My first show! Stoke level was extreme. Trey was in a foot cast—fun watching him try to work his petals. I don’t think i stopped jumping up and down for a second during Jim. Just pogo-sticked the whole tune. Tweaked a hammy. Went on to see another 70 or so shows through ‘98. Tweaked my hammy several more times. *hail storm heading out of the lot into the show

PHISH, WEDNESDAY 02/26/1997 LONGHORN Stuttgart, Germany SET 1: Camel Walk: Huge bustout. Awesome way to start this show. Llama: Standard. My Friend, My Friend: Standard. Harry Hood: Cool placement but average version. > My Soul: Standard. > Tube: Standard. > Carini: Standard. Rock A William: Standard, brief explanation of who Rock A William is/was. Dog Log: Another big bust out. Not played since the famous version from 12.11.95, 90 show gap. While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Standard. SET 2: Buried Alive: Standard. > Poor Heart: Standard. > Ha Ha Ha[1] - Heavy metal outro jam is sick, would recommend! > You Enjoy Myself: Trey rips the solo, nicely done! -> Kung: Standard. Standard. -> Theme From the Bottom: Standard. > Scent of a Mule > Jam -> Magilla > Scent of a Mule: I typically am a hater of Mule. But this whole segment was a ton of fun! Would recommend. Slave to the Traffic Light: Very strong and soulful version. Great Trey. Would recommend! ENCORE: Highway to Hell: Standard. Summary: Bust out city = instant classic plus this SBD tape being widely circulated did not hurt it’s popularity. Really fun show. 4/5. Replay Value: Ha Ha Ha, Scent of a Mule > Jam -> Magilla > Scent of a Mule , Slave to the Traffic Light [1] Heavy metal outro. This show featured the first Camel Walk since July 2, 1995 (140 shows) and first Magilla since May 4, 1994 (261 shows). Ha Ha Ha was notable for the heavy metal jam outro. YEM included Super Bad teases. Trey teased Dave's Energy Guide in Theme. The jazz jam in the Mule Duel included an ‘A’ Train tease from Mike. JAM CHART VERSIONS Ha Ha Ha, You Enjoy Myself, Scent of a Mule, Jam, Magilla, Scent of a Mule TEASES Super Bad tease in You Enjoy Myself, Take the 'A' Train tease in Jam, Dave's Energy Guide tease in Theme From the Bottom

PHISH, SUNDAY 04/21/2024 SPHERE Las Vegas, NV SET 1: Plasma: Cool way to open the show. Evolve: Standard. Ghost: Brief sojourn into major mode territory in the early going. But after that, things get pretty interesting quickly. Love this segment that ends at about 9:30. Back into celebratory mode for a bit in the 14 minute range. After that, they play around with some effects and then it quietly peters out and ends. Solid enough Ghost, especially this early in the show. Divided Sky: Standard. Shade[1] - Standard. hey stranger: Good jam, fairly compact. They could do a lot more with this tune. Character Zero: Standard. SET 2: Oblivion: Standard. > Down with Disease: Wow, this one will go down in the history books. Anyone here something similar to My Woman From Tokyo stuff in the late 22’s? Awesome DWD, really have enjoyed my handful of listens to this one. Easy all timer and highly recommended. Beneath a Sea of Stars Part 1: Standard. -> Also Sprach Zarathustra: Standard. > Light: Standard. > Ether Edge: Standard. > Piper: Standard. First Tube: Standard. ENCORE: More: They should stop playing this in the encore slot and while they are at it stop playing it all together. > Slave to the Traffic Light: Put it on the shelf guys until you are ready to give this tune the attention it deserves. Slow down. Have patience. Let it breathe. Stop rushing Slave! Summary: Review is purely based on the music, not on the visuals. One huge highlight in the all timer DWD. Other than that, nothing really grabbed my attention. With Mexico and Vegas in the books, this year is off to a good start. They have moved off of the bliss crutch and are generally more interesting thus far. I like the direction of the band and think it’s the best they have played since Fall 2021. This doesn’t feel like a 3.5 but not quite a 4 either. So, I guess 3.75/5 feels appropriate. Replay Value: Down with Disease. [1] Began with Trey on acoustic guitar. The band took the stage while pre-recorded music similar to Plasma played, before beginning the song. During Ghost, the neon-colored outlines of three giant robots appeared to tower over the band, with their facial expressions varying and their arms and bodies swaying slowly. The three robots were then replaced by one massive robot, with spotlights utilized to make it appear as if beams of light were coming from the robot's eyes, before the original three robots returned for the remainder of the jam. During Divided Sky, the dome became a view of a sea of clouds, with patches of blue sky above. As the clouds moved, their appearance varied from purple sunset hues to dark and stormy, with the movement stopping and all of the color fading during the pause before returning for the rest of the song. Page teased Linus and Lucy at the end of Divided Sky. Trey began Shade on acoustic guitar. During Shade, an eclipsed star was shown behind the band, with its corona of changing colors visible and a silhouette of the band in the center. During Sea of Stars, the dome became filled with a curtain of gold-colored four-point stars, which twinkled and waved in front of roiling clouds. During 2001, the dome became a starfield before being illuminated by replicated images of the stage lights. Mike teased Plasma during Light. During Ether Edge, a string of umbrellas with colored drops trailing beneath were raised to either side of the stage. The umbrellas were lowered again during Piper. During First Tube, the dome again became a starfield, this time with a ring of stars centered above the stage slowly swirling. As the second "verse" of First Tube began, a white vortex appeared in this area. As the stars in its orbit began to become multicolored, the vortex pulled in their light and created flowing, rainbow-hued ribbons that grew as the jam progressed. Prior to More, Trey thanked the production team behind the Sphere shows, and said that he thinks the band will return to the venue. After Slave, the band gathered at the front of the stage to take bows and have a picture taken in front of the crowd. 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 plasma. JAM CHART VERSIONS Plasma, Ghost, Down with Disease, Light TEASES Linus and Lucy tease in Divided Sky, Plasma tease in Light

Crispy dSBD available for this show. Sweet Adeline opens once again. Afterwards, you can hear Fish say “you want me to start?” before launching into the first Asse Festival of the year…kinda. It sounds more upbeat than what they’ve been playing in Guelah this tour. A well played Jim follows. Solid Reba. Inspired standalone Suzy. Stash smokes! I had this second set in my first batch of tapes back in the day. It’s been at least 30 years since I listened to it last. Hearing it all again brought back so many memories! Set 2 starts off with a well played Curtain into a fantastic Possum. TMWSIY>Avenu was up next. Both Curtain and TMWSIY have shown up a bunch on the second half of this tour. Nice Mike’s Groove. Groove straight shreds. This inspired Fluffhead is played flawlessly! A monster little Tweezer with Dr. Q on bass comes in next. Tweezer doesn’t have it’s usual reprisal ending. Instead they transition right into Coil. Page takes a nice solo that segues into another Wipeout jam, this time with Fish providing a vac solo over top! This in turn segues into the set closing Tweezer Reprise. When the band comes back out for the encore Trey dedicates Bouncin’ to Susan Gutkowski and says the next song (GXBX) is “taking care of some old unfinished business”.

