Phish at SPAC, night one

On Friday, July 5, I was out of work early and on the road to upstate New York for Phish's three-night stand at one the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.  I checked in at the Econo Lodge in Albany, then headed up to the show.

I fell in love with SPAC in 2004 when Phish played there on their "final" tour.  I saw the first of the two shows and it was truly memorable.  I returned last year for the second and third of the three nights and, again, found the experience to be excellent and the shows memorable. So this year, I was intent on doing all three.

Let me get my big complaint out of the way - the sound is terrible on the lawn.  On the plus side, the lawn is large and roomy.  And unlike the manufactured feeling of, say, the PNC Bank Arts Center in New Jersey, it has a very real and natural feeling to it.  But it is simply not equipped with the sound system needed for a rock concert. The sound gets better as you move closer to the front (duh), but the crowd is thicker, too, and it was stifling hot that night.  So I moved around a lot, looking for a sweet spot that offered decent sound and some dancing room.

The "Kill Devil Falls" opener was exciting enough - especially because even though it is a fictitious place, it sounds like it would be in upstate New York.  Throughout the set, Phish played tightly but rather leashed with "The Moma Dance", "Sample in a Jar" and "Nellie Kane".  Just as the coda of "Roses Are Free" seemed like it may stretch its legs for the first time in a long time, it ended.

There were two debuts at this show - "Yarmouth Road" a  new tune by Mike Gordon and "Energy" a cover of a song by Apples in Stereo.  Both were mostly uninteresting, but maybe I need to hear them on the soundboard recording to enjoy them.

The first real winner of the night was "Bathtub Gin".  I do not recall ever being let down by this song, and that night it delivered a great jam.  The set-closing "David Bowie" continued to show that when Phish gets its jam on, it can still do it as good as ever.

But it was "Army of One" that got me most excited. I love the 'Undermind' album. Many of its songs debuted live the year before, but with Phish breaking up in 2004, the songs never had a chance to flourish the way the 2009 'Joy' songs have in recent years.  Suffering from stunted growth, each time they play a song from 'Undermind' it feels like they are giving it a chance for new life.

"My Friend My Friend" was disappointing.  In recent years, the buildup in the middle has been huge and intense and this one did not stack up.  

One thing that struck me about "Cities" was that it has become a huge crowd singalong.  When did that start happening? It made me fully realize how much I had been missing by listening exclusively to the soundboard recordings for the past 10 years.

After "Energy", Set Two lifted off and, with the exception of a standard "The Mango Song", never looked back with "Light", "46 Days", "Drowned" and "Slave to the Traffic Light" bringing quality jam after quality jam. I have witnessed "Slave" soar to the heavens and I have seen it die painful deaths.  This performance was definitely among the better ones.

"Steam" was a delight to hear.  After debuting as an instant fan favorite, culminating as the featured song of 12/31/2011, it disappeared almost completely, with only one performance in the year it so prominently rang in.  Let us hope that does not happen again.

I totally called the "Character Zero" encore - there was just so much electric vibe in the place that to not close the show with the crowd-chanting "Ohhhhhh...Uh! Uh! Ohhhhhh!" would have been a disservice.

Getting out of the parking lot at SPAC is a long process (it took more than a half hour just to get to my car!), so by the time I got back to Albany, it was really late.  And I had 13 miles to run in the morning.  No matter - all worth it for my first Phish show of the year.