts
darien: lovely day. great venue. weird crowd. allow me to explain. first of all, i had a great spot surrounded by some great people, including a group i had spotted at niagara falls earlier in the day. that was typical phish: random interactions with random people that somehow work out. but the other people...the rest of the crowd was so weird. no one could stay in their place. the ENTIRE show people were walking back and forth through my spot. never before in my show going life have i EVER experienced anything like this before. normally after two or three songs people will settle down into their spot and their will be minimal movement, but that was not the case in darien. totally weird. the show itself was good. my first dinner & movie. the gin was kind of a wasted gin (tough to say, i know)....it didn't really go anywhere. "how high the moon" was a very nice tribute to les paul. the second set rift was spot-on. good show.

hartford: musically, i think this was the best of the bunch i saw. had AMAZING seats dead center in the second to last row of the shed. plenty of room to dance, great neighbors, and met up with a great group of old-school friends. first set was great, of course highlighted by my first forbin>mockingbird (was slightly upset about no narration, but beggars can't be choosers!). the musical highlight for me, aside from the aforementioned forbin>mockingbird, was the DWD>reba jam. just sublime. a mid-set slave is always a good time and rare treat. and, of course the closing ghost>psycho killer (is this the first time that a song played on the pre-show PA has been played during the same show?)>catapult>icculus>YEM was AWESOME. this was classic phish at its best. the 4 guys on stage having a great time, not taking themselves too seriously, and playing some killer music. the entire show felt like a 2009 version of a 8/93 show. the stash in the first set was monumental and the ensuing craziness was quintessential phish.

SPAC: another great show, right up there with hartford. probably the most smoking CTB i have ever heard. and, again, the second set was outstanding. my first FULL harpua! the "i kissed a girl" was another moment of crazy, wacky, zany phish. it was one of those "champagne supernova/gettin' jiggy with it/shine" moments. just perfect. the new songs were excellent and highway to hell was a great way to close it out.

one more thought about the tour. this is the first time that i have ever thought phish sounded like the grateful dead. i heard a little of it during the june shows, but this leg really cemented it for me. there is just something more jerry-like about trey's playing, not in his tone per se, but in his phrasing and in some of the setlist construction. gordo also sounded a lot like phil this tour, with his bass really cutting through the mix. excellent sounds. the repeats were also a little odd, but you will never see me complain about 2 bowies, antelopes, and possums in 3 shows. i guess in their attempt to be unpredictable, they have decided to play songs in back-to-back shows or closer together than ever before.

fantastic weekend. boating on the lake and going to the racetrack were also great. great weekend, great weekend, great weekend.

It Sounds So Sweet Played in the Right Key

for the first time since coventry, phish busted out "the curtain with". i've seen a few "curtains" but never a "curtain with". its the "with" that makes "the curtain" so super-sweet. my favorite "with" is from 5/25/88. other songs i would desperately like to cross off my list:

• forbin>mockingbird
• harpua (full version, with narration)
  
• peaches en regalia (a cover song, i know, but its part of the rotation)
• landlady (stand alone, not part of PYITE)
• BBFCFM
• dinner & movie
• esther

JB2

not as good as JB1, but still a good time. the weather is sure gonna be shitty tonight, which will either make for one hell of a show or one hell of a show!

i saw someone else comment on this over at mr. miner's page, but yes, i thought i heard a "jumpin' jack flash" jam in the middle of drowned. that would have taken the roof off the place (if there were a roof a JB).

JB1

jones beach really is a beautiful venue. situated right on the beach, it provides a wonderful setting to see a concert in. i also liked the setup with the grandstand rising in front of the stage instead of the traditional shed/hill setup of most outdoor amphitehaters. the increased elevation of the grandstand makes for a more intimate show.

the show itself was, IMO, MUCH better than fenway. the sound was certainly better and i was much closer to the action, which i think had a large part to do with it. but the music...the music was phenominal. a stand-alone, first set timber? are you kidding me? a cities (for the dude on the train who was singing it). reba. i thought possum would end the set...then i thought farmhouse would end it...but apparently, if i could was the closer! as great as it was to get if i could, i think they kinda lost the impact of the song, placing it where they did. the set was over, for all intents and purposes. if i could would have been much better placed before possum or somewhere else in the set where it could have fit the flow better, but whatever. im not complaining. i also wished they had done the more powerful "if i could i would" ending.

second set was great too. i thought the segue from wolfman>weekapaug was a little weird. for a moment i thought fishman was trying to get brother started, but it was weekapaug. harry was great. really went out there for a bit in the middle. the entire crowd actually stopped dancing and sat (stood) transfixed looking at the stage. it was a pretty cool moment. i would also have to say that fishman was really setting some great beats throughout the show. he created some really great grooves.

the two new songs were great. both have a great & approachable rock and roll vibe. and, as like some others have written, there is a new, more jerry-ish sound to some of these songs and trey's tone at points. my one criticism would be that the kill devil falls jam was a little too much like birds, and by that i mean the kill devil falls jam sounded EXACTLY like a birds jam. hopefully that will get worked out.

another thing about jones beach: best bathrooms ever. as great as the show was, the bathrooms were better. wide. clean. TONS of stalls. very well designed. really exceptional!

