Decent SBD source for this show, albeit a little flat. Things get underway with a Jim, Cavern combo. The Tweezer rips and has Fish screaming along to Trey’s whaling guitar during the jam. Afterwards Fish says “that song was called ‘a good excuse to jam’” lol Foam cuts before the mid section. Tape flip? Pretty straightforward YEM with a fun VJ. A short yet powerful Chalk Dust closes out the first set. The first half of MSO is cut. Solid Reba. Electric Llama! I can’t remember the last time they played TMWSIY in back to back shows, if ever? Lizards pairs perfectly with TMWSIY. Enjoyable Melt. Landlady>Destiny Unbound offers a nice 1,2 punch. Trey even serves up a little DEG tease in Landlady of all places. Strong Mike’s Groove to close out set 2. Mike’s opening solo in Weekapaug is en Fuego as is Trey’s solo. As Fee fades out Trey invites Fish to the stage to tell the now infamous Prison Joke. Fantastic Possum to wrap up the evening.

Incredible show and amazing finish to the 4 night run at Sphere. First set highlights for me included a strong ghost with amazing visuals, and very solid jam. Divided sky was magical and the way the clouds darkened and lightened followed the tension created by the band during the jam. There was a few moments of silence in the middle of divided sky when the clouds broke that was magical interaction between the band and phans. Closed with a great Character Zero. Second set highlights were obviously an truly epic Down with Disease which will certainly be noted as an all time great, definitely in my top 3 of all time, if not number 1. The following sequence also included an amazing 2001 into Light with another solid jam... First tube had in my opinion best visuals of all 4 nights... Not sure I'd go as far as Drew Carey :), but could be my favorite show of all time.

down with disease, beneath a sea of stars -> 2001 > light is as phenomenal a sequence as ive seen from modern era phish. it doesn't all segue together but even still, this consecutive four song progression from set two of the final night of phish in the sphere is a extraordinary display of range and patience. clocking in at nearly 80 minutes from the start of disease to the end of light, these four songs alone would make up a perfect set two of any "normal" phish show, with the rest of the set just serving as bonus. they really left it all on the stage and you can feel how much they put into it musically, but after time to reflect on being there, time to listen to the sbds and to watch the webcast, this four song sequence is musically as good as it gets for me when it comes to modern era phish. disease is a mammoth, sea of stars is a beautiful, patient, textured spacey jam, 2001 is the dance party release and light is the bliss. ive seen ~65 shows and rarely if ever write reviews but i am so grateful that phish is still capable of pushing boundaries and finding ways to evolve how they bring their music to us 40 years later.

I certainly see some creatures out there that like the lizards have no idea…absolutely no clue what is going on. We were all like South Park towelie back in 1992. Any show w Trey dialogue is cool to me because he does not always talk on Col Forbin anymore…actually he has not since shoreline 2000 last show before the hiatus. He did not do narration during the new 2023 Gamehendge saga if I recall correctly? The rhombus pulling you from the left into the black hole. I love this silly band. They lost some of that silliness w age which is sad but I miss the insane dialogue like this….the event horizon crappy film but fun to talk about the science. I like through the other side. Then YOU poke through the other side. Gotta love the Glory Hole Great show in a great year ….the year of fast enough for you and glide and dinner and a movie

Crispy Master Cassette SBD available for this show. Really nice mix overall. Things open with a nice Landlady. Beautiful Sky. A-Train is well played. Solid Reba with I Love Lucy teases. Cool mid-set Chalk Dust. High octane Mike’s Groove to close out the first half. Set 2 gets started with a rare Rocky Top opener. Trey is en Fuego during the Stash jam. After Lizards Trey comments on how it’s the first time in 7 years that an audience has been able to clap in rhythm to the “If I was a Dog” section of Lizards. They match Lizards up with Sloth. DaaM transitions seamlessly into an exquisite Hood. This version of MSO sounds sped up. They close out Set 2 with a smokin’ GXBX. Before the encore Trey says “I hope you guys don’t think I was joking about that clapping section in Lizards, that was truly astounding! Clapping on the upbeat.” Suzy has Fish coming up with a few different comments before the chorus. No thank you’s from the band to conclude the second set or the show. Strong performance

1 week later and still trying to process what we experienced on night 2 (supplemented by re-listening post-show). I could only hear the drumbeat of the walk-in music so could not have foreseen the Free opener, but those first notes hit and the colours started streaming down the screen like paint splashing down the sky, and I knew we were in for something good. Fiery type I jam with funky overtones throughout. That was one of the best first sets I've heard live: - They chose to go long on Axilla again during set 1 for me in Vegas, and used the same formula, with a gradual buildup to a wonderful crescendo (the only thing missing was the shock value of taking this classic to the limits). - mercy was beautiful with a great visual backing. - And then a killer 45 mins of Gin, Theme, SOAM that incorporated stellar music and amazing visuals. - Gin was an excellent jam, high energy with a visual that started out as a gag but then turned into mesmerizing spinning objects. A lovely 2-3 min wind-down at the end. - Theme was a beautiful, type II masterpiece, on one of the most stunning backdrops. Nearing 9 mins in, they hit a groove that reminded me of the Beatles' "I Feel Fine." Perpetual motion. Lovely smooth transition back to the end of the song. - SOAM used the entire Sphere and the entire band. How they pulled themselves out of the disorienting cacophony to complete this one, I still do not know. At one point, I was pretty sure we were in Stranger Things and I was in fact in the Upside Down world. Then the ultimate liquid set: - WOH was whoah. Loved the psychedelic interlude about 9 mins in, before the jam hits its next phase. - One of my regrets is that I didn't make better use of those haptic seats during WTU?, which was patient, spacey, and bass-tastic. Fishman with a great percussion rinse. - Ruby Waves was tight and free flowing, and Trey shines amongst the - ASIHTOS great jam into a blissful Prince Caspian - YEM was just a delightful ending, and as many have previously commented, had a truly Phish-tastic visual accompaniment. The vocal jam was hilarious. My only qualm was that the jam & bass and drums sections were great and should have each been extended a bit Of course, when Waves would have been the natural encore for this water-themed extravaganza, they close with a touching Wading in the Velvet Seat and left us all feeling good about Hood. Thank you to the band for continuing to thrill in 2024, and for showing everyone how to do the ultimate laser light show :) Jam-worthy: Free, Axilla, Theme, SOAM, WOH, Ruby Waves, ASIHTOS Special mention: Gin, WTU?, YEM (vocal jam), Hood

Pretty lackluster SBD source for this show. However, the quality of the recording doesn’t take away from the energy of this performance. The show kicks off right with TMWSIY>Alvenu>TMWSIY>Tweezer! Spectacular early version of Tweezer! They fade into Esther out of the ashes of Tweezer. This is followed up with a glorious Oh Kee Pa>Bag. The hits keep hittin’ with Fluffhead. Tape flip in Fluffhead. Good chunk of music is missing. Inspired Fluff! They wrap up set 1 with a pumpin’ Tweezer Reprise! Fantastic first set! Set 2 opens with a fun Ya Mar with lots of Leo call outs. Strong Melt. Cut after Jim. The quality degrades a bit at the start of Magilla but quickly improves, although the pitch seems a hair sharp. Rippin’ Llama. Gin is aborted for YEM. Excellent version! They follow this up with an equally inspired Gin. The first West Coast Icculus gets pulled off the shelf after a year and a half, last played 8/12/89. Trey discloses that Icculus is the one that told them what kind of band they were going to be. Mike re-enacts the words Icculus spoke many years ago. lol Smokin’ Antelope to close the second half! For the encore Fish shares the stats of his Mighty Might for those who weren’t at the show the night before in Portland. Possum slays! They treat the audience to a double encore shot of Jesus Left, Alumni>LTJP>Alumni! This would make for a fantastic archival release!

Pretty lackluster SBD source for this show. However, the quality of the recording doesn’t take away from the energy of this performance. The show kicks off right with TMWSIY>Alvenu>TMWSIY>Tweezer! Spectacular early version of Tweezer! They fade into Esther out of the ashes of Tweezer. This is followed up with a glorious Oh Kee Pa>Bag. The hits keep hittin’ with Fluffhead. Tape flip in Fluffhead. Good chunk of music is missing. Inspired Fluff! They wrap up set 1 with a pumpin’ Tweezer Reprise! Fantastic first set! Set 2 opens with a fun Ya Mar with lots of Leo call outs. Strong Melt. Cut after Jim. The quality degrades a bit at the start of Magilla but quickly improves, although the pitch seems a hair sharp. Rippin’ Llama. Gin is aborted for YEM. Excellent version! They follow this up with an equally inspired Gin. The first West Coast Icculus gets pulled off the shelf after a year and a half, last played 8/12/89. Trey discloses that Icculus is the one that told them what kind of band they were going to be. Mike re-enacts the words Icculus spoke many years ago. lol Smokin’ Antelope to close the second half! For the encore Fish shares the stats of his Mighty Might for those who weren’t at the show the night before in Portland. Possum slays! They treat the audience to a double encore shot of Jesus Left, Alumni>LTJP>Alumni! This would make for a fantastic archival release!