Berkeley night three punctuates the band’s first Greek appearance since 2010 and provided the band an opportunity to add an exclamation point to their much anticipated spring 2023 run. Night one’s massive Tweezer -> Simple jam set expectations sky high — a lofty bar to clear indeed. While night two’s sequence of Don’t Doubt Me through Fuego offered full-throttle jamming, Set II’s conclusion with the pairing of Farmhouse and Backwards Down the Numberline left a few phanners grumbling — or so I overheard while exiting the venue. I personally enjoy Numberline quite a lot, especially once Trey's solo kicks off. It nearly always delivers scalding guitar licks. For Night Three, the band wasted no time establishing a boisterous mood with a spirited version of I Never Needed You Like This Before. Aside from INNYLTB, the balance of Set I leaned heavily on evergreen favs, including a nicely jammed AC/DC Bag, a cleanly played Rift, and a Runaway Jim that featured some particularly sparkling piano work from Page. The band then walked Jim into a dark, brisk jam that blossomed triumphantly as it returned to the chorus. Lawn Boy followed and provided an opportunity to showcase the rich, organic texture of Mike’s new Serek bass. Fish drives a brief Halley’s that cruises until it pivots abruptly into Timber. At least in my experience (e.g., 12/07/97, 07/26/13) Timber is often a harbinger of a top shelf show. This Timber plies its typical interstellar territory before settling back to earth with Winterqueen, which provides the night’s first real cool down (no pun intended) before the band closed Set II with a soaring, bombastic 46 Days. Set II opens with Mike’s Song and then Beneath a Sea of Stars — the latter providing one of two jam highlights in the second set. The loping pace of BASOS has proven favorable for improvisation. The Berkeley BASOS is a meditative tiptoe through the cosmos that affords moments of introspection where music, fans, and venue felt untethered from time and space. Weekapaug Groove bookends Mike’s Song as expected. Weekapaug was the probably only moment of Greek run where I missed the assertive tone of Mike’s Modulus bass. Cool it Down was a welcomed surprise and inspired a rousing singalong at the top of the Greek’s steep lawn where I was perched. Next, Set Your Soul Free provided the second deep dive of Set II and it lurched and churned through a murky psychedelic haze. The jam collapses into an amorphous throb pierced by pitchy guitar stabs. The chaos surrenders to the glistening elegance of What’s the Use? leading to speculation about the pairing of these two song titles. Set II wraps up with a routine, if spirited, Loving Cup and a standard two-song encore of Waste and Tweeprise, the latter providing logical conclusion to arguably highlight of the Greek run — night one’s mammoth Tweezer. Night three has a lot of replay value, especially AC/DC Bag, Runaway Jim, Beneath a Sea of Stars, and Set Your Soul Free.

When Phish returned in 2009 I accompanied m’lady to a lot of shows, including Festival 8, the band’s eighth festival (hence the name) and the first one that they scheduled to coincide with their very exciting and sought-after Hallowe’en extravaganzas. It was also the first time they had held one of their festivals on the west coast, settling on the Empire Polo grounds in the Coachella Valley (yes, that Coachella) just outside of Palm Springs in Indio, California. So there was a bit of travel involved. To wit: With barely two hours of sleep to our name, m’lady and I arrived at the Ottawa airport on October 30th, 2009 at the ripe hour of 5:20am only to find that our departing flight had been delayed by enough hours to make catching our connecting flight impossible. The attendant told us the earliest they could get us to Palm Springs would be Saturday afternoon – midway through the weekend-long festival – so we took things into our own hands and made our own way, commando-style. We re-routed ourselves to arrive at LAX by mid-afternoon where we took advantage of the festival’s loosely-organized shuttle system and switched our shuttle booking with nothing more than a nod and a smile. This put us on an hours-long bus ride full of fellow fans that would’ve almost got us onsite in time for the start of the evening’s concert if only the driver hadn’t got lost. When he stopped at a gas station to ask directions the bus emptied and we all went in and bought all the beer we could carry. The next hour was spent binge-drinking on the bus with vacation elation, and when we finally arrived onsite the festival folks had a well-oiled group of greeters ready to make up our lost time. They helped us load our gear into a stretch golf cart and whisked us to an area where we could pitch our tents, then the same cart drove us to the gates of the concert field, and just like that we made it onsite in time for the final song of the first set, the rather appropriate [i]Time Turns Elastic[/i]. The second set was great (and much more relaxing), the crowd was pumped and the venue looked amazing. A canopy of stars told us that there was not a cloud in sight anywhere at any time, majestic mountains ringed the wide sky and the pancake-flat pitch that held the main stage area was littered with palm trees on every side. It was glorious; truly an oasis in the desert with plenty of space for revelling, and sight-lines galore. The stage featured a big-screen on either side and the video looked just fantastic (no wonder, the weekend’s footage was edited into a theatrical release called Phish 3D). It was total pro, with tons of angles and cameras, lots of boom stands including a huge one near the sound board, and all of it in HD. Lightman extraordinaire CK5 had a rainbow of illumination aimed at 100+ palm trees filing away from the stage in infinite perspective to the left and the right and it looked simply amazing. I often find myself in awe of what Kuroda brings to the band and he went all out again for F8, including the best Phish visual gimmick ever to close this first evening: a huge amorphous floating glowing golgi light-emitting apparatus that was utterly impossible to stop gaping at in wonder. Come to think of it, the eye candy was killer in all directions. Glancing away from the stage the eyes were blessed with wondrous works of art that decorated the back of the field. Fire-spewing towers of twigs formed a semi-circle outlining the main viewing area, and beyond that were a myriad of interesting art installations. Explorations had to wait for this old man though. After such an arduous day of sleepless travel and lacking in any serious nutrients I was on the verge of collapse when the concert ended, so with hardly a bit of muckimuck I went back to my tent and spent the night shivering myself awake again and again in the cold desert night, too tired and lazy to dig out my sweater. http://www.toddmanout.com

