Phish on Jan. 4, 2003 - Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA

Oh memories, memories

Here is what I actually remembered from the show before listening to it again recently: I was happy to hear the new "Anything But Me" (love those "Round Room" ballads!), "Saw It Again" rocked out hard, "What's the Use" was gorgeous, and I had fun walking through the coliseum's corridors during set break. Twenty years later, that is the entirety of my memory of a show that was the longest commute for the shortest return on music. 

Unfortunately, my more vivid and lasting memories had a lot less to do with the actual show. But I will get to that.

A ticket stub in your hand

When Phish announced their return from a two-year hiatus with the New Year's 2002-03 run, I submitted my early ticket requests for all four shows and received one for Jan. 4. When the tickets went on sale on Ticketmaster, I got nothing.

It made absolutely no sense to drive to Hampton, VA, from Parsippany, NJ, for one show, but I did it anyway.

I arrived at Hampton Coliseum and was wowed - it really did look as cool on the outside as the pictures on Phish's "Hampton Comes Alive" album portrayed. Unfortunately, I got stopped at the gate and was told that the parking lot was full and I should park at one of the nearby shopping centers.

Rock and roll 

Hearing the show now, I am once again put off a bit by Trey's crunchier guitar tone that feels not quite right for some tunes, but the first set is a good, if not quite essential, listen (save for the aforementioned "Anything" and "Again"). "Split Open and Melt" is interesting because you can hear the seeds of the hot messes of 3.0 era "Melt", though it does stay more rooted in the actual song for much longer.

So do "Rock and Roll" and "Mike's Song" at the beginning of the second set, but they do rock pretty damn hard, with Trey's new, fat guitar tone working to his benefit.  The latter, however, eschews it traditional ending - and though it gets pushed into the key of F, where "Simple" would have been the expected segue - the song breaks down to quietude and segues instead into "Mountains in the Mist".  Four shows in, the 2.0 era is showing that unusual song selection and a penchant for not properly ending songs are among its oddities.  A heavy duty "Down With Disease" jam ends in a similar manner later on.

"Weekapaug Groove", which fades upward from Trey playing the main riff and eliminates Mike's bass intro starts at a medium pace, but Fish picks it up, and by the middle of the jam, there is some great interplay between Trey and Page that is worth checking out.  And just when you think it is going to come back around to the chorus for the end, Trey finally gets his chance to play "What's the Use".  

After a silly ending to the set at the conclusion of "2001" after some heartfelt words from Trey, the encore drops one more new song, "Friday", a 'Round Room' ballad that vaguely recalls "New Age" by Velvet Underground.

On the whole, it was decent, but it was after the show when the real debacle began for me. 

Bummed is what you are *

In the parking lot, I met a guy that was looking for a ride to New York.  I told him I would get him to a train station in New Jersey.  So, we walked to the shopping center where my car was parked and....no car.  Sure enough, there was a sign that I did not notice on my way in to this lot in which *I was told to park* indicating that cars would be towed. There was a phone  number to call for the towing company, but these were the days before it was standard to include the area code. I had a cell phone, but a seven-digit number in an unfamiliar area code did me no good since these were also the days before smartphones and I could not simply look it up. 

We found a store that was open and found out the area code, called the towing company and sure enough, they had towed the car and told us where it was impounded.

I honestly have no recollection of how we got to the place or how far away it was. But I do remember that when we got there, there was a long line of Phish fans in the same predicament, each having to pay a hundred bucks to get his car back. 

My long journey home

We finally got on the road sometime around maybe 1 or 2 a.m. and now I had to drive through the night after being up since the early morning. My passenger fell asleep in no time, and eventually, so did I. 

Being jarred awake after drifting off the road and into the dirt is a scary experience. I was lucky there was no guardrail or other obstacle into which I could have collided. My passenger woke up, too, and I assured him everything was OK, trying to make it seem like I had been fumbling around with the CD player and not falling asleep.

After that harrowing experience, I somehow mustered the energy to keep it together through the long winter night, finally dropping my guest off at the Harrison PATH station sometime after sunrise. I got home to Parsippany, around 9 a.m.-ish, if memory serves. 

I had been up for more than 24 hours, minus however many seconds I had slept at the wheel. I had commuted 14 hours, plus a couple of hours dealing with the towed car. All for one decent but unremarkable Phish show. Was it worth it? 

*thanks, aLi!