September 3rd, 2017 was the final night of my first trip to Colorado’s annual Phish run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (which I had by this time started calling “Dick’s”, much to my own chagrin). It’s rare that I skip out on the option to camp onsite and even rarer that I’m happy about it, but having a suite at the Embassy Suites turned out to be pretty sweet, what with such a large and high-quality crew of friends old and new also inhabiting the semi-luxurious quarters, plus I never really had the option of camping anyway, unless I was willing to do it without m’lady. Which, of course, I wasn’t. With my partner well on her way to mending from a nasty bout of bronchitis we managed a fun day in and around the hotel before heading down to the stadium nice and early. Our target was a rise in the lawn between the soccer field and the parking lot, a spot where hundreds of people meet up and while away the time sitting on blankets and sharing beers, and an area we called the grassy knoll. On this last day I was happy to not only meet up with several of our American friends, but more specifically we managed to round up a crew of at least eight or ten Ottawa friends to share out preshow festivities with. I always love running into my ever-growing far-flung crew of friends at Phish shows, but it’s always especially great when I run into my hometown homeys. What a treat to find yourself in such wonderful and regular company even after flying to the other side of the continent. And that’s just one of the things that makes Phish tour so damn great. Another thing is all the great music, and the band sure delivered on this night to close out the run. I remember a particularly awesome [i]Birds of a Feather[/i] in the first set, which closed with [i]46 Days[/i]>[i]Bathtub Gin[/i]. Of course [i]Bathtub Gin[/i] is always a fan-favourite but you know, I really, really like that [i]46 Days[/i] song every time I hear it. It’s funny that I never think of the song as one of my favourites, but I guess it is. The second set was one big continuous pile of music. Phish jammed the opening [i]Down With Disease[/i] into [i]Light[/i] and then they jammed that into the next song and into the next and into the next and so on until they finally stopped by ending the set with the straight-up rocker [i]Suzy Greenberg[/i]. So set two comprised a full eighty-three minutes of nonstop music traversing through eight songs. And they do that sort of thing all the time. (Another fantastic thing about Phish is their light guy Chris Kuroda. Dude is the best in the business and the one song where he generally shines the brightest is during Phish’s cover of [i]Also Sprach Zarathustra[/i], which most people know as the [i]Theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey[/i]. Anyway, they played it in the second set and just like always the lights were outta sight. Don’t get me wrong, the lights were astoundingly good for the whole run – Chris never has an off night as far as I can tell – but yeah, he was especially good during [i]2001[/i].) And then it was back to the hotel for a final round of afterparties that went just as long as we felt like, because m’lady and I were clever enough to book an extra night at the hotel so we wouldn’t have to bug out on the day after the last show. Okay, we weren’t actually being “clever”, it was more due to the fact that there weren’t any airmiles flights available on the Monday, but m’lady and I felt like geniuses anyway. And so it was that I discovered what m’lady had been insisting for years: there’s nothing like Dick’s. Man, I can’t wait for the venue to get another naming sponsor. http://www.toddmanout.com

Albany can be pretty boring. I woke up early on October 17th, 2018, at about 6:30am or so. I laid in bed as long as I could before going down to the gym for a half-hour, showering, and eating the semi-meagre free breakfast on offer at the Holiday Inn Express. By the time I had finished reading the USA Today and had twiddled my fingers half off it was still not even 11am. With a full eight hours to go before even thinking about going in to the Knickerbocker Arena for night two of Phish I flipped through the city’s entertainment guide in the hotel room with little hope and even less success. Eventually I took a walk and discovered some history about the place. Albany (or at least the area I was in) used to be called New Netherland, which explained the sporadic Dutch-style architecture. Back at the hotel I hopped on the lobby internet and scoured the CBC for news on Canada’s historic legalization of marijuana, which had happened that very day. Back in the room I flaked out and found myself in a Pawn Stars loop courtesy of the History Channel and finally, finally it was time to strike out for dinner and head in to the concert. The previous night Phish had put in a pretty unique tour-opener, crunching through a somewhat surprising set that was conspicuously short on guitar solos and extremely tall on astounding lights coming from the fingertips of Chris Kuroda; aka CK5. For this show, however, the band churned out a fairly standard Phish experience, their usual blend of well-played songs presented in a generally foreseeable placement; an early [i]Chalkdust Torture[/i], [i]Bathtub Gin[/i] closing the first set, a semi-rare (lately, anyway) [i]Birds of a Feather [/i]near the start of the second, and [i]Wilson[/i]>[i]Slave to the Traffic Light[/i] to close out the set. In other words, it was awesome. Oh, and right near the end of the concert I changed my life. I don’t know how it is that I never thought of doing this before, but during [i]Slave[/i] I reached up and took off my glasses, and my goodness, if I could even begin to describe to you what I saw… Years ago I looked into getting eye surgery to correct my 20/800 vision. One of the factors that helped me decide to not go through with the surgery was how much I’ve always enjoyed looking at Christmas lights with my glasses off. My absurdly blurred vision does remarkable things to bursts of light, making all light sources look exponentially bigger, with pulsating veins and a crazy separation of colours. And then, to take the mesmerizing palette of a Christmas tree and magnify it by CK5, well, my world changed. The best concert lighting technician in the world combined with my drastic near-sightedness created something that only a combination of the magic of Disney, the rendering of Pixar, and the inspiration of Albert Hoffman could possibly come close to replicating. It was so damn beautiful. I put my glasses in my back pocket and enjoyed the rest of the concert in a state of visually-impaired bliss. Did I say “impairment”? I should say “empowerment”. I kept raving to m’lady about how much I wished she could experience what I was experiencing. I will be bringing my glasses-case to every concert I go to from now on, that’s for sure. (I must add that crossing back into Canada the next day I was asked for the first time if I had any cannabis with me. I guess this will be the new normal.) (I’d also like to add that after attending a hundred and ten Phish concerts, this is the first one – i believe – that I don’t have a ticket stub for. Grrr. Stupid print-at-home tickets.) http://www.toddmanout.com

On November 22nd, 2009 I continued my new-ish habit of seeing way more Phish concerts than most people I’ve ever known, albeit way less than most of the people I was starting to meet. This time the show was in Syracuse, a near-enough stop on their fall tour to warrant a quick in-and-out drive from my house to the US of A, and I had a really great time. At the time I was developing the time and money-consuming hobby of buying gig posters and I remember joining the merch line immediately upon entering the arena and shelling out $50US for an El Jefe print that everyone around me was a) dissing as a piece of crap, and b) buying at a furious pace. The print features a topographical map that shaped the band’s name out of a string of lakes, reminiscent of the nearby Finger Lakes, and I quite like it. Not only that, I’ve still got it, whereas a lot of the prints I accumulated back then have been sold at a steep enough profit to pry them out from my portfolio. I’ve always thought if I ever own a cottage I’ll get this one framed and put it there, but then again I say that about a lot of my posters, and (just like my house) any cottage I ever buy (unlikely as that may be) will certainly have it’s own wall limitations. Getting to the show itself, it was a cool venue with lax security and Phish opened with [i]David Bowie[/i], which all foreboded good things. I’m a fan of any of their songs that contain orchestrated composed sections of off-kilter weirdness, which is a big, big part of [i]Bowie[/i]. So right there, good start. Then early in the set we got a [i]Sparkle[/i], a fave of mine that I find many of their fans have no time for, and [i]Lawn Bo[/i]y, a song I was just coming around to fully appreciating. The set ended with one of my all-time favourite guitar melodies period: [i]Stash[/i]*, but rather than concentrating on the glory of the song I was heavily distracted by a random fellow standing in front of me when his party caught up with his limitations and he totally, completely melted before my very eyes. I assure you this cosmic blip was not at all my doing – I was completely sober in anticipation of the drive home – but I assure you it was both disturbing and distracting. And then, about twenty minutes into the second set the house lights inexplicable turned on all at once, creating a blinding visual feedback to light-man extraordinaire CK5’s brilliant symphony of luminescence, though it was a fun reminder that we were seeing our favourite band in a piddly little pee-wee hockey rink. Halfway through the second set the karmic ship had righted itself and the band played as if I was picking the songs. [i]Theme From The Bottom[/i], [i]Maze[/i],[i] Character Zero[/i], [i]First Tube[/i], I mean, this was favourite after favourite after favourite… Sure, there was no [i]YEM[/i] or [i]Harry Hood[/i], but where would they have fit them in? Oh right, they could have put them in the encore. Instead: e: [i]Good Times, Bad Times[/i] Take that! So I bounced out of the room with my poster tube held tight in my sweaty grasp and m’lady and I walked through the crisp autumn evening to the car – safely and legally parked in a nearby parking garage – and by midnight we were already fifteen kilometres into an easy-peasy three-hour trip home. I was probably smiling the whole drive. Except at the border. No smiling (or sunglasses, or hats) when you’re crossing the border**. Remember that. *Okay, guitar players. If you haven’t heard this song youtube it and tell me that’s not a (whole bunch of) ridiculously delicious guitar line(s). **This was a rather odd and social border crossing. The Canadian border cop asked, “What kind of music does Phish play?” “Rock music,” m’lady and I answered in unison. “They seem to draw a pretty wide range of people,” she continued. Clearly we weren’t the first to arrive during her shift. She asked several more questions, all of which pointed to the obvious fact that she was quite perplexed as to why she was previously unaware of a band that had so many people crossing the border to see. In the end she did say that she thought she had heard of them, but her eyes told me that she was lying. Eyes can be vary revealing during border crossings. Remember that. http://www.toddmanout.com