Decent audience source available for this show. An MC introduces the band and let’s everyone know that this is a Pace Music Productions event. A rippin’ Chalk Dust starts things off. Nice Possum. The Arrival section of Fluffhead cuts. :( Mike’s delivery on vocals for Poor Heart is less Phishy and more country with these early versions, I like it. YEM is well played. Nothing too out of the ordinary happens. The Llama to close the first set is solid but straightforward. Uncle Pen opens the second half. A solid Melt follows. Butts, Vomit and Henrietta delivers a fun vac solo for I Didn’t Know. Beautiful Hood! They close out the night with another Harpua. This version is more inspired than the one they encored with at The ‘Sco in Oberlin. They encore with the first Donna Lee of the year. It’s surprisingly tight for not being played in so long. Fire slays!

Fantastic audience recording available for this show. The acoustics aren’t great in the Field House being a big open gymnasium, but it really makes me nostalgic listening to audience recordings from this venue as I saw my second show there. Big thanks to John Redmond once again for another great early recording! Donny Emerick from the Outing Club introduces the band to the stage and warns the crowd of the police presence in the building. lol Like Buffalo, they start the evening off with Sweet Adeline. A well played Landlady follows. Afterwards Trey takes a moment to thank NH for their support throughout the bands 7 years. He also mentions that Mike broke a string in the first tune so “you know it’s gonna be a hot gig!” Solid Jim. Reba soars. Cool hi-hat hijinx section. Straightforward rippin’ Bowie set closer. I ate some mushroom chocolates for this second. I won’t give a play by play but I will say it was pretty awesome! :)

In light of the recent Spectrum release and 12/3's Bowie --> Possum, I just wanted to go to bat for this show's (better) version. It's borderline criminal that this page's setlist doesn't read Bowie --> Possum, as I think the --> Possum is one of the great segues in the canon. Go back and listen to it. They push Bowie to the bitter, bitter end and then slam head first into Possum. It's remarkably clean while also making me want to run through a brick wall.

The AKG 414 source for set 1 is listenable, but doesn’t sound nearly as clean as the unknown audience source for set 2. At any rate, big thanks to Dave, Todd and Arty for unearthing set 1 and the second encore! The show starts off with a nice run of songs. Curtain>Jim, Sloth and Reba are all well played. The Reba is great! Trey soars on this version. Poor Heart finally comes out of hibernation next! It’s interesting that they debuted it at the Billings Lounge three years earlier. It was reported that they soundchecked it a few nights back in Buffalo, although only Funky Bitch is noted as being played during soundcheck. Llama rips per usual. The wrap up the first half with a decent Oh Kee Pa>Suzy. A shredtastic Chalk Dust starts off set 2. They follow this up with a solid Gin. Afterwards Page makes an announcement that the security guy said that if the smoke alarm goes off again he’ll have to end the show. One person in particular wasn’t happy about that! lol Trey makes a comment about the people getting squished up front as well. Uncle Pen gets a big ol’ Yee-Haw! from Cactus. Afterwards he says “Well I’ll be damned!” In his best cowboy accent! lol Really nice work from Trey on Landlady. Mike let’s out another Yee-Haw during Landlady as well! lol Fantastic version of Stash with heavy DEG teasing in the jam. Even though Lawn Boy/Rocky Top is a pretty straightforward encore Trey added a little extra mustard to his solos. Encore #2 features a beefy little Tweezer with a cool Heartbreaker tease. Unfortunately the crew thanks in between Tweezer and Tweezer Rep. is cut from the Relisten app.

Beautiful Crispy Cass/1 SBD available for this show. Nice mix but unfortunately there’s not much of the room mixed in. Big thanks to Jason Sobel for cleaning this one up and patching in the missing portions of Possum with Dave Schanker’s AKG 414 source to make a complete show. Well played versions of Golgi and an early show Rocky Top get things underway. Wilson makes an appearance for only the third time this tour. No “Wilson” callouts during the intro. Fantastic Sky! Cool little DEG tease at the start of the jam. Trey takes some risks with the composed section of Foam. This carries over into the jam with nice results. Beautiful trifecta with Oh Kee Pah>AC/DC>Tela! Sizzling Bag jam! The Weekapaug will have you playing air guitar and making Trey faces…solid version! I’m not sure when the band started taking voice lessons but Sweet Adeline sounds noticeably better since it’s return to the stage. Page wishes everyone a happy Earth Day before heading off for set break. The Possum to open set 2 is well played but pretty straightforward. Trey gives an in depth Gamehendge narration prior to Mockingbird in celebration of Earth Day. Llama shreds per usual. You can feel good about this Hood. Trey is en Fuego during the jam. The #1 contender for the heavyweight crown, Henrietta, pulls out his bone for the encore. A rare Bowie encore wraps up the evening. Solid version.

