Everyone’s had a full week to digest the Phish New Year’s Eve run, arguably a “standard” Phish affair with no major surprises but an undeniably fun four-nights in NYC for a ton of lucky music fans. That’s a great way to kick off a new year no matter what, and we’re psyched to be kicking off our new year here at LMB with a proper Phish Friday post. Let’s round up some videos and hang out this afternoon…
I chose the first 10 that come to my mind from the run after digesting the entire run; some of this I watched real-time but I generally wasn’t fully engaged on the entire Couch Tour, so take my opinion and notes as a quick mental dump / recap about the four nights. Many others have tackled this run in hella detail. And I should note that we’re avoiding the “full” review of these shows given the fact that my crew didn’t want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. It was hard to digest in a few ways, but all of them agreed it was fun and well worth a review to focus on the higlights only. Let’s dig in… READ MORE
I remember the first time I heard the audience recordings from the Trey Anastasio performance with the New York Philaharmonic back in September, 2009, because it was one of the rare moments when you’re chilling by yourself on a Sunday morning in front of your laptop and you stumble into a piece of music or moment captured from the stage that gives you straight-up chills. When I skipped ahead promptly to hear about Trey put together “You Enjoy Myself” with the symphony, I was more than pleased and grinned largely as I strained to listen through the recording hiss, which was easily overwhelmed when you hear the audience react to the “jam.” Such a masterful rendition of a song so many of us have only heard or wished to see in such a dramatic juxtaposition from the setting in which the recording originated.
And this video posted today on YEMblog only further solidifies how hard this hit the audience that night:
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In case you missed it, Phish dropped a little nugget (only 35 minutes worth) of a preview from the Hampton/Winston-Salem ’97 release that’s due out in December. The 7-CD box set is bound to get tons of airtime on this here blog as the band’s team continues to feed us bloggers with little treats to share with the rest of the fans. They put out a ton of previews when the Live in Utica and Coral Sky DVDs were put out.
And for the first teaser from the box set, the band put out the insane “Mike’s Groove” opener from the second night of Hampton from the run…
MP3: Phish – “Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove” (11/22/97 Hampton, VA)
That moment they start to hit on around 13:00 minutes, arguably the early discoveries of sonic force that would become moments like “What’s the Use?” — man, that is the good stuff. This is a must-download.
Happy Friday, dudes.
Coming off the 1st Annual Anniversary yesterday of one of the better Phish shows from 2010, the October 20th show at Utica Memorial Auditorium in upstate NY (the famed “Guyutica” set), we’re pleased to announce we’ve got a copy of the Phish: Live in Utica 2010 DVD to give away to one of our lucky readers! READ MORE
Photo by Dave Vann, Phish.com
Another week in autumn has passed and sure enough, beginning in Charleston (and especially last Saturday to these ears), Phish has shifted gears in a forward direction. Setlist-wise, they are throwing in variation along with spontaneity, and playing-wise, they’re creating a really exciting time for the new and old in all of us. If Phish somehow didn’t impress you in the South, Augusta held the momentum and even took it up a notch. The band weaved the Rolling Stones classic, “Torn & Frayed” in a first set that complimented a spirited “Gin” and “46 Days.” With the second set “FYF” opener and a “Mike’s Groove” lacking in any H2 but heavy in “F”‘s, combined with a “Light” to rival the Greeks’ opus from three months earlier, it’s a standout must hear set. Go listen. Right now. READ MORE
10/15 & 10/16 - Poster by Ames Bros © Phish 2010.
A few quick updates on this Phriday because show time is upon us!
First up, The Phish from Vermont tackle the only southern portion of this brief fall tour @ North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, SC this evening. After the mixed results in Broomfield, this Friday/Saturday combo of shows could and should provide a great setup for the final nine Northeast shows. Over @phishnet, some fans have started a campaign on Twitter to #continuethemeatstick. When the lights go out, start the chorus…
Second, this great video interview of Trey Anastasio discussing being a musician (and glowstick wars of all things) just dropped on the net. I’ve heard this is part of few interviews for an upcoming film entitled, MUSIC. A very worthy watch.