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.

Time Turns Elastic (first listen)

i will say one thing. the song has ENERGY! thats a good thing. its a bit more round room-y than it is old-school epic, but its a good way to make a statement that the phish from vermont is back.

fenway is a few days away. whoo-daddy!

5/3/93

another stellar setlist from 5/93. take a look:

05-03-93 State Theater, New Brunswick, NJ

1: Buried Alive, Rift, Weigh, Chalk Dust Torture, Esther, Split Open and Melt, Colonel Forbin's Ascent-> Famous Mockingbird, Possum, Lawn Boy, Cavern

2: AC/DC Bag-> The Curtain-> Tweezer-> Manteca-> Tweezer-> Contact, It's Ice-> McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters-> Runaway Jim-> Big Ball Jam, HYHU-> Love You-> HYHU, My Sweet One, Tweezer Reprise

E: Memories, Amazing Grace, Highway to Hell

wow! you can never go wrong with a burried alive opener. solid first set all around, including a forbin>mockingbird, one of the few song(s) i never saw. the second set, however, looks unreal. i mean, there is no room in there to breathe until love you. wow! they were on fire back then!

5/2/93

as part of my ongoing tribute to 5/93, here is the setlist for 5/2/93 which, like 5/1/93, was also played at the tower theater in philly. i've never heard this show, but i can only assume it was awesome. the second set looks especially sick with the llama>punch to open, followed by the YEM>lizards>BBJ, and you can ever go wrong with an antelope, HYHU>rosie and a rare set-closing creature.

05-02-93 Tower Theater, Upper Darby, PA

1: Axilla, Sparkle, The Divided Sky, Mound, Stash, The Horse-> Silent in the Morning, Poor Heart-> Maze, I Didn't Know, Golgi Apparatus

2: Llama-> Punch You in the Eye, You Enjoy Myself-> Lizards-> Big Ball Jam, Uncle Pen, Bouncing Around the Room-> Run Like an Antelope, HYHU-> Cracklin' Rosie-> HYHU, Big Black Furry Creature From Mars

E: Sleeping Monkey, Amazing Grace

5/1/93

today marks the 14th anniversary of 5/1/93 and marks the beginning of one of the best 7 show runs in phishistory, which laid the groundwork for the amazing 8/93 run just a few months later.

i really like '93, and especially 5/93 and 8/93 and 12/93. '93 had a really clean, crisp sound which progressed past the '92 sound and was the precursor to the '94 sound. in recent months, '93 has passed '97 as my favorite year in phish. the band was still on the rise and they were kicking ass and taking names. they still had their "old phish" chops but were beginning to push the boundaries of what was possible with their music. 5/1/93 was a perfect example of this.

the first set is standard '93 (which is not to mean ordinary or dull, but rather what could be expected for a first set) with a jim, foam, guelah, melt, fee, rift, sample, ice, glide, and bowie to close the set. everything you could want from a first set, the perfect mix of energy, jams, standards, and fun. the second set picks up right where the first let off with a chalkdust, fluffhead, my friend to open. i love '93 my friends when trey would play the intro on his acoustic then switch to the electric midway through. the acousic sounds excellent on the opening. my friend is followed by a coil, BBJ>comet>paul and silas (another '93 standout), but the real highlight is the mikes>great gig>weekapaug. the great gig is just awesome and totally unexpected, complete with fishman on the vacuum. a solid cavern to close the set and a carolina, rocky top encore sent the crowd home happy.

man, do i wish i could have been there, especially since the show was played at the tower theater in upper darby. fortunately, the tapes (i still call them tapes even though they are all on CD or in digital form now. XLII memories die hard) still exist for all of us to enjoy.

check it out.

05-01-93 Tower Theater, Upper Darby, PA

1: Runaway Jim, Foam, Guelah Papyrus, Split Open and Melt, Fee, Rift, Sample in a Jar, It's Ice, Glide, David Bowie

2: Chalk Dust Torture, Fluffhead, My Friend My Friend ,The Squirming Coil, Big Ball Jam-> Halley's Comet-> Paul and Silas-> Mike's Song-> Great Gig in the Sky-> Weekapaug Groove, Cavern

E: Carolina, Rocky Top

How Is Jerry The Most Lucid One?

the below video is from a CBS news documentary from 1967 about the haight-ashbury, the hippies, and the grateful dead. its a very interesting piece. there are a few revealing things i found:

1) the reporter accurately expresses the thoughts and concerns of mainstream america about the hippies. most of what he says is total BS, but from his perspective at the time, the hippie movement represented a big threat to the established order, so his concerns, from his point of view, were justified. again, even though most of what he talks about is complete BS, he does make some salient points about the hippie movement.
2) jerry was a very smart guy and had an unbelievable charisma about him. his personality jumps off the screen.
3) bob weir is a total fucking idiot.
4) i consider '67 dead to be in the second era of the dead (the first era was the acid test era. second era was '67-'69, third '70-'72, fourth '73-'74, fifth '75-'80, sixth '81-'86, seventh '87-'91, ninth '91-'95. these are just rough dates, but each era, to my ears, has a distinct sound), but even though the band was still in its infancy and had not yet reached the heights they would reach in '69, you can still hear the raw energy and power they possessed at the time. you can tell that they were destined for greatness, much in the same way that if you listen to phish in '87 or '88 (my favorite of those shows being 5/25/88) you get the same feeling.

enjoy!

Once And A While You Can Get Shown The Light In The Strangest Places If You Look At It Right

last night i was watching one of my favorite TV shows, 30 rock, when they cut to a scene of liz lemon (tina fey) and floyd (jason sudekis) standing in front of a particularly iconic red building in new york. i had to rewind the DVR to make sure i saw them correctly, but sure enough, there they were, standing on the corner of houston and lafayette, right in front of the puck building, which serves as the headquarters for the wagner school (the school i am going to next year).

the puck building

now, why is this significant, you ask? well, a few reasons. 1) it was cool to see them standing in front of puck. the puck building itself was one of the things that pushed my decision to attend NYU, so i felt some sort of validation that the crew of 30 rock felt that the building was significant enough to film in front of. 2) i was impressed with myself that in a post-kickball state of mind i was able to recognize the corner of lafayette and houston, one of the few corners in new york that i can officially say i recognize right now (the other would be the corner of 16th and 3rd, the home of the infamous joe jr.). 3) it got me excited for school again.

let me expand on #3 for a moment. its not that i have fallen out of excitement with school, its just that some of the initial gloss has rubbed off. school is no longer some sort of idyllic idea or concept. while it still represents a new beginning to me, i now have to deal with things like college loans (thank you, citibank), finding a place to live, finding a job, ect..., which makes school much more real and less a fantasy, which brings me back to the title of the post.

the title of the post comes from the grateful dead song "scarlet begonias". my apprehension about the real world implications of attending school were slightly abetted simply by reminding myself of the romantic vision i have of new york, and that i still have the capacity to view the city in such a way. i dont even remember what the characters were talking about, all i remember is that they were standing in front of the puck building. the building wasn't even the focus of the scene, it was simply in the background, but, in a way, i think that speaks volumes to the magic that is new york city, that buildings have their own magic and stories to tell and that every building has a different and special meaning to those who pass it by. to live your life in such an inspiring environment must surely be a treat.

i also found it amazing that yet again 30 rock was speaking to me, which is a strange thing to say about a sitcom. for whatever reason i really identify with this show, especially liz lemon (tina fey), which is even weirder when you consider that the show is a) a sitcom and b) lemon is female. i cant explain it. maybe tina fey is one of those artists that has the special capacity to speak to me directly, like the way i can identify with any klosterman book or any hopper painting or any pre 1998 phish.

enough rambling. its finally nice outside. soon i hope to expand this idea and talk more about why i like 30 rock so much and why i think that we are entering into a golden age of television, where some aspects of TV will bridge the gap between entertainment and art.

now if i could only find a way for this post to segue seamlessly into "fire on the mountain"...

Page Side

i would almost always sit page side. page side was the place to be. when phish was at its best, it wasn't all because of trey, but rather the chemistry trey had with mike and fishman, but especially page. listen to any show from '92-'97 and you will hear what i am talking about.

page has now moved on from phish and formed his own band and released his first true "solo" album (vida blue was more an ensemble performance). today, i came across this interview with the man. its a nice read, nothing terribly exciting or groundbreaking or earth-shattering or anything like that, but i did like this one quote in particular:

Oh, I’d absolutely be open to it [playing festivals] in the future, but at the same time I played the greatest festivals ever. It was just one band, and it was a lot of fun. So there is a little bit of the experience I’ve had going to other festivals where there are multiple bands with multiple stages, and sometimes I miss the singularity and the focus that we were able to give the fans with our festivals. We really made it fan-oriented. I know that a lot of other festivals try to do that.

amen, page, amen. phish festivals were the greatest festivals ever. could any other single band attract 75,000 maniacs to extreme northern maine, not once, not twice, but three times? could any other single band host 80,000 people in a swamp in florida or 60,000 people in plattsburgh, ny, or 55,000 in oswego, ny? i dont think so! those were some of the best times ever. thank you page. and jon. and mike. and trey.