Four score and thirty years ago..... I went to my first show on this very night with my ex-, who turned me on to this amazing band. Little did i know at the time how it would later connect me with some of my best friends in life as well as a whole range of amazing trips and a ZILLION laughs. This summer, i am quite likely to hit my 100th show and the magic journey continues, thanks to good friends, GREAT music, and laughter.... lots of laughter. With that said, i'm now listening to this show again for the first time in a few years, but it is a show that i revisit fairly often with much fondness. It might have been a 'typical' show for the era, but (though i do listen to quite a bit of REALLY out-there, avant garde music), this was a unique experience for me at the time. As is described in another review here, Hayden Square was really just a roped-off area in a local pedestrian mall. I had previously done both my bachelor's and master's degrees at ASU and used to frequent the jazz club named Chuy's that had moved into that area from it's original location, so i knew the area quite well. Small venue, small crowd (for the time) but the area itself was pretty jammed with people. I had previously listened to Picture of Nectar, so i wasn't coming in completely cold, but i was definitely a newb. But, i would have had no idea at the time if this was a 'standard' show for the time or not, it was all news to me. The first song was of course, Runaway Jim, which happens to be my first name (though none of my Phish friendsies call me that), so that was an immediate laughter point. I remember really enjoying MFMF and as i listen now, It's Ice was a pretty stellar version, i wish they jammed this tune out more like this version (and also more famously, at the Baker's Dozen, which i'd describe as one of the most unique versions of a song in that entire run - but i digress). The second set was where i really dialed in. CDT was awesome, i am a fan of Bouncing but SOAM might have been what truly hooked me on this band and this experience. I LOVE the tension this band creates in SOAM - "evil Phish" is my favorite Phish. If SOAM didn't get me, then when they pulled out Peaches, the hook in my craw was SET! ANY band that covers Zappa (well) is a friend of mine. From there, the show just went up - crazy vocal YEM jam, Purple Rain, HYHU, GTBT, by the end of the second set, i was enthralled. Then, they dropped a Freebird encore, and i probably had the most "WTF?" look on my face after the show. I had been thrown in the deep end of the pool! Good Times, GREAT Times, it was just the beginning of having my share. This show was the catalyst for many shows to come. After this, i hit Laguna Seca and Spreckel's Theater later that year and i was ALL IN. Kudos and thanks to all of my phriends who i've met, bumped into, stumbled over, laughed to point of crying with and hugged over the last thirty years. Some of my very best friends and best life trips have been organized around seeing this amazing band create spontaneous magic for us each and every night. We are VERY blessed my phriends. The journey HAS been the reward, and i look forward to another THIRTY years! :-). (Wow, where did the time GO?)

Another pretty good audience recording for this show. There are points where the bass is a bit over saturated. Big thanks to Todd and Arty for getting this one circulated! Also, a big thanks to Dave Schanker for taping! The show starts off with an average/good Jim. A well played Reba is up next and features some soulful playing from Trey in the jam. Llama rips per usual. Another well played Fluffhead. The YEM set closer is the clear highlight. Taking risks all the way through. Because of this there are a couple miscues. The VJ segues into the formal debut of Setting Sail to wrap up set 1. They briefly quoted Setting Sail in a YEM VJ once before at The Campus Club on 12/29/90. Funny banter ensues at the start of set 2 regarding the Fishman Family Minivan giveaway in Ithaca at the start of the tour. Sloth gets things started off right. Decent Melt. Funny to hear some of the banter among fans at the start of Cavern and during TMWSIY. Interesting Tweezer. The spliced in SBD source for the encore is pretty rough, but at least it’s available to make for a complete show.

Just excellent! Love the song selection for these first two Trey Anastasio Band shows of the year. Got a repeat Sand and Wolfmans Brother, and Blaze On I believe. First set closer About To Run hit the lick’s per usual and one of my favorites. This whole show gets me in the element. Just, how talented each member is and everyone performing together in time. I love it! Second set is my jam. Quantegy is one of my favorites and just great song selection for this second set. Love ‘Life Beyond a Dream.’ Nice work you guys!! I’m so happy

On June 20th, 2004 I attended the second of a two-night Phish run at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, or as music fans throughout the northeast and beyond refer to it: SPAC. (Bless the board of directors for not bowing to the wheelbarrows of money that have doubtlessly been offered to rename the beautiful, wooded venue after some cold, ugly corporate entity.) This would prove to be my last Phish show before what we all were told would be the final Phish shows ever, at the ill-fated and long-hated train wreck of a weekend musical outing: Coventry (but enough about that fiasco for now). As the band headed into what was to be their final end (spoiler alert: it wasn’t) it was clear that they were not going out on a high. Strike that: they were going because the bandleader and figurehead of Phish was on a high. Too high to play, that is. Trey Anastasio was in a bad way and it was effecting everything in his realm, not the least of which was his band. Not to be unkind, but the anchor started to sink the ship and the other three guys in the band could no longer bail him out. It had come to the point where there was no longer any option but for everyone to jump overboard. Wondering if it was really that bad I decided to re-listen to the show this morning and yeah, the band was clearly going nowhere but away. Case in point: the very first lead guitar melody bit of the very first song of the night – [i]Rift[/i] – was pooched from the opening line and remained rough and amateur-sounding for the remainder of the ninety-second interlude. Frankly, even when Page jumps in to take over on piano it sounds very sub-par. I guess the band as a whole just wasn’t getting together to practise like they used to, but really, it just sounds like the air was coming out of their tires and the whole band was sounding somewhat deflated. And no wonder, it must have been a serious drag to stand next to Trey on a nightly basis and just watch his musical mastery slip away so noticeably. Like, a serious drag. Just take a listen to Trey’s guitar solo in that opening song and compare it to any solo he played in the entirety of the 1990’s. The writing was on the wall; it was over (temporarily, thankfully). Anyway, I won’t pick the whole show apart (which would be easy, and lengthy), suffice to say that the end was obviously nigh, and the pending disaster of Coventry was very, very predictable. But really, it was still way better than going to see a Journey concert or Foreigner or something, and all my friends were there too, so you know, I had a pretty great time anyway. And Trey’s playing wasn’t all bad, it just wasn’t like it was (or would be), and we all missed him, even when he was right there in front of us. In short I’m glad I went to this show, but if things hadn’t improved drastically (and by “things” I mean “Trey”) I sure wouldn’t still be going (another spoiler alert: I am). http://www.toddmanout.com

This show was pretty f’ing sweet. Totally cool, some great jams, yeah a lot of Phish tunes but done with a groovy funky twist. Peep the Ocelot & Wolfman’s. New songs in set 2 were even pretty rad. Everyone around me was getting down. Poppyhead and Demons def have some Phish potential. The crowd was feeling it, Trey was loving the Salt Shed. It was a great show and we were all having a blast. All in all I would recommend giving this show a spin.