December 17th, 1995 was the second and final night of my first-ever multi-show run with Phish, as well as being the closing show of the band’s winter tour. I think this might have also been the first time I was staying in my own hotel room for a concert. I was staying at the Howard Johnson’s just a short walk from the venue and it felt great to have a place to call home for the two nights. The days of sleeping in my car after a show or being part of a hotel wookstack were far from over but this at least marked the beginning of the more mature concert traveller I was to become. I remember this show very, very clearly. My friend JP had come to Lake Placid for the second night (to date his only Phish concert) and he bought a ticket from someone at face value (maybe around $20?) at a pre-party in the hotel. Imagine his disappointment when we found free tickets literally on the ground as we walked to the show. I remember a tree near the front door of the venue that had dozens of unused tickets for the evening’s performance dangling from it’s branches. The show opened with [i]My Friend, My Friend[/i] which made us laugh as my friend (my friend) JP had been singing that very song including any number of twisted lyrics as we walked through the small parking lot before the concert. Then the band played [i]Poor Heart[/i] – one of my early favourites – and the whole room got jumpin’. And then they played [i]A Day In The Life[/i] and here I was standing next to JP, the biggest Beatles fan I know. I had no idea that Phish covered the tune but we both recognized it from the first chord and we were both enthralled right through to the last chord. The first set also included [i]Stash[/i], [i]Mango Song[/i], [i]The Lizards[/i] and closed where they often opened, with [i]Chalkdust Torture[/i]. Add in [i]Maze[/i], [i]Harry Hood[/i], [i]Sparkle[/i] and [i]Tweezer[/i] in the second set and you have a prodigious collection of my favourite Phish songs all collected in the same concert. Throw in the unique Phishy quirkiness that was the giant Band vs Audience chess game that ended in a stalemate during the unprecedented multi-move setbreak…all-in-all the whole night was such an incredibly great time. And walking back to my cozy little personal space after the show really helped to cement this new lifestyle that I was starting to embark on with relish. Come to think of it, I probably had a bit of a wookstack going on in my room after all. There’s no way I could have afforded anything as fancy as a HoJo’s back in the day without splitting it about fourteen ways. Funny how people with dogs never felt like they had to pay extra. http://www.toddmanout.com

Having just finished up yet another great Christmas with my family back in New Brunswick, on December 28th, 2010 m’lady and I pushed our hangovers aside and drove from Moncton to Worcester, Massachusetts to see Phish, who were warming up for their nearly annual New Years Eve run at Madison Square Garden. The east coast had just received a big dump of snow which made the drive through rural Maine (is the phrase “rural Maine” redundant?) extra-pretty though it did slow us down a bit. As we were running just a bit behind schedule I wanted to be sure we were going in the right direction so when we stopped just outside of Marlborough to fill the tank I checked with the gas station attendant just to make sure. But. One has to realize that Worcester is not pronounced “war-chester”, it’s pronounced closer to the way the sauce is pronounced, “worster,” but with a bit of a Boston accent. So, when I queried with the attendant I slipped into the local tongue and asked: “Is this the right way to Woostah?” The lady looked at me over her glasses and said, “What did you say?” “I asked if Woostah is this way,” I repeated, confused. “Woostah?!?!?” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “What’s ‘Woostah’?” “Um…” I started, before m’lady piped up from behind me. “He wants to know if this is the highway to Woostah,” she said, eyeing me oddly. “Yeah,” said the lady, eyeing me even oddlier. “That’s the way to Woostah.” To this day I can’t hear the difference between how m’lady (and everyone else) pronounces “Woostah” and the insane, clearly very wrong way that I try to pronounce it, and to this day m’lady teases me about the entire affair at every opportunity. Which is shockingly often. I suppose if I had been on my own I might never have gotten to the concert but due to m’lady’s knack for the vernacular we did indeed get there, and we had a great time too. We were sitting full-on Fishman side in the 100 levels which made for an interesting vantage point; a lot of insight into how much the drums inject the music and get it driving. From the get-go there was so much stimulus input; the lights, the music, the crowd; all three elements working together to create a sensory onslaught that is rarely rivalled in live rock and roll. About ninety minutes before the 43rd anniversary of my birth Phish played their birthday song [i]Backwards Down The Number Line [/i]and the show started to feel like it was my very own. I got my[i] Stash[/i] and a nice [i]Harry Hood [/i]taboot and the band even played Neil Young’s [i]Albuquerque[/i]. [i]Limb by Limb[/i] contained a truly excellent jam* and the [i]Hood[/i] jam was exquisite, as the band brought the song to the brink of the “You can feel good, good about Hood…” part and pulled back three times. I was in bliss with my eyes tightly closed when a dude behind me screamed, “This is why I go to Phish shows, mother****ers!!!” I knew exactly what he meant. After the show we joined about a dozen of m’lady’s Phishy friends at a bar across the street for my birthday shot. I was born at 12:02am so every year I do a shot of something or other (usually tequila) at two minutes after midnight. I ordered tequila and watched the clock. By 12:03 or so we were out on the sidewalk, walking back to the hotel where the company of a whole lot of friends and even more pizza was on offer. It was a little olde school squishing so many people into one hotel room but the fact that it was a suite (and again, a pretty nice one at that) bumped up the classiness of the situation considerably. Snorey-guy me took one for the team and benevolently slept in the closet, my standard wookstack M.O. In the morning I awoke nice and early to find myself forty-three years old. Crazy world we live in, huh? This was back when I was just getting to knew m’lady’s American crew of friends, and I vividly remember hitting up the free breakfast way too early that morning with the only other person in the suite who was also awake, a nice fellah I had just met (also) named Todd. We each had a bagel and a coffee in a paper cup. Todd was shocked to see me put pepper on my bagel; he said he had never heard of such a thing before and tried it himself. I was pretty surprised. Putting pepper on one’s cream-cheesed bagel is fairly common, non? Anyway, for one reason or another Todd has remained near the top of my list of favourite Americans ever since that bagel-and-bad-coffee birthday breakfast. Todd tells me that he always puts pepper on his bagels now. *There’s an improv exercise/technique called “Follow The Leader” in which musicians morph between one of three roles: Leader (aka soloist), Accompany The Leader (rhythm), or Follow The Leader (mimic/counterpoint the leader). In this game any musician can play any of the roles at any time regardless of what’s going on. Say Trey considers Mike the Leader and decides to Accompany. Meanwhile Fishman considers Trey the Leader of the moment and Follows. Mike might be Accompanying Trey while Page off by himself Leads away. Twenty seconds later everything could change. I’m utterly convinced that the band was playing this game during the [i]Limb[/i] jam. They are crazy good at that kind of stuff. http://www.toddmanout.com

You know, when this day happened way back on December 30th, 2010 it was all brand new but as I sit here years later trying to remember it, it somehow seems so long ago. Many great writers are quite convinced that time is not linear but rather that all moments co-exist with one another. So (they claim), yesterday is right over there and last week is just around the corner, but it sure doesn’t feel that way to me. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I’m not a great writer. I can, however, use my meagre powers of recall to report with some accuracy that this was the first night of my first ever Phish New Years run, and it was at the ever-historic Madison Square Garden no less. I had gone to see Prince in the same room the night before where I had enjoyed myself to no end, and I’m pretty darn sure that I had a rip-roarin’ time at this show too. I don’t even remember where we were staying for this run, but if it was the year of the big snowstorms we were staying with m’lady’s friend Greg but really, I don’t think this was that year. Was it the year that we went to a fancy-schmancy burger joint for my birthday and I had Patron Cafe tequila for the first time*? Who knows…not me. Luckily Phish sets are easily searchable online. I see that the band played [i]Maze[/i] in the first set. That would have gotten my attention. Plus [i]Golgi[/i] and [i]Character Zero[/i]…yep, I woulda been rockin’ the first set for sure. Set two (the internet tells me) started with [i]Tweezer[/i] – which is a proper rager – and also included a slew of my goto Phish favourites, like [i]Theme From the Bottom[/i], [i]My Friend, My Friend[/i], [i]Fluffhead[/i], and the lightshow-fiesta[i] 2001[/i], not to mention an [i]Antelope[/i]/[i]Tweeprise[/i] encore, so all was surely good in my world. Which, again, was somewhere inside Madison Square Garden. Afterwards (presumably) we went to our temporary home for the night. We must have; otherwise we would still be at MSG. And if we were still there after all these years, well, I think I would remember the concert that got us into this crazy mess much more vividly. I told you I wasn’t a very good writer. *I just found notes** I had made from this run and yes, we were staying at Greg’s place because yes, this was the year of the big snowstorms and yes, this was also the year that we had gone to the upscale burger place on my birthday where we had indeed enjoyed shots of Patron Cafe tequila. Now that I think about it, there’s a fair chance that I’ve only been to NYC once***. **Which reads (in part): ”We were in basically the exact seats that we had been sitting in the previous night for Prince, except we were on the opposite side of the arena. Regardless, we had a good view from Fishman side. The first set raged and we spent the setbreak at one of the many in-house bars, again surrounded by a plethora of m’lady’s American friends. Another set of raging Phish and 22,000 happy hippies spilled out onto the streets. Another bar was in order, one where the drinks were poured thick and things started getting late, quick. Somehow or another we ended up back in Queens safe and sound where we all wished each other a 5am Happy New Years Eve and collectively went down for the count.” ***Just kidding****. ****(I think). http://www.toddmanout.com