Third, we can’t go too long in a Phish piece without referencing Halloween. Coming off Trey’s recent comments in LA Times that they band is definitely practicing for a musical costume, our friends over @dogoneblog highlighted an interesting excerpt from a 2004 Jan/Dec Issue of Relix Magazine. In the past, Trey’s choices have been Brian Eno’s Another Green World & Bob Dylan & The Band Basement Tapes. Hmmmm…
Lights go down any minute, and the crowd is already singing “Meatstick.” COUCH TOUR 2010!
After a few weeks off from Phish Friday, I’m back at you with the second and final installment of historic Phish bust-outs. Which perhaps begs the question, why do we even care about bust outs? Well, for a rabid community that follows their band’s every move and mulls over every statistic with encyclopedic knowledge, the bustout carries larger than normal amounts of significance — something communal that both the band and their fans can acknowledge is a BIG EFFING DEAL. As Adam Scheinberg so eloquently put it in his Phish.net blog post earlier this month:
Most people won’t agree ..[on]…the “best” jams, but certainly, no one will argue that a bustout is a bustout when a song returns from dormancy. So it’s a common ground, easy for fans and the band to agree on, that makes an event unique and therefore, special. Harpua will always be the sign of a show we’ll remember, but that doesn’t mean we’ll all be listening to it on repeat.
So true. To use Adam’s example, the 7/29/03 Harpua wasn’t all that well executed, but you better believe I was on cloud nine and high fiving everyone around me while they were playing it. Yes, bustouts aren’t always musically appealing, and they sure as hell won’t contain the hose or IT, but they almost always automatically up the ante in the heat of the moment at a show. Sometimes they’re the gravy on an already killer set, and sometimes they can redeem a show without too much else going for it, but whatever the case, it’s always a huge jolt.
And so with that sentiment at heart, I tried to pick the 15 Phish originals that were some of the most special moments and reintroductions to old favorites (and not-so-favorites) in the band’s history. Again, I picked and ranked these 15 selections by my own subjective sense of overall quality, which I’ve defined with a patented scientific algorithm consisting of the length of the gap since the song was last played, and the importance/significance of the bustout to the band and its audience. So without further adieu… READ MORE
With the recent Phish.net blog post on bust-outs, it seemed fitting that we were already preparing a two-part Phish Friday series on bust-outs ourselves. My thoughts on this setlist categorization and their significance will be included in next week’s edition in which we’ll focus solely on Phish originals, but for today’s first part in the series we’re presenting the 10 Most Significant Phish Cover Song Bust-Outs.
Note: Let it be known that I don’t consider a tune a “bust-out” if it was performed once, whether it’s a cover or a very rare Phish original (e.g. “Glide II”). For me, a bustout is exactly what the word implies: a song that had been played at least once before a long time ago and then the band decided to bring it back. (My sincere apologies to the “Terrapin Station” on 8/9/98). Also, I picked and ranked these 10 selections in order of overall quality, which I’ve defined with a patented scientific algorithm consisting of the length of the gap since the song was last played, how well the song fits in with the rest of the show, and the importance/significance of the bust-out to the band and its audience.
Here are the Top 10:
Sure, Fish might have botched the lyrics, but after three years since the previous version can you really blame him? This killer Deer Creek show also featured the first “Whipping Post” in 207 shows. Sadly, since Prince is well-known to be extremely protective of his songs, this Fishman vacuum classic might be a thing of the past in the 3.0 LivePhish era.
When Phish opened their Burgettstown show with only the second “Daniel” in a decade, few in attendance probably saw the selection as a harbinger of things to come — I know I sure didn’t. But in a show filled with bust-outs, boasting one of the most revered setlists of the modern era, the cover of this bluegrass spiritual stands the tallest; a great symbol of the magic that occurred that night. READ MORE