Phish on Jan. 3, 2003 - Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA

Usually, nothing indicates a throw-down more than a "Tweezer" opener.  Usually, if both "Tweezer" and "You Enjoy Myself" are in the same set,  you are in for a wild ride.  But 2.0 was anything but usual.  

Why they chose to play "Tweezer" at a tempo so glacial it makes the 2022 performances seem speedy is beyond me, but I guess that is a testament to the unpredictable nature of the era. Just as oddly, it never picks up, wandering around at that tempo until it segues into a similarly-paced "Theme From the Bottom". 

Trey is always most excited to play his newest songs, so even though an adequate "Foam" picks up the pace a bit, it is "Pebbles and Marbles" that finally injects some needed energy. But it is quickly deflated when "YEM" begins so disastrously that Trey calls it off and restarts it just as badly. Blowing their signature tune was such a major low point that it was what I remembered most vividly about this holiday run, 20 years later. Which is a shame because the jam ended up being a rocker.

The "Birds of a Feather" opener for the second set helps to wash away the stink; as does the "Wolfman's Brother" that spends some time as a battle of the wah-wahs between Trey and Page before finally breaking into a traditional jam for the final few minutes.  As will continue to be the trend for the next year and a half, the song eschews a proper finish ("Twist" does the same) and leads into a very weird "Makisupa Policeman" (or is that redundant?).  Another new song, "All of These Dreams" is dropped into the set and I am reminded of how much I love the 'Round Room' ballads.

In the encore, the band has a little bit of fun with stops and starts in the middle section of "Contact", which is a unique change, before closing it out with the "Tweezer Reprise" bookend.  This is a wildly uneven show and I still cringe at that "YEM" opening, but there are bright spots that should not be overshadowed by that.

Phish on Jan. 2, 2003 - Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA

Upon their return from a two-year hiatus, Phish flipped the New Year's run to start with the Eve and play through the beginning of January.  Also for the first time for the holiday run, they did the bulk of it at Hampton Coliseum in Virginia.

After taking New Year's Day off, they come out swinging on Jan. 2 with "Chalk Dust Torture" and "Bathtub Gin" and right away, the 2.0 jamming style is cemented.  Straying way out of the confines of its typical jam for a solid four minutes in the middle, it is almost miraculous that the former somehow found its way to the ending of the song.  The latter stays more within the "Gin" realm, but combined they take up the first half-hour of the show.  Later in the set "Stash" provides another rager, and for those who think that it took until 3.0 for "Back on the Train" to become a surprisingly fun jam vehicle, look no further than this first version of 2.0.

The rest of the first set keeps it closer to the old formula with shorter, tighter songs from its 1989-1999 period, including a rocking ending with "Character Zero" (that starts with Trey not quite hitting all the right notes on his guitar); though the band does toss in one new tune - the title track to "Round Room" with all its Mike Gordon-led odd-time-signature rhythm.

Continuing to sprinkle new songs into the shows, the second set features the quiet "Thunderhead", but starts with the rocker "46 Days" that, like the previous set opener, runs so far away with itself that by the time they get nine minutes in, it has shed the skin of the actual song.  Somehwhere around the 14-minute mark it becomes almost an entirely different beast that eventually breaks the 20-minute mark with no return in sight.  So Trey swerves into the key of F and blasts into "Simple", which gets quiet after about seven minutes but still also manages to break 10, meaning that the first two songs once again ate up a half-hour.  

Elsewhere in the set "Limb By Limb" and (especially) "Run Like an Antelope" provided such raucous climaxes (not to mention the reliable I-IV of the encore - new song "Mexican Cousin") that my inclination to poop on the 2.0 era seems unfounded.  This is all quite a bit different from my memory of the era.  There is definitely a different vibe from where we left off in October of 2000, but this is still a band that is pushing boundaries and creating excitement.

Phish on Dec. 31 - 1992, 2002, 2012, & 2022

12/31/92 - Matthews Arena, Northeastern University, Boston, MA

The "Buried Alive" opener is much more suited to Phish '92 than its '22 counterpart. They throw down the gauntlet and start knocking you out with hard and fast jams in "Maze", "Foam", "The Divided Sky" and a set-closing "Run Like an Antelope" that makes the 12/30/22 version sound sad. Make no mistake, though - these are guitar jams, and all the momentum lies in the capable hands of young Trey. Stay for Fish's last vaccuum solo of 1992 in "I Didn't Know" because the audience is clearly being goaded into cheering at random spots, to the puzzlement of those of us who were not there to see what was going on.