Though Phish is a creative band that continually strives to expand the experience of their audience however they can, the band has come up with a few ideas that were not so well thought out. Like playing an acoustic set in the desert in Indio, California at high noon in the very predictable searing midday heat or announcing at their Coventry festival that everyone should turn around and go home because the gates were closed when in fact they weren’t. Or like letting Trey play that little keyboard he used to have or letting him join Fishman on the marimba lumina. And on January 1st, 2011, by definition, Phish did it again. I mean, who wants to go to a raging rock concert the night after the biggest drinking holiday of the year? Looking around Madison Square Garden before the lights went down it was clear that many in the room were actually still awake from the previous night, which is actually the cleverest idea of all. To those fuelled by stamina and more this was actually an afterparty show that was occurring really, really late on New Years Eve. Certainly these geniuses didn’t have to drag their sorry butts out of bed in time to get to the concert for the 8pm start-time like I did. I really should have thought of that. It was a pretty rockin’ show though, and I shook my cobwebs loose and got my bones moving soon enough. I expected the crowd to be subdued – surely everyone had a bit of a hangover too – but I was wrong. People really like this Phish band, and the energy level for their first ever January 1st show was high. There was lots of speculation about something unique happening, a U2 or Metallica cover; Gamehenge; who knows what these guys have cooked up, but no, it was just a normal fantastic show. [i]Divided Sky[/i], [i]Makisupa Policeman[/i], [i]Fee[/i]…there was even a cover of [i]Walk Away[/i] by the very awesome James Gang and afterwards we found ourselves at a swanky hotel for an afterparty that was a total gas and kept us going until daylight. Our crew somehow managed to take our leave of the place before being asked to and we hailed a taxi to Greg’s place in Queens. The cab took us over the 59th Street bridge inspiring the four of us to belt out Feelin’ Groovy in cacaphonic harmony. I’d like to think the cabbie even joined in, but that seems unlikely. After another 5am arrival in Queens I quickly went down for the count. My body had been growing more and more exhausted with every moment I spent in the City that Never Sleeps. This was the last night/morning of a very fun but physically draining road trip. Moncton for xmas>Worcester, Massachusetts for Phish>Prince at MSG>three nights of Phish also at MSG. Not bad. Now I just had a quick Broadway show to see and then it was a long day of driving back to Ottawa where I would dig in to the new calendar (though we did have a bit of a monkey wrench coming). In retrospect I guess it was a pretty kickin’ start to a great new year, so maybe not so poorly thought out after all. That said, let’s try to get Trey to stick to the guitar, okay? http://www.toddmanout.com

On January 2nd, 2003 (yep, that’s 010203) I saw Phish play at the Hampton Coliseum all the way down in Virginia. The band had just come off a 26-month hiatus; having played a reportedly triumphant comeback show at Madison Square Garden on New Year’s Eve a couple of days previously they were kicking off their 2.0 era with a trio of shows at a venue that fans have come to longingly refer to as The Mothership. The band’s return was so rabidly anticipated that I took it upon myself to drive solo all the way from Ottawa to Hampton, Virginia to meet up with some friends who assured me a bit of carpet in their hotel room and a ticket to at least the first concert. I generally love a nice long drive so I hopped in my Honda Accord and down I went. It was my first time seeing a concert at the Hampton Coliseum and I remember little about it aside from thinking the show was so blatantly meh that it made me feel like a fool for coming. As one mediocre, under-rehearsed song after another went by I felt dumber and dumber for having undertaken the time and expense of making such a big trip. I actually got kind of mad at the band. Which in retrospect was pretty silly, and if I took the time to listen to the show again with the same retroactive perspective I probably wouldn’t find it so bad after all. But at the time I did, and I guess that’s all that matters because I bailed on the next two shows and got out of there. I do remember seeing a full-grown, real-live elephant in the parking lot of the hotel after the show. When I mentioned as much upon returning to the hotel room everyone gave me a hearty guffaw and accused me of hallucinating, lying or worse. It was with great satisfaction that I threw back the drapes and pointed out the very-real pachyderm (who was standing just below our window) to the room full of astonished afterpartiers, all of whom were forced to immediately retract their nasty accusations. So there’s that, I suppose. However, no amount of convincing was going to get me to stay for any more Phish, and despite assurances that I would easily find tickets for the next two nights (no surprise there) and that they were bound to be better shows (again, no surprise there) I packed up and drove out of town in a huff (and a driving rainstorm) first thing the next morning. The rain was bad – really bad – and it didn’t relent until it finally changed to snow and became a bona fide blizzard, and still I drove on. The little traffic that was on the highway – mostly snowplows and crazy people – was slowed to no more than twenty-five miles per hour and still, driven by the invincibility of anger, I drove on. I very nearly stopped in Albany and tried booking in to a friend’s place but in a fit of further foolishness, I drove on. I remember gripping the wheel with steely fear and determination as I laid fresh tracks in the passing lane for what seemed like hours. In all, the twelve-hour journey took almost twenty, and in no way did I feel it was at all worth it. Can’t win ‘em all. http://www.toddmanout.com

After a great week scuba diving along the reefs of Cozumel and taking in the entertainment offerings of Playa del Carmen m’lady and I headed down to the Barcelo Maya resort to start part III of our Mexican vacation: the Phishy part. This was our second instalment of Phish on the beach and we were both very, very excited to arrive. The previous year we had gone all out and to sprung for an extra resort day tacked on the the front and back of our stay. This time we only went half-out, opting to book the extra day option at the end of the run only. That said, regular checkin still had us arriving the day before the first Phish show, along with 90% of the other patrons. Though there were lots of people arriving at the same time checkin was still pretty quick and painless. These resort gigs are pricey but the staff seems to go out of their way to treat the kids alright. Once we got our wristbands, goody bags, and room key we dropped off our luggage and went straight to the resort dive shop. After we made our booking we spent the rest of the day vigorously lounging by the pools and rendezvousing with friends as hard as we could. There was a liberal swath of hamburger munching and much clinking of plastic cups overflowing with clown-coloured rum drinks. Clearly the place was utterly overrun with Phish people and the amount of fun that was being had was on the cusp of staggering. Fortunately m’lady and I took it easy enough to wake up on the morning of January 13th, 2017 with clear-ish heads, as we had a couple of dives booked. By mid-morning we were in the ocean chasing lionfish and barracuda and gliding under coral arches. By lunch we were onto our first burgers and tequila shots of the day and when the sun started to dip we simply walked down the beach and joined a few thousand friends for an ecstatically great night of entertainment. CK5 was performing his magic illuminating the stage and the entire venue with endlessly riveting and creative light artistry. The light guy from Umphrees Magee (I think) was onsite manning the lights that shone strictly on the ocean, and while his light work consistently upped the coolness (and the safety and the security) of the shows he couldn’t hold a candle to CK5 in the keeping-it-new-and-interesting category. But for this first night at least the ocean lighting was pretty spectacular. Like, how often do you get ocean lighting at a gig? We were pretty close for the first set but I found it too crowded so I bailed and found a new crew at the back for the second set where it was much, much roomier. Overall, the show was great and I had a really good time. There is just nothing like seeing a band like Phish in a crowd that small all grooving together in such a remarkably pleasant venue. This first night 100% confirmed what I said at the conclusion of Phish’s Mexico run the previous year: this is hands-down my favourite way to see this band. And I suppose that’s why I came back for round II. http://www.toddmanout.com

January 14th, 2017 began when m’lady and I roused ourselves from our plush king-sized comfort at the splendid Barcelo resort in Mexico’s Riviera Maya and found ourselves some breakfast and some coffees and some more coffees. It was show day and I opted not to spend it in line waiting to buy a poster (what is wrong with people – you only have to do it because you all do it) – heck, I had probably slept past my window of opportunity anyhow – and instead tried to cram in as much relaxation time as possible. I ended up rocking a game of poolside BINGO while sipping on daiquiris with a few friends and for my efforts I won a dolphin experience. I had been inspired when the winner of the first game won a half-hour massage in the spa so I got a card and BINGOed pretty hard. I was pretty disillusioned with my prize though and I spent a chunk of the afternoon debating whether or not to even use it. Fortunately, before I could waste too much time pondering things it was time to go to the show. Which at Barcelo Maya means grabbing a final drink from the bar and simply walking barefoot (if you choose, as I did) along the beach for a spell where staff welcomes you at the gate with trays full of margaritas and tequila shots. Inside the venue the powdery sand sifted between my toes as I scampered gleefully along the beach in search of friends, the ocean lapping to my left and the stage looming straight ahead. Friends were easily located, drinks were delivered with hearty and steadfast consistency by the attentive staff and in no time at all Phish took the stage for night two of their three-night Mexico run. Nevermind that the first set included a semi-rare favourite of mine ([i]Poor Heart[/i]) and closed with a blistering [i]Chalkdust Torture[/i], the surroundings were just so outrageously fantastic that I was virtually guaranteed an epic concert experience regardless of the actual music being performed. Alternating between grooving under a canopy of crochet-coozied palm trees pulsating with light, communing with pockets of ecstatically happy friends among the easily navigateable crowd, and standing waist-deep in the psychedelically-lit ocean surrounded by throngs of dreadlocked hippies frolicking in the surf – and all of it accompanied by an endless stream of food and drinks – well, the fact that the band opened the second set with [i]Crosseyed & Painless[/i] and went on to weave the song into every single jam of the rest of the set was really just a bonus. But a pretty wicked-awesome bonus, really. And then after the encore it was again just a matter of grabbing a final drink or three and casually tumbling along the beach in search of the closest and highest-quality afterparty, of which there were legion. The evening would inevitably include a visit to Strikers, the all-night sports bar/bowling alley/snack emporium in the resort’s main atrium, a spot that was always teeming with good people looking for good times. People like us tend to gather at places like Strikers. And of course the day ended where it began – back in that plush king-sized comfort – a single day and a thousand pleasures later. http://www.toddmanout.com