Jammin couple of sets. The first set was so good and solid. I love TAB almost as much as I love Phish. I really enjoy these 4 men working together. ‘Ocelot’ was very good and 46 Days was one of the best I’ve heard. WGTYM is an excellent track, with awesome space to explore in the future. Second set was fun and upbeat. The encore was I think some of the best two song tracks I’ve heard TAB or even Phish deliver, but I’m a big ‘Cayman Review’ fan. Don’t even get me started on that ‘Ghost.’ Absolutely brilliant

Pretty good audience recording for being a few generations from the master. It sounds like this tape was dubbed over something else as you can here that recording bleeding through during quiet sections. DaaM>Bouncin’ start off the show again like a few nights ago in Chicago. A solid Sky follows. Tape flip after Stash. The beginning of I Didn’t Know is cut. The only man on the planet capable of kicking George Forman’s butt delivers a nice vacuum solo for Buffalo. George Forman (faht) Evander Holyfield on this night in ‘91. Standard Mike’s Groove. Tonight’s first set ends with the previous shows opener, Sweet Adeline. At the start of the set Trey regrets to inform the audience that George Forman failed to win the belt that night. Hood is always a welcome set opener. Solid jam on this one. Curtain>Golgi makes for a nice pairing. Tape flip after MSO. The beginning of Coil is cut. The Antelope set closer has a rippin’ little jam. Another fun BBFCFM. Trey says during one of the pauses “there’s a gentleman down there that said “play a Phish song!”” lol Fish tells another quick joke before shouting out 1,2,3,4!

At the show I remember thinking..."This KDF takes me back to Lakehood 2015 KDF from N1 Set2 opener", or "MSG NYE15 KDF". I still love both of those and this one got added to that list. TYPE2 all the way. Then we got Tweezer and Oblivion....If you enjoy type2 Phish like I do then go listen to KDF, Tweezer, Oblivion. Great show and great jams!

The levels run really hot on this audience recording. If it wasn’t for that this wouldn’t sound half bad. The first Sweet Adeline of the year kicks off the show. Chalk Dust plows out of Esther and features another rippin’ lil’ jam. The DaaM>Foam transition is nice. Solid YEM to close out set 1 with another fun VJ. Set 2 gets underway with a decent Llama. A nice Reba follows. Oh Kee Pah>Sloth pair well together. Strong standalone Suzy! Really nice version. Nice Melt as well. Good Possum closer but straightforward overall. They treat the folks at Oberlin College to the first Harpua in almost a year. Standard version.

Another SBD source available for this portion of the tour. This one sounds decent but is a little flat and lacks low end. The recording levels are tinkered with during Tela and improve slightly. A pretty straightforward Golgi, YEM get things underway. Great run of songs from Mango to the set closing Bowie. Perhaps it was due to the two month hiatus, but Mango is really off. The Bowie set closer is pretty standard. Set 2 starts off with the debut of the first band/crew football theme song over Barracuda and the opening to MSO. A pretty straightforward Reba follows. Chalk Dust is starting to grow some legs. Paul Guiness, trombone player for the opening band, Ryth McFeud, joins the band for Magilla. He can play but it’s pretty clear that he’s not as technically proficient as Phish. Tweezer has some fun teases but fails to reach liftoff in the jam. They wrap up set 2 with Tweezer Reprise. Fun encore but nothing too noteworthy.

If this wasn’t a Cass/7 or so, it’d probably be a halfway decent audience source. Lots-o’-warts! DaaM>Bouncin’ seems to be making a comeback in ‘91! lol Bouncing cuts and the beginning of Landlady is cut. Llama has a red hot solo from Trey. Pretty standard YEM for this tour. Reba’s nice but has an annoying cut just before the climax. Raging Possum to close out the first half. The beginning of Guelah is cut halfway into set 2. Nice Sweet Emotion jam/tease in Tweezer. Weird tape warble towards the end of Tweezer and continues through to Jim. Before the encore, Trey urges everyone to go check out Dee-Lite the following night and says that they’ll be there. The encore is standard fair.

January 3rd, 2015 marked the final hurrah of a hootenanny-filled New Years extendo-weekend in beautiful, sunny Miami. This had been the first time in a long time that I had spent part of the holiday season in a seasonable clime, and I can report that the sun and the beautiful weather added a wonderful…season…to the holiday. The entire Miami experience had been great, most especially the weather. Now, I’m not one of those Canadians who has convinced himself that cold weather is a blasphemy against my very existence – the way some people carry on you’d think we all lived in igloos with the windows open – quite the opposite actually. And while I’ve taught myself to enjoy and even look forward to a nice chilly winter (by teaching myself how to snowboard and how to skate) I somehow found a way to appreciate the novelty of a hot and sunny New Years week. Shorts and sandals, frosty beers and patios, and four consecutive easy outdoor strolls from hotel to Phish concert…it’s something worth getting used to. For this final night of the run I started my evening the same way I started all of them, trying to find cheap tickets out front of the American Airlines Arena. And while this night was the hardest of them all (I actually ended up being a bit rushed getting in the door in time for the show), just like the previous night I scored one ticket for zero dollars and the other for $20, bringing the price paid for eight tickets over the course of four evenings to a total of $100 even*. The face value would have been around $600, so what we saved on tickets probably paid for most of our expenses aside from hotel and flights. I suppose it’s inverse scalping, but I still manage to sleep at night. But never mind the weather and never mind the ticket price, there was a whole concert to report on, and what a concert it was! With all the gold that Phish dished out on this final night of a no-repeat weekend I am at a loss to recall what songs they might have had available to play on the other three nights! I mean they started –started! – with one of my all-time favourites, [i]Maze[/i]** followed by [i]AC/DC Bag[/i] into one of their bestest dreamiest random-sounding globules of precomposed sonic bliss, [i]Divided Sky [/i](a song I’m convinced started out as a van-tour vocal jam based on a “divided highway” sign). The set ended with another pair of favourites, [i]Split Open and Melt [/i](the final bar of which always and aptly [in this setting, anyway] reminds me very strongly of [i]Conga[/i] by Miami Sound Machine – once you hear it you will always hear it***) and a raging [i]Character Zero[/i] that almost tricked me into thinking that the show was over. The second set and encore grounded the whole weekend by reminding us all that at the heart of it Phish is simply a fantastic rock & roll band. [i]Suzy Greenberg[/i], [i]Down With Disease[/i], [i]Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley[/i], and a Led Zeppelin encore ([i]Good Times Bad Times[/i]) kept the room dancing despite the collective exhaustion that bound us all together. It was all so very raging that I won’t even bother mentioning the late-set [i]Harry Hood[/i] reggae-fest that saw my arms raised to the girders (though I suppose I just did). In summary, while NYC is a fun place to spend NYE with Phish & Co. I would be very pleased if they booked the weekend in Miami just a little bit more often. As it stands this run was their third and thus far final time ushering in the new year down there, and given the vast differential of ticket prices and availability between the two cities I can’t really blame them for skewing northward. *I only know one person that paid more than $20 for a ticket over the whole run, and almost all of my tickets were in the 100 level. On the last night there were people asking for face value, but I didn’t see anyone pay that amount. **Aside from the great lyrics and just the overall grand composition of [i]Maze[/i] the thing I really, really dig about the song and what elevates it to one of my hands-down Phish favourites is how the band staggers their parts against one another at the end, a rhythmically unstable cycle that comes so close to throwing off the entire tune that it actually holds the whole thing together. Every time I hear the band play it live I try to find the breakaway point and figure out how they do it, but in the moment I can never catch it. I would have to sit down and figure out everyone’s parts and while that would be really fun and probably pretty educational I’m worried that doing so would erase the mystery from the song and downgrade my interest in it. There’s a fair chance that learning the secret would do the opposite and somehow elevate my penchant for the tune, but I’m not sure it’s worth the risk. ***Just like how the verses of [i]Halley’s Comet [/i]reminds me of [i]50 Ways to Leave Your Lover[/i]. http://www.toddmanout.com

