The first thing I did when I got to Connecticut for the third and final night of my Fall Tour shows was map out a place to run. I was positively thrilled when I found the Farmington Canal Trail in Cheshire. Much like my favorite place to run in New Jersey and Pennsylvania - the Delaware and Raritan Canal Trail - it is a paved recreation trail that was created from the towpath of a 19th Century canal.
My leisurely paced out-and-back on this flat, scenic surface on a crisp autumn day was a perfect running experience as I headed to Hamden and back. Never fatigued, smiling throughout, still glowing from the previous night's Phish show (yet surprisingly not tired from all the dancing!), I finished the run with a swift almost-sprint for the last three miles. I even jogged an extra mile for good measure.
Then it was off to the hotel for an ice bath and right back in the car to head to the XL Center in Hartford.
One would think that I would not have it in my legs to dance the night away at the Phish show, but one would be wrong.
The show kicked off with a killer rendition of Velvet Underground's "Rock and Roll". The audience went absolutely bananas. After a fantastic jam, the crowd started...booing?? What the hell? Trey then said something about dedicating the song to a great artist and asked for a moment of silence. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked the guy behind me.
"Dude, Lou Reed died today."
That was heavy news, but it explained a lot - the crowd was not booing, they were saying, "Louuuuuuuuuuuuu". That is what I get for spending the day running and not paying attention to the news. When on Phish tour, I get my news at the shows.
The first-timer sitting next to me was positively stoked about "Ocelot" which was great because it is nice to see someone get excited about it and also because it was a particularly excellent version. The set included songs like "Tube" (at four minutes, way too short), "Fee" (I'm so over it), "Nellie Kane" (a former rarity that I can now do without), "NICU" ("Play it, Leo!") and "A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing" (the weakest song on the otherwise strong 'Undermind' album), with the highlights sprinkled among them:
"Halfway to the Moon" is a Page McConnell standout for 3.0. I never tire of it. "Maze" blows my mind more now than it did 20 years ago, with Page's insane soloing on the organ and Trey's frenetically choppy rhythm guitar. "Lawn Boy" is always a lounge-y treat. And "Walls of the Cave" was well-executed in the front half and packed the right amount of punch in the back half. I always want that F# buildup to burst like an enormous bubble into the B chord for the jam and this one did not disappoint.
"Chalk Dust Torture" opened the second set, continuing its status as the song I have most frequently seen Phish play. I think I am up to almost 30.
Someone tweeted on Sunday morning that there was going to be great Hartford "Tweezer" and he was so right. "Tweezer" got dull in the later years of 1.0 and was hit or miss in the 2.0 days. But there was something about the "Tweezer" tour opener in Bethel, N.Y., in 2011 that brought me back around and eager to hear it again. Every version since then has been stellar.
"Golden Age" another huge highlight, every time, lived up to its status in my mind as the best cover song of 3.0. I am an unstoppable dance machine when Phish plays this, and the jam did everything to keep me interested and grooving.
"Birds of a Feather" and "Halley's Comet" were good enough, but unless they start jamming on them more, I do not think I can get too excited about them at this point. But the "2001" jam was a surprise - they stretched it and bent it in ways I have not heard since the late '90s.
"Fluffhead" - the original banner of 3.0 which served to bury the "Fluff"-less 2.0 - was well-played in its changes (not to mention the "jumping" part) and nice and big for the ending.
As with "Walls", I am very particular about the buildup in "Slave to the Traffic Light" (especially with both being set-closers). The crescendo is what makes or breaks a "Slave" and, thankfully, it has been reliably the former almost every time these days. I recall a time in 1997 when I was so frequently disappointed with it, but that is becoming a distant memory.
And who can argue with a rock-tastic encore of "Loving Cup" and "Tweezer Reprise"? Though my legs were getting sore, I could not stop leaping with excitement and frenzy during the closing section of the latter.
Three days of stellar Phish shows, 30 miles of excellent running. That, dear reader, is a perfect weekend.
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