As the millennium marched onward concert experiences started getting more and more creative and exclusive. Different pricing tiers had become standard at all arena and stadium concerts and it started to seem like just about anything you could buy a ticket for offered a VIP option. Heck, I’ve seen concerts offer up to a dozen VIP categories, going right up to meet-and-greets and attending the soundcheck. One concert trend in particular that I had been keeping my eyes on was the proliferation of resort gigs. The concept of seeing your favourite band in a beachfront setting with the usual all-inclusive trappings of a Caribbean resort was mouthwateringly attractive to me, and obviously I wasn’t the only one; eventually these things exploded in popularity. But as common as they had become, it took until Phish finally announced their first-ever resort run that I finally pulled the trigger. (Which took a little deciding. You want to talk about different pricing tiers? With four or five different resorts hosting phans – each with at least a dozen different accommodation levels of their own – the options were legion. And all of them were expensive. Like, if-we-didn’t-do-this-we-could-go-to-Europe-for-two-weeks kind of expensive*.) And so it was that in January of 2015 I visited Mexico for the first time, and I loved it. We had booked into the actual resort that was hosting the concerts (at my insistence; the last thing I wanted to do was to pile onto a shuttle bus at the end of each show when the other option was to stroll barefoot down the beach to my room) and had the foresight (and the budget) to book an extra night on each end of the standard four-night stay that came with the ticket. Which sure made checking in (and out) a whole lot easier. When we first arrived the place looked pretty normal; families and couples and bachelorette parties lounging by the pool and crowding into the dinner buffets. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t find anyone who had even heard of Phish. I vividly remember striking up a conversation with a couple who was getting married at the resort that very Saturday. They had no idea that a concert was scheduled at the resort that same weekend, and when I tried to tell them what to expect, well, let’s just say they continued to have no idea. Betcha they have stories… Finally the 15th came – show day! By then the Barcelo was teeming with Phish phans, many of them personal friends of ours (though that first year there were plenty of non-phans at the resort too). Despite being onsite for a couple of days already it wasn’t until we joined a mid-afternoon crowd gathered at one end of the beach to listen to the soundcheck that it sunk in just how awesome this was going to be. Walking on a cloud, m’lady and I enjoyed one of the specialty restaurants for dinner and started towards the concert site with plenty of time to spare. We arrived early enough to maybe get a poster, which meant there was actually a lineup to get in. No worries, resort staff were handing out daiquiris and margaritas to us as we waited. Gold. Inside, I joined a packed merch line and was shut out when the guy in front of me bought the last seven posters (which should be – and usually is – against the rules. Even if it’s not against the rules it’s always bad form). Ah well, I saved $50 (though the poster resells for over $400 now). Standing barefoot in the sand with wonderful decorations, attentive staff and good friends all around, we waited for the band to emerge. With the beautiful weather and unlimited food and drinks it was pretty easy to be patient. When the band came onstage and picked up their instruments they started what was to stand as the greatest concert experience of my life (to be fair, I’m referencing the entire multi-day event and everything that accompanied it, not the concert[s] in particular**). Phish dished out a first set that was rife with water references (and one that, in retrospect, was secretly a brilliantly selected song-by-song tribute to the recently departed David Bowie***) while trippy spotlights lit up hundreds of phans that were frolicking in the ocean. Waiters continually walked by with huge serving trays full of everything you could want and more, all of it free of charge, and I could only gape and stare at how wonderful the whole scene was. It was all so glorious. By the second set I too was taking in the show from the sea, standing waist deep in the gentle waves with a plastic cup in one hand and m’lady’s hand in the other while one of the greatest live bands in the world raged through an excellent string of songs just a few dozen yards away. Sigh. And then when it was all over it was just a lazy beachfront stroll to join any number of afterparties – what am I saying…the entire resort was one gigantic afterparty – and all of it accompanied by unlimited food and drink with a string of swimming pools, hot tubs, and beachfront at our disposal. And this was just night one. *A fact that m’lady and I proved when Phish skipped a year in Mexico and we went to Venice and Slovenia instead. In two weeks we spent a little bit less money than we’d spent on Phish Mexico. Crazy, huh? **Phish is a great band that plays great shows, but I think almost everyone would agree that taken on its own the actual music played over the Mexico run doesn’t stand as the band’s greatest achievement, not by a stretch. Not that the shows were bad (far from it), but I think it’s fair to say that Phish barely hit their usual stride over the whole of the weekend. Good times though…really good times! ***[i]A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing[/i]>[i]My Soul[/i], [i]Martian Monster[/i]>[i]Ya Mar[/i], [i]Halley’s Comet[/i]>[i]Fuego[/i]>[i]The Wedge[/i], [i]Theme From the Bottom[/i]>[i]Free[/i]>[i]David Bowie[/i] You figure it out. http://www.toddmanout.com

January 17th, 2016 was the final day of Phish’s inaugural three-night sojourn in Mexico’s Riviera Maya. Overall it had been a rare case of a heavily anticipated event that had vastly surpassed all expectations. In short, it was among the greatest concert experience I’ve had, and frankly that’s saying something. Lounging by the pool, grabbing burgers at the beach restaurant, drinking tequila shots at the swim-up bar, chilling with friends and strangers on the pristine beach…all these activities were so prevalent that they were starting to feel old-hat, almost routine. But somehow I hunkered down and got ‘em all done. After an afternoon of hard-core relaxation m’lady and I went back to our room and dressed up in our finest casuals. For dinner we had booked one of our ’special restaurants’ at one of the two Japanese places on the resort where eight of us sat around a hotplate while a smiling chef dazzled and entertained us with his clever cleaver juggling and tried-and-true comedic food manipulation. As he cooked he carved our dinners into surprising shapes and lobbed Brussel sprouts across the table for us to catch in our mouths. It was good, but all I kept thinking was, “Don’t play with your food.” After dinner we rushed back to our room, got back into our most casual casuals and beach-strolled our way to the last night of Phish. The show opened with a song that everyone had been expecting all weekend – the very obvious [i]Mexican Cousin[/i] – and ended with one that I don’t think anyone saw coming, the also very obvious cover of Led Zeppelin’s [i]The Ocean[/i], which was just a drop-dead awesome way to end an fantastic three nights of music. Again the crowd was small and excited, again the eager resort staff kept busy making sure nobody was thirsty, and once again the band raged under a starry night while the ocean’s waves pummelled the beach just a few metres away. After the show that night the resort hit full bustle, as a thousand-plus barefoot neo-hippies celebrated the last hurrah of the extremely successful first Phish Mexico run (of three, as rumour was having it). Though we were fortunate to have booked an extra night at the Barcelo and wouldn’t, in fact, be leaving in the morning (or maybe because we had booked it) m’lady and I partied like it was our last hurrah right along with everyone else. So much, in fact, that we spent that extra last day in full recovery mode, both of us thanking our lucky stars that we didn’t have anything to do but to sit and suffer another day in paradise. Neither of us touched a drop of alcohol all day; we just sat and moaned quietly to ourselves and stared groggily at the mass exodus of moaning, groggy hippies that was happening around us. Thankfully, we were in much better shape when we did finally have to check out when, with happy, tired eyes I gazed out the window of the airport shuttle bus and bid farewell (for a year) to Riviera Maya, the Barcelo, and Phish Mexico. Adios, my three amigos. Mi gusta. http://www.toddmanout.com

I didn't totally love this 1st set. Ghost and Stranger were the best parts...But this 2nd set!! Really strong I thought. Oblivion is a killer tune to my ears and combined with a truly epic Disease after....Gold!! I know Sea of Stars gets some negative vibes, but I thought this one was amazing. Just a beautiful improv on it. 2001 was a good party and the Light was also a very killer jammed out version! and I was not tripping and still thought the screens were insane again!! Disease and Light screens were trippy AF! Would have been awesome if you were tripping for this 2nd set in the sPHere! PHish in the sPHere on PsycHedelics!!! My new slogan. Gonna buy the videos (if we can) and play them for acid tests.