March 7th, 2009 was the middle night of Phish’s triumphant comeback run at the Hampton Coliseum in Virginia, a super-fun sold out string of shows that marked the end of the band’s second hiatus. In addition to spending the weekend attending a trio of great concerts I spent a whole lot of time socializing and meeting m’lady’s US concert buddies for the first time. And there were a lot of them. Among the swirl of introductions, handshakes, hugs, and hotel room have-a-beer’s were a number of hey-let’s-get-a-bite-to-eat’s. On one such diversion six or so of us found ourselves at a Hooters restaurant. I have no idea why we went to Hooters; it must have been the closest place. Either that or we were already sick of Applebee’s or were unwilling to shell out the big bucks for a place like The Keg, which should give you an idea of the urban sprawl sort of food options we were faced with in the immediate vicinity of our room at the Hampton Inn. So anyway, we walk into Hooters and are wearily welcomed by the hostess, a short, stocky seventeen year-old greeter that had unmercifully (for everyone) squeezed herself into her obligatory too-tight orange t-shirt. “Can I help you?” “Yeah,” I replied. “Table for six please.” “Sorry,” she said, clearly not sorry. “It’s going to take about an hour for a table, are you gonna wait?” I pointed to an empty table right behind her that was set up for six and looked ready to go. “Could we use that table?” I asked, hopefully. She turned to me with popping gum and a teenaged swagger that was painful to watch and said (if you can believe this): “How much will you pay me if I let you sit at that table?” Oh, to have a time machine so I could go back and and ask to speak to her manager! It kills me that I merely gaped in shocked horror and gave her a poisoned, “Are you kidding?!?!” before turning to the group and insisting that we “go somewhere else, now!” I won’t say I walked out of there livid, but I would have if I hadn’t been in such a great mood when I walked in. As it was we merely laughed about it, agreed that she was being ridiculous and walked to one of the many other nearby food chains. Of course later on we went to the show and had a fantastic time. The band encored with [i]A Day In The Life[/i], which always pleases me. But the one thing that is really permanently burned into my memory from the day is that chubby Virginia hick asking me, “How much will you pay me…” It makes me shudder with ickiness. http://www.toddmanout.com

On June 4th, 2011 I pulled into Ohio’s Blossom Music Center for the second of a little two-night Phish run. This was my first time at the venue and I was pleased to find that the parking area was nothing but lawn and trees with not an inch of asphalt in sight. I followed the waving arms of the traffic control dudes and parked in the park next to a trio of young partiers who had already set up their huge sound system. I got out of the car, poured myself a drink and introduced myself to the neighbours who were absolutely raging out to classic rock. They had a cooler, no shirts, a pair of PA speakers wired to a generator in the back of their pickup truck and a whole lot of ironic energy. As my crew and I settled into lawn chairs it occurred to us that the guys parked next to us weren’t just listening to cheesy ’80’s music, they had the same two songs on a loop: [i]Rosanna[/i] and [i]Africa[/i] by Toto. It was pretty fun for everyone walking by, the three young long-hairs were getting plenty of high-fives and occasionally someone would join in the dance before continuing on their round of the lot, but for those of us stuck within continuous earshot the joke got real old real quick. It didn’t take the four of us long to pack up our lawnchairs and go on a lot stroll of our own. I can’t imagine how the three guys could stand it. I amused myself by imagining that one of them wasn’t that into it, but endured the two-song torture just to fit in with his bros. M’lady and I were lucky enough to have pulled pit tickets for this show through Phish mail-order so we were as close as you could get to the band without actually fighting for a spot on the rail. We danced and stared and just had a great time at the show, which seemed extra-awesome due to our proximity to the stage. One thing that stands out in my mind was the debut of their new song [i]Steam[/i]. I liked the song immediately, and I kept trying to figure out how they were getting the steam sound. I was convinced it was Fishman splashing away on his Chinese cymbals but m’lady insisted it was a keyboard patch played by Page. Even from our spot so close to the stage it was hard to tell – especially with all the accompanying dry ice – but after seeing the band play the song many times since I’ve become convinced that m’lady was right in the first place. When it comes to Phish she usually is. Oddly enough one of the three Toto ragers was in the pit too, a fair coincidence given that about two hundred people out of a crowd of perhaps twenty-five thousand manage to secure pit tickets. He was still raging it hard, and he was holding up a sign that said “[i]Africa Reprise[/i]” for the whole show, which was actually a pretty funny little post script to his gag of the day. I don’t recall where we stayed after the show but it was probably in the direction of Canada. Though we had tickets to the upcoming Phish show at Darien Lake we had for some reason decided to skip the Cincinnati and Great Woods concerts, and with three days off between shows we probably went home to Ottawa. http://www.toddmanout.com

