Phish will be returning to the road a week from tonight in Commerce City, Colorado at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park and there will be a new flurry of coverage surrounding my favorite band all over the interwebs. But that means it’s a perfect time to reflect back on the tour that just wrapped up last week at UIC Pavilion in Chicago before we get inundated with new awesomeness. READ MORE
By now you’ve probably already seen the setlist from Saturday night’s Phish show at the Gorge, but I wanted to post it here quickly while I’ve got some coffee and wifi and before me and my crew venture back into California on our way down from Washington state.
Set 1: Possum, The Moma Dance > Sample in a Jar, Limb By Limb, Ocelot, Poor Heart, On Your Way Down, Wolfman’s Brother[1] > Maze > Wilson > Fluffhead
Set 2: Chalk Dust Torture > Tweezer > Prince Caspian > Sand -> Tweezer > Birds of a Feather, Waste > Golden Age > Reba, Run Like an Antelope[2]
Encore: Suzy Greenberg > Sanity > Tweezer Reprise
[1] Heartbreaker teases.
[2] Reba whistling, Tweezer, Nellie Kane, Sand, and Golden Age teases. Lyric changed to “Mike-O Esquandolas.”
Notes: Wolfman’s contained Heartbreaker teases. The Antelope intro contained Reba whistling and Tweezer, Nellie Kane, and Sand teases. The Antelope jam segment subsequently contained teases of Golden Age. Antelope’s “Marco Esquandolas” lyric was changed to “Mike-O Esquandolas.”
[via Phish.net]
The band plays Hollywood Bowl tonight. Make sure you follow along with @YEMblog and @Phish_FTR for live updates from the show as it happens…
One of the biggest events on my calendar for this year was my trip to the Gorge to see Phish, something we’ve all been planning for at least four months now. Coming down from last night’s show, I’m fairly confident that I just saw one of the more interesting shows in 2011, with the band at the peak of a new creative endeavor…one that none of the fans can really ever understand and yet we want so fully to reach into the band member’s hearts and brains. The setlist choice was not perfect by my standards, but with the backdrop of the Gorge and a crew of great friends surrounding you, there really is nothing better on Earth than the joy that a lot of us were experiencing last night. >>>
This weekend Phish will continue their 2011 summer tour at the aptly named Gorge(ous) Ampitheatre in George, Washington. With a first leg down and a festival that surpassed most people’s expectations, the band looks to continue the good fight with nine shows in August at some historic venues in the West and Midwest.
It’s called breath-taking for a reason. Walk over the hill, shed a tear, then let Phish take you on a journey amongst the cosmos. Never has a venue evoked such a strong reception from this author. In 2009 at the Gorge, Phish played arguably the best jams of their return year. There aren’t many replay-value (RV) shows from 2009 but the “Bathtub Gin,” “Sneakin’ Sally,” “Light,” and “Rock and Roll” from 2009 all evoke the “This is what I follow the band for” reaction. It had the same quality of 2003 and earlier gems in ’97 and ’98. I’ll take another stretched out “2001″ second set opener! With the band at peak form, and most likely rehearsing as they did for the Bethel run (some of which contained the best jams of the first leg), I wouldn’t bet against these shows taking on a different feel than your average “opener.” There are very few things one can count on — Death, Taxes and Phish at the Gorge. How about another “Hood” in the dark or maybe a fog machine “Steam” for it’s West Coast debut?
Notable Videos from the last time they played there: Sneakin’ Sally Jam, Tweezer at Sunset
Wait, really? After years and years of off and on again rumors…Phish will make their long awaited debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 2011 — one of the venues you can’t help but admire for it’s location and history. The stage’s architecture is the outspoken gem and obvious allure of this venue. One person who will hopefully utilize the “shell”, a set of concentric off-white arches is Phish’s lighting director, Chris Kuroda (Happy Belated Birthday!). After the “same-old” in stage architecture at most outdoor amphitheaters, there is a little more room for creativity on the 2nd leg. The Hollywood Bowl is unfortunately the ‘skip show’ for some since it’s a big leap down south, on a Monday, and then no off-day before Phish rolls into Stateline, Nevada. Bottom line, the audience will know once they set foot inside, take the escalator up into a hillside…this won’t be “just another show.” Situated in the Hollywood hills for the first shows in the proper Los Angeles area since 2003 (Goodbye Forum!) fans are ready to go! Either the band plays it safe and pops off the classics for the tinsel town agents or we get something special, “Tube” opener or not… >>>
Happy Monday, folks! Phish returns to the Gorge this Friday night and me and a full @LiveMusicBlog crew will be there rocking our tweets and having way more fun than any of you will be (unless, of course, you’re there with us or on Couch Tour). It’s the main event for all of us, resulting in a series of countdowns and otherwise over-excited tweeting and anticipation for what the future holds for the band returning to the road for this brief Summer Tour Leg II.