PHish in the sPHere with PsycHedelics! Has a nice ring to it! I am glad to see that the general review consensus is that this was the magic show. 2nd set Sunday was also pretty strong I thought, but I happened to take some shrooms (Jedi Mind F*#k... peaked nicely) Friday and so was not sure how much bias that created. But I can confirm that this show was DRIPPING with psychedelic mastery! I think the only 1st set of the run that was swirling....which started at Axilla (15 minutes long!) and never stopped. That Melt with the freaking screen work!!! Just insanely psychedelic! And I was just web casting. Being there must have been a total blow away if you were tripping! Not sure how many of you have noticed, but I have been researching it and over the last few years, more often than not, the Friday show is the one to trip to. If you like your psychedelics like I do, then Phish on a Friday has a good chance of being special. It has been recently revealed to me that the Grateful Dead used to always dose on Saturdays. That was the band tripping night all through the 60s and early 70s and if you were backstage Kesey would usually get you somehow! Butch Trucks has some great stories on that. Also read the story about Robert Hunter writing the lyrics for Black Peter after Kesey had some very strong doses one Saturday! Sometimes I wonder if Friday is the Phish tripping night. I am exactly the same age as Trey (born in 64, both dragons! turning 60 this year!) and I also play improvised music with some buddies and I can confirm that it is often extra magical when we trip together on shrooms. I know that if I were the guys in Phish, I would have nights were we all take some shrooms. Just sayin. It's really fun and sometimes the vulcan mind lock is amplified for the better! This Friday show seemed like a night they might have dosed. But what I want to add, is the fact that these screens they did at the sPHere were incredible, truly incredible, when one was tripping on psychedelics!! I only did Friday, as you can only take them once over a run and still get the effects....and the 2nd set was endless brain orgasms. Just unbelievable!! So psychedelic it was crazy!! The music and the screens!! I still get feelings of bliss just thinking about it....and that was just webcasting it!! I don't smoke, but all I could think of afterwards was that I really needed a cigarette!! I will say it again, endless brain orgasms!! From Melt onwards. Thank You Phish team for making the webcast so amazing!! Really captured it. The other reviewers hit the right spots with their comments so read them for details. Just want to point out that the Ruby Waves and the Song>Caspian were just dripping with psychedelia and really hit the spot for my tripping brain.

Just about every version is played with fire and creativity; there's strange little embellishments everywhere, like the alternate strumming melody in the opening of Possum, the odd little dead end riff roads they drive down throughout said Possum (and not just during the jam), the utterly unhinged dissonant little whistling jam they get into after the Possum ends, etc. Though this sort of thing was deployed in much more limited form throughout their career to date, this is the exact mid-point of August 1993, universally understood as the dawning of the age of Type II jamming, so these deconstructionist build-to-burn embellishments just burst out of every seam and find their pressurized apex in the Reba jam from this show in St. Louis, 8-16-1993. The jam immediately abandons every vestige of what we'd known to happen in every previous Reba jam and lights out for uncharted territory. This is archetypal Type II jamming, just initated and already in full flower, the first massive evolutionary leap forward since 1990 But then there's the rest of the show (we're not even mid way through the nearly 90-minute first set and already we've smashed through several walls), which showcases incredibly tight and gassed-up playing, including a goofy rest-of-Reba - which also ends with a unique little spontaneous jam that almost sounds planned. It seems the reason why so many versions in this show sound so bonkers and overspill their compositional bounds is that the band is so frigging tight from years on the road that they could play these songs in their sleep and underwater, and they're maybe getting a little bored playing the same songs the same way all the time The Foam might be the best, most iconoclastic version of all time (it's by far my favorite version of one of my favorite tunes); the SOAM (my favorite jam vehicle) is good and weird and creative - it feels like you've just witnessed a magic trick when it ends. They even get into some odd little dissonant full-band digressions in Coil right before Page takes over his solo Trey embellishes the verse portions of Mike's Song with blithe, playful soloing, the Faht is an eyebrow-raising bit of experimental Phish that works (so long as you boost the volume a lot); and the 15-minute Weekapaug features extended Santana teases and is otherwise bursting at the zipper with unhinged ideas. Even the Mound is a little weirder than usual (a [i]little[/i]). It's Ice is tight, fast, and fiery, as is the MF, MF which brings the weirdness back at its conclusion. Big Ball Jam ends up sounding like a natural extension of the strangeness of the MF, MF ending, and it's testament to how expectation-destroying this show is that even the BBJ is more musically interesting than usual; it ends with Fishman saying "Aw fuck man" for some reason In yet another surprise, they even play a jazz standard in the fourth quarter - this is one of those kinds of things I wish Phish would bring back. Nowadays it's hard to remember how much jazz there was in early Phish; by 1993 it was already rare for them to play something like Take The A Train. And even Take The freakin A Train is embellished with odd little touches and filigrees. If that wasn't enough, they play Good Times, Bad Times, which - surprise! - also gets deconstructed; it digresses into an atypical, dissonant jam after the vocals end There's four jam chart entries in the first set alone. Take a look at the song lengths just a couple months before, then take a look at the song lengths in Set I of this show: the Possum is 13 minutes long; the Reba 19 minutes; the Foam 11.5 minutes; the SOAM 12.5 minutes; and the Coil 10.5 minutes. On their previous tour, most of these songs (not Reba) would average 10 minutes or fewer in duration The whole show just feels to me like the precise location where [i]before[/i] becomes [i]after[/i] in the history of 1.0. The only things I'm less than thrilled with in this show are: the Rocky Top (because fucckk that song. It's the last thing they play and the Amazing Grace is a much more fitting end); and the Faht is way too quiet on both the SBD and the AUDs of this show. Otherwise, everything just flows so beautifully. They sound eager to play and willing to just fucckk around, but this isn't the mess that is 7-12-1996, to name another show where they elect to fucckk around on stage; in St. Louis in the summer of 1993, Phish was absurdly comfortable in their chosen material and audibly confident that they'll all land on their feet at exactly the same time if they fucckk up This is a show I suggest everyone check out if they haven't already

PHISH, FRIDAY 04/19/2024 SPHERE Las Vegas, NV SET 1: Free: Cool how they coordinated the pre-show music of a Free jam and then they use that as a launching pad to open with Free. The pace of this one is a good bit faster than most. Like it. Nice peak. Great start to the show! Broadway Trey on full display. Feeeeeee – eeeeeeeeeeel – lllllllll!!!!!! The Moma Dance: Standard. Axilla (Part II) Wow, really good stuff. Fairly mellow and introspective until we hit the 12 minute mark give or take. From there things get decidedly more upbeat. Three minutes later, Trey is trilling like mad. Nice peak. Would recommend! mercy: Standard. Bathtub Gin: Page goes off on the baby grand in the composed section throwing Trey off. Trey gets a good laugh out of it “Thank you!” This version is played at a break neck pace with plenty of velocity. Fun, quirky ending (Trey sounds like a late 80’s Jerry). Theme From the Bottom: This one in the early going is inclined to go major mode, but they tamp down that urge thankfully. So glad they did because what happens next is excellent Phish. Nice hard edge to it with a very clean Trey solo. Really enjoyed listening to this one! Would recommend. > Split Open and Melt: Bleep, bloop, blop. Had to be there’d. SET 2: A Wave of Hope: Love, love this jam through about the 14 minute mark. The last 4 minutes or so is your canned MSG bliss jam that we have heard seemingly 100’s of times since 2017. Too bad they opted for that crutch. What's the Use? Standard. > Ruby Waves: Soliciting woos, oof. Lonely Trip: Standard. A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing: Good, compact jam, nicely done! -> Prince Caspian: Standard. You Enjoy Myself: Trey struggles in the intro. Page bringing the funk! Would have loved to get down to that. Treys tone coming out of that was yikes, very abrasive. He fixed it soon enough though. Trey went to end this one and everyone kept going, lol. Awesome! Nicely raged YEM jam! Would recommend this version, man – can’t remember the last 3.0 version I felt this good about. It is quite short though. ENCORE: Wading in the Velvet Sea: Reworked intro to work with the visuals? I would assume so. It’s nice though. Nice to hear Page and Trey riffing off one another, that was cool. Harry Hood: Nice interplay in the intro between Mike and Trey. During the jam, Trey and Page play off one another magnificently. Trey really picks his way through this jam effortlessly, beautiful! Big, ol beautiful peak. Damn! Easy all timer and highly, highly recommended. Cannot believe they can play at this level at this age. Incredible. We truly are lucky! Summary: Review is purely based on the music, not on the visuals. That Hood is just peak Phish man, just blown away sitting here listening to it. Three other solid highlights. The flow in this show really works for me to. This might be strong but 4.3/5 seems right. I am probably over rating it but the way this show ended (YEM, Wading, Hood) very much captivated me. I now have reverse FOMO for this show, ugh. Phish RULES. Replay Value: Axilla (Part II), Theme From the Bottom, You Enjoy Myself, Harry Hood The band took the stage while pre-show music similar to a Free jam played, which continued until they began the song and waterfalls of colored light suddenly cascaded from the top of the dome. During Moma, a moving, 360-degree live shot of the crowd and band was displayed, with psychedelic colors and effects. During mercy, the dome displayed an overhead view of a sparkling ocean, with small birds in pastel colors flying over the water. During Gin, the entire dome became an overhead view of a large wave pool, filled with hundreds of people on food-shaped inflatables drifting and spinning. During the Gin jam, the images of the bathers became blurred and abstract, forming a neon kaleidoscope effect. During Theme, the entire dome became an underwater seascape, with kelp forest, fish, human swimmers, and light from the surface shining down from the top. Theme also contained a DEG tease from Trey. At the start of ASIHTOS, eight jellyfish puppets were raised on each side of the stage, while the dome remained dark. Once the jam began, the light on the dome came up to reveal another underwater seascape, whose plants and fish became luminous as the rest of the light dimmed again. During Caspian, this seascape changed to a view from within the columns and arches of a sunken monument. As YEM began, the entire dome became the view from inside of a car as it entered a "Tunnel of Luv" car wash, with the stage appearing to sit on top of the middle of the dashboard. The car progressed through the wash as YEM continued, with Trey's solo during the wax and wheel scrub, and the bass and drums as the car was dried and exited the wash. Suddenly the car view was gone, and it appeared that the dome was clear, with a puppy licking it from the outside, in slow-motion, for the duration of the vocal jam. During Velvet Sea, the dome appeared to be covered in flowing red velvet, with photographs of the band throughout the years appearing and disappearing among the fabric. By the end of the song, the entire dome was covered in photos. Trey teased The Secret of Life (The Dead Milkmen) in Hood. This show was connected to the other three with each night's setlist tied into a state of matter. This performance's matter type was liquid. TEASES Dave's Energy Guide tease in Theme From the Bottom, The Secret of Life tease in Harry Hood