June 5th, 2009 was my first and only time at Jones Beach Amphitheatre. I spent the afternoon meeting a million new people at a pre-party near the venue and arrived at the show with enough time for a drink or two in the lot. Ours was one of a million little circles of friends hanging out before the show with eyes turned upwards toward the darkening skies. This was the last show of a three night run at Jones Beach, a venue infamous among Phish fans, and not just because the band makes a habit of playing here when they tour the east coast. The amphitheatre is right on the water, which I’m sure is much more picturesque from a boat than it is from the stands, but tonight the venue would feel like it was actually in the water. When it rains it pours; it rained and it poured. I remember standing in the concrete upper tier with water literally swirling above my ankles. It was a warm night and the rain felt good. I was wearing a poncho that was soaked through enough that I didn’t care anymore so I just enjoyed the show. They played of few of my favourites, like [i]Theme From The Bottom[/i] and [i]My Friend, My Friend[/i] and they debuted [i]Twenty Years Later[/i], a new song I liked instantly; from the very first line (“I can hold my breath for a minute or so…”). And anytime Phish encores with [i]A Day in the Life[/i] I generally walk out in a good mood, even if I’m in soggy shoes. I have no idea how I managed to get a poster home safe and dry, but I did. It still lives in the tube and has not seen the light of day since the show. Come to think of it, the poster might be damaged after all.

I do like a rollercoaster ride, so I was really excited that the Darien Lake Amusement Park was to be open exclusively to ticketholders for the Phish concert on June 8th, 2011. I got to town nice and early and checked into the hotel onsite. It was still too chilly for any swimming in their big pool but that’s okay – I had bigger fish to fry. I didn’t have a ticket yet, and on the walk from the hotel to the park I ran into a friend who handed me one for free. Well, that was a pretty good start to the day. The entire middle of the day was filled with riding half-empty amusement park rides with a maelstrom of friends both new and old. There were coasters of course, and swingy rides and even a trip down the flume. And anytime I wanted to skip back to the hotel room for a break it was right there. The evening was of course filled with Phish. Not my favourite setlist but who cares? In this 3.0 era or whatever the kids are calling it the shows are consistently great – to my ears there are no other bands achieving what these guys are achieving and I had a great time. They closed off the second set with a song I always want to hear, [i]Harry Hood[/i]. And then a little rock and roll for the encore: [i]Good Times Bad Times[/i]. I’m sure after the show was nothing but good times but I can’t recall anything specifically. An educated guess would have the hotel rockin’ ’til dawn with an open door policy as strangers made friends and sleep fell by the wayside. But that’s only a guess. http://www.toddmanout.com

June 17th, 2010 was the first night of a two-night Phish run in Hartford, Connecticut. M’lady and I were staying with the Frayler’s, a pair of brothers that came out of nowhere in my memory; I don’t know how or where I might have become acquainted with them but know them I did, enough to be invited to stay at their place and enjoy the spoils of their generous hosting for the two-night run along with several other people, most of which also pop out of nowhere in my memory. Actually, it wasn’t even their place. Though the brothers had both moved out we were all staying at their parent’s place, which clearly provided more room and/or greater proximity to the venue. I only met the parents once; the had booked into a hotel for the two nights. Just goes to show you that the Frayler’s come from cool stock. And speaking of cool, this was the day that the two brothers showed me just the coolest trick for smuggling liquor into a venue. As we drove to the show* they described their method: The two brothers enter the lineup about five people apart. As soon as the first brother clears security and has his ticket scanned the second brother lobs a two-liter** plastic bottle filled with rum from his spot still three or four people away from getting searched. First brother reaches over his shoulder and receives the pass, tucking the contraband under his arm. Security doesn’t see a thing, busy as they are looking down into purses and and scanning tickets. It sounded foolproof (in that fools would never catch on) and in practise it worked like a charm. I was standing with brother number two when he tossed the bottle with an underarm flourish. The bottle of rum arced high and perfectly and landed right in his brother’s waiting arms. The hundred or so people waiting to get in all saw it and cheered their approval. By the time the security guards looked up to see what was going on the deed was done and brother number one was well on his way. It was nothing short of beautiful. And economical, though I’ve never spent more money on soda at a concert in my life. The show was awesome, the band played lots of my favourites and a few fun covers too, including [i]Shine A Light [/i]for the encore. I just love it when they encore with that tune; it makes the show I’ve just seen seem that much more…epic…communal…religious even? It’s nothing less than a rock and roll hymn and it makes me feel really good. The sermon is over, now let’s sing together. I can’t remember much about going back to the Frayler’s after the show, but to be fair it’s not like we were sneaking any of that rum back out of the venue with us after the concert. Either way I’m sure the rest of the evening involved plenty of high fives, craft beers, tasty snacks, and lots of comfy couch space. *Interesting to note that in Hartford passengers in a motor vehicle are allowed to possess (and drink) open liquor, though of course the driver must abstain. We took full advantage of this law (or lack thereof) as did many others I could see. It seemed to have no adverse effects – neither personally nor on society as a whole – and I recommend these same laws be implemented (or struck down?) across North America (nay, the world) immediately. **I use the American spelling of “litre” here as the Frayler’s would have obviously been using an American bottle for their liquor-sneaking trick. I’ve always found it funny that there is an American spelling for a measurement they don’t even use, but it turns out they do! Despite the fact that they could easily call the large American soda bottle a half-gallon (with only the slightest alteration) for some inexplicable reason they use the metric measurement. I’ll never figure out America. http://www.toddmanout.com