Please follow along with us and we’ll have some updates later this week on who to follow and when. And as always, we can count on the folks at @YEMBlog and @ohkeepahblog (among others) to keep us posted while the rest of us at the show struggle with cell coverage and keeping batteries charged long enough to stay in contact with friends after the show is over. Ahh, the Gorge. I can’t effing wait, even if that stupid tarp is still up and I have to eat my words (kinda) from last year’s discovery around Sasquatch time… >>>
© Humberto Martinez / seattlepi.com
For music fans arriving at Sasquatch Music Festival yesterday as the festival began, it may have been a huge surprise to see that the owners of the venue had installed a huge black tarp behind the stage now preventing any view through the stage and into the beautiful highpoint of the Gorge in general. Part of the wonder and beauty at this venue now seems to be just a tad bit lost on whatever the reasoning behind it was…
A spokesperson for LiveNation, owners of the Gorge, said the new curtains were part of the new stage installed before this season (Saturday’s was the first show), and were installed for weather proofing.
Suddenly I’m not so worried that Phish didn’t announce any dates there this summer. Not like I wouldn’t go, but you get what I mean. What a stupid move.
I might not have been 15 rows back like whoever the dude was that shot this video, but I have a vivid memory of the soon-to-be-legendary Makisupa Gorge Switch. I’m pretty sure this elicited a shit-eating grin from yours truly.
I’m alive! I’m almost home but I wanted to get an update on the site for the fresh Monday morning folks to let everyone know that we’ll be back and kicking with some live music goodness tomorrow after I clean my toes off at home tonight. I did all four nights of Red Rocks and from there went to Shoreline and the Gorge. For those not following along elsewhere, here’s what they played after the Red Rocks run:
1: Golgi Apparatus, Halley’s Comet, Chalk Dust Torture, The Divided Sky*, When the Circus Comes, Time Turns Elastic, Ya Mar, Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan, Suzy Greenberg, David Bowie
2: Backwards Down the Number Line, Down With Disease > Limb By Limb, Oh Sweet Nothin’**, Cities -> Maze, Mike’s Song > Simple, Weekapaug Groove
E: Encore: Let Me Lie, Bold As Love
Notes: * big cargo plane repeatedly flew over the crowd during the first set, including during the silent part of Divided Sky, with Trey hitting the note after it flew away. (See one of the flyovers. Ben Baker – “an air traffic controller, Air Force veteran, and avid fan” – reports that it was a standard unarmed military C-130, though the branch couldn’t be identified from that video.) ** long-awaited bust-out from Loaded (damned great song, and possibly a wedding present), but Page flubbed half the lyrics. :(
1: Down With Disease, Ocelot, Pebbles And Marbles, Possum, Sleep, Destiny Unbound, Stash, Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley > Cavern
2: The Moma Dance > Light > Taste, Fluffhead, Joy, Bathtub Gin > Harry Hood
E: Slave To The Traffic Light
1: The Mango Song, Chalk Dust Torture, Middle Of The Road, Tweezer, Driver, Twenty Years Later, Ya Mar, It’s Ice, Wolfman’s Brother, Character Zero > Run Like An Antelope
2: Rock & Rolll > Makisupa Policeman, Alaska, The Wedge, You Enjoy Myself, Backwatds Down The Number Line > Piper, Grind
E: Good Times Bad Times, Tweezer Reprise
For my money, the final night of the Gorge might have just been the best Phish show I’ve ever seen. The jamming was on, but the song selection kept everyone guessing and hearing new notes and old notes that haven’t been played for a while. I was locked in on the band the entire time.
More to come once I land at home, but just wanted to say hello to the readers and wish everyone a great week reflecting on the crazy goodness that is live music these days. Oh snap, Lollapalooza was this weekend, too! I forgot.
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