PHISH, THURSDAY 04/18/2024 SPHERE Las Vegas, NV SET 1: Everything's Right: Formulaic major mode bliss jam to kick off the run. Very peaky. Back on the Train: Trey holding notes and subsequently trilling whilst Page bangs on the baby grand is a lot of fun. Fun Train. Wolfman's Brother: Nice and peaky, very fun Wolfman’s! Maze: Standard. Leaves: Has a bit of whale to it. Barely enough to distract. Life Saving Gun: Kind of sounds like a DWD jam in the early going. Very fast, fun, and upbeat. They are going like mad. It stays in that vein through the mid 12’s when things take a turn for the semi funky and plenty of cool effects from Page. Would recommend, very fun jam – totally danceable the whole way through. Dirt: Standard. Carini: Standard. SET 2: Sand: Competent jam with good length and danceable enough for sure. They keep things at a nice even pace, and I felt like Page played the baby grand very well in a complimentary role to Trey. Nice Sand for sure. Good way to set the set. > Tweezer: A bit too upbeat for my tastes. But objectively listening to this, it’s a good jam. Trey really picks through that solo in the 18’s and into the 19’s – dude can still play the crap out of that guitar. The last five minutes get super weird and a bit dark, very nice turn of events here. Definitely has some old school, Tweezer wind down elements in it – pretty cool. Would recommend. -> My Friend, My Friend: Nasty, dark, evil and absolutely in your face. Would recommend. Trey in full shred mode! > Mike's Song: Solid! Ripped it pretty well. > Lifeboy: Gorgeous, relatively fresh take on this classic. Huge fan would highly recommend! Weekapaug Groove: Standard. Blaze On: Standard. > Fluffhead: Trey gets lost in the early 5’s. Pretty epic flubbing. ENCORE: Farmhouse[1] Cool with Trey on acoustic to start and end. Neat. Run Like an Antelope: Standard. Summary: Very good show. 4/5. Review is purely based on the music, not on the visuals. Replay Value: Life Saving Gun, Tweezer, My Friend, My Friend, Lifeboy [1] Began and ended with Trey on acoustic guitar. The band took the stage while the pre-show electronic music continued. During Back on the Train, psychedelic images of passing countryside were displayed behind and above the band, rotating in opposite directions in different sections of the dome. During Maze, psychedelic live images of each band member appeared, stacked on top of each other. These images then fragmented and spread out, dancing and turning throughout the jam. During Leaves, several giant paper lanterns appeared, flanking the stage, while the dome showed a multitude of paper lanterns floating over water, with the moon shining above. During Life Saving Gun, the dome displayed stacks of old-style televisions with rabbit ears, with each television showing a live shot of one of the band members. These TVs moved and rotated as the jam progressed. After the song, Trey said that he "loves any song with a Jon Fishman percussion rinse," and told the crowd they should see the Sphere from the stage. During Dirt, the dome showed a forest view, looking upwards through trees at a purple-hued sky. During Tweezer, a field of multi-colored cars appeared behind the band, changing in size and shape and with their headlights blinking on and off in patterns, while other cars drove past overhead. My Friend, My Friend included live spotlight silhouettes of the band members projected across the entire dome. The projections during Mike's Song made it seem as if the venue was outdoors, with the band playing in front of a body of water with a rotating sculpture on the far shore. During Lifeboy, the sun went down, and a number of other rotating sculptures lit up in the sky, creating a golden star-scape. The sun then rose again during Weekapaug. Farmhouse began and ended with Trey on acoustic guitar, as well as images of a farmhouse in a field under a night sky filled with stars and aurorae.

Night 3 at the Sphere. Well, this one was kind of a 10-meter belly-flop, compared to what it could have been. I'm not going to go into the quality of each jam and song as other reviewers have done that already. I'll start by saying that if you take the venue and Vegas out of the equation, this was one of the more boring shows I've seen (barring 10/12/2010 in Broomfield). Let's break it down categorically: [b]Visual presentation[/b]: Amazing. I'd go see a band I didn't even like here. Phish's utilization of the Sphere's capabilities spanned from outright spectacular to sometimes feeling like Kuroda had a Windows '98 machine that got stuck in screensaver mode. [u]Score: 4.8 stars.[/u] [b]Sound[/b]: Amazing. The FOH sound was mostly immaculate. Fish was a bit quiet at times but didn't detract from anything. The technical ability of the sound system was truly amazing from a clarity standpoint. It wasn't super loud but 100% immersive and just felt perfect to me. [u]Score: 4.9 stars.[/u] [b]Setlist[/b]: This is where things start to become puzzling. SYSF and a pretty lame Tube to start things off felt like a wet fart in an elevator. This night was set up to be a ripper and 75% of the tunes were uninspired and flat. It made me miss the days when Trey wore the same stretched-out black Mickey Mouse shirt to multiple shows in a row and probably ate White Castle on the way to the gig. Mickey Mouse Trey would not have let Designer Trey do this to a Saturday night setlist in Vegas. [u]Score: 2.7 stars.[/u] [b]Jamming[/b]: The clarity of sound allowed us to hear the band play off each other in a way I haven't heard in a long time. There were a lot of intricate details and licks that would have been buried in the mix at a louder, more aggressive show. That said, something big was lacking in the energy and jamming category - let's just get this out there. Almost an intentional "let's save some energy for Sunday" type of thing. Whenever Mike's pants are tighter than the jams, we're heading into problem territory. Lots of cool trey licks, and interplay that could have developed into great jams but ended up cumulating into mediocre noodling for a few minutes and fading away. Things would get going on a song or a jam and then the wet blanket would come out to make sure nobody was getting too crazy. [u]Score: 3.1[/u] [b]Food/bev[/b] Didn't try them but the nachos looked pretty good and had a very nice presentation of Fresno chiles and other little toppings. Had a solid lobby cocktail. [u]Score: 4.7[/u] [u]Closer/Encore[/u]: This thing could have turned around with some late 2nd set heat or a good encore. The venue felt oddly low energy as the band left the stage after 2nd set but I guess that's to be expected when there's a SANTOS closer on a Saturday night in Vegas. On to a turdy Life Beyond and a predictably short Tweezer Reprise that felt like it said that they could rock if they felt like it, but let's save that for another time. "Don't give up hope" was the right Chorus to end on, that's for sure. [u]Score: 1.1[/u] Overall Rating of the night (including Vegas/Sphere vibe and dropping into the casino party post-show) 4.9. Would go again.

PHISH, TUESDAY 06/20/1995 BLOSSOM MUSIC CENTER Cuyahoga Falls, OH Soundcheck: Funky Bitch, Ginseng Sullivan, My Generation, Daniel Saw the Stone > Rock Lobster, Horn, Blues Jam SET 1: Llama: Standard. Spock's Brain: Standard. Ginseng Sullivan: Standard. > Foam: As Page’s solo gracefully winds down, a subtle yet captivating crescendo emerges, courtesy of Mike’s deft bass work during Trey’s introspective solo. The resulting surge of energy is nothing short of electrifying. Would recommend! Bathtub Gin: Standard. If I Could: Trey masterfully employs the Leslie, creating a mesmerizing sonic landscape that seamlessly complements the exquisite piano artistry by Page. Would recommend! Taste: Standard. I Didn't Know: Standard. Split Open and Melt: Standard. SET 2: Halley's Comet: Standard. > Chalk Dust Torture: The band deftly weaves intricate musical layers into a compact timeframe. Their improvisational journey ventures through diverse sonic landscapes, showcasing their prowess and delivering a killer, short jam. Prince Caspian: I had forgotten how short the early iterations of this were. Of the first 15, I want to say 13 of them clocked in under 3 minutes! Uncle Pen: Last time UP was paired with Mike’s: 6/5/1990, 6/9/1990, 10/19/1990, 2/11/1993, 3/5/1993, 4/29/1994, 6/10/1995, 6/20/1995 Mike's Song: This one has an unassuming 1st jam. However, the subsequent 2nd jam plunges into a mysterious, shadowy realm. Yet, Mike and Fish’s unwavering rhythm, guided by Trey’s deliberate playing, resurrects the energy into a rocking groove. Around the 12:00 to 15:30 mark, pulsating musical motifs emerge, only to recede back into the enigmatic depths. Finally, the band transitions smoothly into the uplifting tones of Contact. This was my first Mike’s and the best I have ever seen! Easy all timer and highly recommended! -> Contact: Standard. > Weekapaug Groove: Fairly interesting and unique but there is no ending/payoff so blue balls unfortunately. > Hold Your Head Up > Cracklin' Rosie > Hold Your Head Up: Standard. Highway to Hell: So, this actually happened. I was on the lawn and saw it happened. When this started up, a dude ran up that big support thing and got on the roof and was dancing up there. Cops realize it. So does the wook. He scrambles across the roof running towards the other end, down the other support on Mike’s side, down into the lawn and into the crowd and he seemingly got away. One of the craziest things I have ever seen at a show. ENCORE: Slave to the Traffic Light: The heavy metal build up in this intro is spectacular and intense. The climax is very peaky. Would recommend. Amazing Grace: Standard. Summary: Very good show feels like a 4/5. Replay Value: Foam, If I Could, Chalk Dust Torture, Mike's Song, Slave to the Traffic Light The soundcheck's My Generation was performed acoustic. Bathtub Gin contained Long Tall Glasses teases from Trey. This show is available as an archival release on LivePhish.com. JAM CHART VERSIONS Foam, If I Could, Chalk Dust Torture, Mike's Song TEASES Long Tall Glasses tease in Bathtub Gin