The second set picks up right where the first left off with a "Runaway Jim" that not only has Trey soloing hard, but has Page providing some excellent counterpoint on piano.  "Stash" is another winner, with the jam getting briefly dark while Trey fires off machine gun 16th notes.  For some fun, how about Trey's narration in "Fly Famous Mockingbird" that features two of what seem to be Trey's favorite subjects for such occasions - flying and transmogriphication (the audience congealing into rock) - and the controlled chaos the "Big Ball Jam" that comes out of "My Sweet One".

New Year's Eve is all about the third set, of course, and this was the second-ever three-set NYE show.  The countdown commenced during a hot "Mike's Song" jam, which tumbles into "Auld Lang Syne" which then neatly segues into a "Weekapaug Groove" that kept the party going.  For more fun, there is "Harpua", with another storytime segment that covers the usual dog/cat fight in great detail and incorporates Fish's "Kung" chant, and a special appearance by the Dude of Life singing "Diamond Girl".

The a capella "Carolina" in the encore is an impressive feat - getting the 6,000+ crowd to quiet down to let the band sing barbershop without microphones - and "Fire" puts the exclamation point on the evening. 

12/31/02 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

A very different Phish came onstage at Madison Square Garden 10 years later.  This Phish had upped the ante every year through the 1990s, culminating in the almost unbelievable Big Cypress NYE show in 1999.  Now, after a two-year hiatus, they return to play their first show of Phish 2.0 on the most special night of year, inverting the four-show concept so there would be three shows after NYE.  The opening "Piper" speaks volumes about this new era - they get right down to the jamming and it is darker, deeper and thicker than before...and it clocks in at 16 minutes.  And yet, for a band that is finally announcing itself to the new millennium, with a new album in tow as well, the rest of the set stays firmly rooted to the '80s and '90s and for a while, it feels like the old Phish again.

The second set opens up with the new "Waves" and Trey's new guitar tone (crunchier, dirtier, more bitey) serves the jam section well (as it does for "Carini"). But not so much for "Divided Sky" and "Rift", songs that need a lighter tone.  Also, some rust seems to show in the composed sections of these tunes, as well as "Harry Hood".  Had Trey forgotten how to play them?  Did they not practice enough?  Does Trey <gasp> just kinda not care?  He had spent the better part of the past two years with a 10-piece band that was fully capable of picking up his slack (and he seemed to have spent a lot more time conducting them than playing guitar solos) and now he is revisiting these old songs like a stranger.

The cracks continue to show in the third set with the underwhelming "Sample in a Jar" opener (as well as an offputting "Taste" which revealed some listening issues among the band as Trey tried for a solid minute to steer into "What's the Use" to no avail), but all is forgiven when the debut of "Seven Below" ushers in the new year. The "Runaway Jim" jam that follows quickly abandons all sense of the song and wanders through different ideas until Fish locks into the drumbeat for Little Feat's "Time Loves a Hero", played only four times before (thrice in 1988 and in 1998) and not to be played again until 2010. 

Phish ends the set with the excellent new "Walls of the Cave", which could have brought some awesome power to the finish, but the jam got oddly mellow.  This would be another harbinger of what would come in 2.0 - the long jams that spiral outward, losing all sense of the song, trying things for the sake of it and letting them stew until you realize 15 minutes have gone by and not much has really happened even though it feels like you had been on a strange journey.  

12/31/12 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

With a golf theme already evident, Phish opened the night with Rick Nelson's "Garden Party", appropriate for the venue and for the stage which was dressed for such an occasion (but hopefully not its sentiment). After that one-time performance, this solid set touched on a little of each of the band's three previous decades, with other fun covers like "Roses Are Free" and "Walk Away"; as well as some big energy in '80s classic "Mike's Song" (which, along with "Weekapaug", had been played at 10 previous NYEs!) and '90s rockers "Sample in a Jar" and "Character Zero".

Apart from the "Ghost" that stays in mellow territory, riding a groove that is largely static even as Trey occasionally drops some pretty cascading notes, the second set is filled with upbeat jams like "Birds of a Feather", a "Piper" that remains more grounded than its counterpart from a decade earlier before bursting into a big climax, and a "Light" that stays fully danceable (and includes the "Auld Lang" tease usually reserved for the previous night). And if you still have your dancing shoes on, stay for the "2001", too. After all that, there is still room for "You Enjoy Myself". None of these jams are extraordinary, but they all play out quite well for a great listen.