I’ll tell you what I remember about June 19th, 2004: I remember checking into a room somewhere at SPAC (that’s Saratoga Performing Arts Center for you newbs) with a crew of chums from Ottawa (don’t ask me how I got to SPAC – that would be me telling you what I don’t remember about June 19th, 2004). It was a cheap strip motel with a small second floor – we were on the second floor – with a couple of side buildings that could have been separate strip motels on their own had they not shared a parking lot (and ownership) with our place. I remember seeing the double bed all made up nice with it’s early-70’s bedcover (that matched the curtains) and taking a running dive at it, causing the flimsy frame to immediately collapse under my much sturdier frame. We called the desk and complained, I think they fixed it. Regardless, the lines were clearly drawn; it was us against the hotel staff, and we weren’t going to lose. The room was a suite, with a half-wall that offered my friend Andre and I a charming Linus & Charlie Brown wall-skit recreation. You definitely had to be there but it was still good enough to merit recognition in this missive. Somewhere in there we went to see Phish. This was in the dark days just before their Ugly Duckling Song*, Coventry, and the show probably wasn’t anything to write home about. Unless you’re the kind of person who writes home about flubs and train wrecks at the hands of a guitar player who used to be a serious contender, which I choose not to be at this time. After the show I soon tired of my Ottawa compadres so I grabbed my guitar and a bottle of hard liquor and set out from our room to find an adventure. This had long stood as a guaranteed recipe for success but on this night Casey struck out, hard. I cruised up and down the many rooms of our strip-motel resort serenading one heady music fan after another, each parked in their plastic throne with fresh drinks at the ready. And somehow, someway, I couldn’t cajole a single one of them to invite a traveling troubadour to their fire, as it were. I had somehow tipped the scales to become party-irrelevant. I had, however, gained the ire of the evening’s sole hotel proprietor, who gave me the stink-eye in between fielding a thousand calls and hassles that he was obviously very unprepared for. Benevolent as I am, I eventually decided to spare him at least one problem so I slunk back to the room, where I did the only thing a chronic benevolent snorer could do in a proper wookstack: I cast my guitar aside and banished myself to the closet – where I slept like a dead man – using tomorrow’s t-shirt as a blanket and my small knapsack as a pillow. And that’s what I remember about June 19th, 2004. Glory days. *A play on “Swan Song”. http://www.toddmanout.com

On June 22nd, 1995 I rounded out a three-show run of Grateful Dead concerts south of the border with my second-ever Phish concert, which took place at a lovely little amphitheatre in the Finger Lakes region of New York state with the very obvious and quite pleasant name: Finger Lakes Performing Arts Centre. It’s now called Constellation Brands – Marvin Sands Performing Arts Centre which is clearly a much catchier name. It’s staggering to think of how much thought went into the new name. Did I say “thought”? I meant “money”. Anyway, as I said I had just finished a very eventful and dare I say life-changing little run following the Grateful Dead from Vermont to New Jersey with my good friend Jason, and we pulled into the Finger Lakes lot to find our good friend Corey lackadaisically selling Molson XXX beers (the high-octane beer from the pre-IPA lot era) aside his flashy red sportscar sporting Ontario plates. We gave him hugs and handshakes and he gave us frosty beers in return and we three whiled away the preshow drinking away all of his profits. We had lawn tickets for the show which was a-okay with me. With very few exceptions I tend to prefer standing on the grass at outdoor venues to standing on the concrete-floored seating area in front of a folding chair – I don’t sit down very much at concerts* (especially back then), and this outdoor venue in particular was rather small anyway. It’s a good thing that we were on the lawn too, because I fell myself down a couple of times…on purpose. Y’see, back then there was a secret language that Phish was trying to create with their audience and having seen the band a year before and done some listening since I was “in” enough to know about the inside joke but still very “newb” enough to totally screw it up. Basically, Trey would make a slippery-slidey sound on his guitar alerting everyone to get ready for the coming message and then he would play one of several set riffs that called for a collective audience response. Like, he could play a snippet from the theme to The Simpsons and we were all to scream “D’oh!” at the same time. Or he would play a riff from The Byrds song [i]Turn Turn Turn [/i]and everyone was supposed to turn around en masse and face the back of the venue. The idea was that only the serious core Phish-heads would know to do these things and these seemingly random collective actions would both intrigue and freak out the newcomers. I mention this because I twice heard Trey give the signal and follow up with descending slurs that told me (and many others, or so I thought) to fall down onto the ground and play dead. Only he hadn’t made the signals – I had obviously been a little too excited about being in on the game and was listening a little too hard for the signals – so I was the only person in the crowd who just randomly fell down out of the blue. And I can tell you, it’s a lot less cool when you perform a mass simultaneous action along with exactly nobody else. Musically, I can (and should) report most particularly on the second set of this concert, notable that it is. The first set was fine, fun, and quite standard (though what did I know about “standard” Phish sets back then?) but the second set contained a mere three songs – two and-a-half, really – including a deep delve into exploratory space-jamming over under and through their one-riff masterpiece[i] Tweezer[/i], a single song that stretched to a full forty minutes and only wrapped up by morphing into a reprise of the same song, obviously titled [i]Tweezer Reprise[/i]. (For those keeping score, the other song was [i]Theme From the Bottom[/i], which opened the set.) Wow, a forty-minute song. Funny that I walked out of there thinking this was pretty normal for the band (again, I had only seen them once before, whereas I have seen them well over a hundred times by now). Also funny that I would eventually find myself in attendance for one of the band’s most famous and notorious jams, the very famous Lake Tahoe [i]Tweezer[/i], which clocked in at a relatively brief thirty-seven minutes. After the show Jason hopped a ride with Corey leaving me to drive back to Ottawa solo. It was (and remains) very, very out of character for me to drive with even a hint of alcohol in my system, but despite pounding back a bunch of powerful beers before the show I still got behind the wheel and drove after the concert. Now, I knew that I would be meeting a border guard along the way so I wasn’t drunk or anything, but let’s just say I became quite concerned when a patrolman lighted me up about an hour after I started the ride home. He was pulling me over for my broken tail-light, I knew that from recent experience, having gone through an altercation with the New Jersey police over the same issue the night before. I also knew that I needed a distraction, quick. So, to direct the officer away from any thought of checking my sobriety I quickly led the conversation straight to my broken tail-light (and headlight, I’m now remembering) and showed him the summons I had already received for the infraction in Jersey, further assuring him that I would soon be in my own land where I would then be the concern of the Canadian law enforcers, and where I would be getting the lights fixed in short order anyway. He acknowledged my Jedi mind trick with a smile and an obedient wave and sent me on my way. No droids for him on this night! *Yeah (turning around with an annoyed look), I’m that guy, and no, I don’t care if you “paid for these seats”; if you aren’t a patch-wearing outlaw I’ll continue to stand throughout the concert thank-you very much. If you’d like to complain there is an usher right over there. If he tells me to sit down I will consider it, but until then all I can say is enjoy the show, buddy (turns back to the music and raises fists in the air). http://www.toddmanout.com