Amazing show. Second set contained some truly awe-inspiring jamming. The Disease is an instant-classic, all-time version and is some of the best jamming ive seen. and then after a swelling, mellow beneath a sea of stars, the boys deliver a 20-min bliss-rager Light. like being up 4 runs and hitting a 3-run bomb for good measure. the visuals were great (especially during Ghost), but tonight i was once again struck by the fact that phish is still delivering elite jams 4 decades in to their career. it woulda been easy for them to let the visual spectacle of the sphere do the talking this run, but instead they pushed jams at nearly every opportunity and played multiple jam-chart-worthy versions, capped by last night’s monumental DWD.

At this point it's pretty clear that Kuroda, CK5, is dictating the setlists. I can just see the original band meeting a few weeks ago.....So guys, I have some insane visual ideas, it's going to blow everyone away, especially if they're tripping, but they require time to fully develop and show properly. So I am going to need every song to be long and jammed out. Nothing less then 10 minutes! No Sparkle, no short country songs, no short slow songs Trey. AND I need setlists that don't change!!! You don't get to screw me like you did in the 90s and make up setlists, so I can base my lights on it...and then don't even follow them at all! This here run at the sphere requires themes and set ideas for the songs...and you can't change them!! But we like to ease into the 1st sets and play some warmup songs that don't go anywhere? To bad Trey, I am going to be the bad lieutenant here...not you! Every song jammed out! But I want to play Axilla! That's fine....just jam it out! 15 minutes will be good! What about lifeboy after a MIke's? Fine....Just.Jam.It.Out. Be creative! The fans love it when you jam out something different. Take Lifeboy for a ride! You can do it. The whole 1st set....everything jammed out! No excuses! But But but I need some slow songs.... OK!! I will give you one or two short songs each night. But I need to know what you want to do. OK you guys have some homework now. Come up with 4 nights of setlists...How you envision each night to go and I will review them with my lighting team. Setlists have to get approval from lighting before you can move forward. Joking aside, it had to be like that to a degree. Just look at the 1st set....every single song was jammed out. It was a perfect psychedelic set except it was yesterday that was dripping! Anyway, the bubbles in Tube!! and Pillow jets!! The misty mountains also cool. Which song had those fireworks trees? that was amazing!! I thought the Golden Age Twist and Chalkdust jams were the best parts. Especially that 2nd Chalkdust jam! The visuals on the screen are so amazing! So trippy! I took psychedelics for Friday and it was endless brain orgasms. I could see that tonight also had elements of that and I was just straight! If you feel like your tripping just from the screens...imagine what it's like when you are tripping!! And I watched from home and still got it....just imagine being in the sphere and tripping!!! Killer job Phish team translating it to the webcast so well!! Make sure we can buy the videos so we can have acid parties at home with them!!! Mind was blown on Friday!! And how good the sound is with no amps on the stage!! wow just perfect sound!

I guessed Mountain Air and Got a -4 NICE inclusive community of fans we are....what about my comment deserved that? I was just guessing like all of us and even though it is now obvious it is the 4 SPHERES of existence w a little help from google this "These four subsystems are called "spheres." Specifically, they are the "lithosphere" (land), "hydrosphere" (water), "biosphere" (living things), and "atmosphere" (air). Each of these four spheres can be further divided into sub-spheres." I said it is either Fire on the mountain as a nod to the Grateful Dead or it is atmospheric mountain air which turned out to be correct and I get boo'd for that? WTF....I get why Trey plays WTU all the time....he is tired of pretentious tool fans (not the actual band Tool because they are great) I was just doing a stream of conscience before the show was over and I guessed 3 things 1 being fire the last being mountains and valleys vs N1 flat earth and my 2nd guess which was correct and I get a -4 Now I will get -400 because phish fans are not the nice hippies everyone thinks they are MOST are but some are just wook chomper trolls This show was by far the worst show of the 4 thus far and I assume after LIVING CREATURES tomorrow ...that it being a Sunday show and w THAT theme ..it cannot possibly be worse than this anxious mess These shows prove to me that Phish is about the MUSIC and the LIGHTING ONLY CK5 ENHANCES the band This screen DETRACTED from the band in most cases If the band would have went totally literal or LANDSCAPE REALISM ONLY this could have worked like in BOTT and in Prince Caspian and a few others but the moral of the story is do not do graphic design like that terrible Bathtub Gin which looked childish immature and neon pastel AWFUL They turned 1 of my favorite Jam vehicles into a train wreck w that background And the bottom line is ....listen to a show w not being able to know what Page and his new shirt look like ...no CK5 amazing accompaniment lighting and if it is still a 4.5 show ...ok....THEN and only then show me the VISUALS but the music comes first The Visuals almost always take a backseat except in the Whale and Dolphins on Earth Day and the NYE Gag songs because they were NOT screens they were REAL LIFE enhancement like Midgets in Golf Carts to Tweezer Reprise THAT was hilarious and made the song ever better Soul Planet a good song not great everyone hates on it like they will hate on this review but I am right and you fools are wrong .....for the most part (those 4 dudes anyways that gave me a negative point for just being honest real and curious-makes me want to in my immaturity do what Jay and Silent Bob did at the end of Strike Back...and look past your VPN and figure out your punk ass 4 addresses and strike back and kick your phony asses) But I regress and breathe deep and say I for one am glad I did not go to Vegas Yes it was miles better than 2004 the worst 3 Phish shows but to compare that is NOT SAYING MUCH Trey is sober so it better be better than that Jay-Z Girlsx3 idiocy w the flu and a hangover Trey says he wants to come back definitively and that is cool and all but only if he starts to take things a bit more seriously and more literal These shows just the tapers are terrible and that speaks volumes to me....The Tweezer sounded good and that was about it the last 3 nights to me Community SHMOONITY Phish fans would turn on you in a second come the apocalypse and end of the world Hippies pretend to be nice until they need water and protein and become the ravenous secret wolves underneath the sheep kind sexual freedom exterior ...when the wooks and Howling wolves reveal themselves as the clowns Guyute pigs and Slaves to sin they really are (watch Zombieland 2 that is real Hippy living in OBLIVION AWAITS) When they NEED to eat humans to survive and not just WANT and desire NO2 shrooms acid and weed to survive in their entitled universe lets see who puts the 666 on their forehead or right arm because it will not be me but it will be those fools giving me a -4 rating We can love Phish and hate the community of lazy people (btw Big Lebowski is one of my favorite films before you put me in another category box) I am also a Republican who hates and will not be voting for Trump or Biden Trey had my hopes up in the CBS interview saying this would be epic but also said Mondegreen festival will....I believed him until I witnessed the Torn and Frayed (bag of nerves on first and second and third nights but especially third) I still want to believe the band is just at the cusp of greater music because 2023 especially the Alpharetta and MSG shows both in the summer and NYE were AMAZING except for the usually great 12-30 which was strangely terrible and made no sense 12-28 actually got the ju ju juice this past year and of course 12-31 w the Gamehendge surprise because usually the NYE show ITSELF sucks compared to 12-29 and 30 but they flipped the book to the book ends and not the MEAT of the book this last year And then Mexico on that I agree TOTALLY w Trey in the CBS interview where he said Mexico was their best run ever and I would not go that far but it was the best Mexico run ever 2017-2023 so 6 i think w Covid so not 7 if memory serves and the first show warmup was even pretty good for just one set That Alaska was BLUES royalty and then it just went into the unexpected stratosphere unlike these 4 shows I sure hope tomorrow is good because these 4 were underwhelming and the visuals looked really cheesy childish immature and silly in most songs w a few exceptions You know im right Look at Bathtub Gin and tell me that sounded good let alone the shitty visuals? This may have been Fire is in the AIR night but this show was anything but FIRE or Energetic AIR