Then, of course, there was the third set.  After teeing off with a fun "Party Time", they do the "Kung" chant, which mentions "a runaway golf cart marathon" and that seems to be what we get as golf carts start crisscrossing the stage, which now has two levels. Dancers hop off the carts in full cheesy golf regalia, and swinging clubs with their choreography as the band rocks "Chalk Dust Torture" into midnight for "Auld Lang Syne" and a wild "Tweezer Reprise" with big choir vocals and insane flashing lights. 

After that, they leaned so hard into the golf theme that the rest of the set list consisted of song titles that could be construed as golf references. "Sand" and "The Wedge" were both played excellently, with focused jams (nothing lasting more than nine minutes); Steve Miller's "Fly Like an Eagle" (another first and last for the band) was a nice surprise; and "Lawn Boy" as a barbershop quartet brought a new, fun spin on the tune.  

Even the encore continued the theme with "Driver" (with a false start due to Trey seeming to confuse it with "Summer of '89") and the first- and last-ever true performance of "Iron Man" (the one previous rendition was performed by a marching band on NYE 2003).  

At the end of 2012, Phish was at its most rock solid since the '90s in its ability to execute the technical stuff, jam with purpose and direction while also branching out in interesting musical and sonic directions, and bring silly and engaging ideas to the party.  This four-show run is a prime example of all those things.

12/31/2022 - Madison Square Garden - New York, NY

The band's 14th NYE at MSG (and a whopping 76th total at the venue) starts with "Tweezer", setting the stage for what was to be a much better night that the previous. The jam stays melodic and focused throughout, settling into a groove and decidedly pushing no envelopes.  The segue from "Halley's Comet" into "Set Your Soul Free" is as absolutely seamless as can be; and though the latter song ends up in pretty much the same Everyjam (thanks, Ali) territory that "Tweezer" did (and then does again when it returns later in the set), it is still a pleasant listen.  "Mike's" returns for yet another NYE appearance, with Fish playing extra authoritatively, especially into the closing section; and a well-executed "I Am Hydrogen" gives way to a dragging tempo in "Weekapaug", the best part of which comes when Trey holds a single guitar note for a solid 45 seconds while Page hammers away on his piano.

In retrospect, we might have been getting teases of the third-set time machine gag throughout the first two sets. In the first set, there was "Tweezer", "Mike's" and "Weekapaug"; and in the second set, we got "Say It to Me S.A.N.T.O.S.", "2001", "Mercury" and "Drift While You're Sleeping". All of those songs were played at or around midnight at previous NYEs, and they all brought a special energy to the show. The only extended jams of the set were "Kill Devil Falls" and "Light", and though neither will make any best-of lists, both were interesting and entertaining musical excursions.

The Time Machine gag in the third set was an impressive presentation, using "Ghost" as a through-line as they zig-zagged through the wacky gags of Phish's past. Some were only visual, so watch the video on YouTube to see Kasvot Vaxt, Sci-Fi Soldier, the Famous Mockingbird, golfers, clones and more. Musically, the medley mash-up that referenced NYEs of 1996, 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2010 almost sounds like the band is gearing up for a Phish Revue residency in Vegas, but there is a certain charm to it now that the band has been around nearly 40 years. In 2004, Trey insisted on breaking up the band to avoid becoming a nostalgia act. To hear him being so comfortable with it now is actually quite endearing. 

That is not to say there were not some fresh jams in the set. After re-introducing "Tweezer" yet again, the band used a surprisingly engaging "Prince Caspian" to launch a segment of fine jamming through "Crosseyed and Painless" (among the many welcome covers in the set!) and "Piper", which were so energetic that the come-down of "A Life Beyond the Dream" felt truly earned. 

In fact, the whole thing felt earned. A band that has been around for 40 years (minus five in the middle) has a right to acknowledge its past; even a band that has always been as forward-looking as Phish. How many other long-standing artists not only continue to make new music, but also believe in that music enough to play all the songs on their new albums live in concert, many of which delight their fans every bit as much as the classics?  Neither Springsteen nor McCartney nor Metallica can do that. 

So why not indulge in a little bit of nostalgia?  Looking back at 40 years of Phish turned out to be a great way to look forward to the future that lies ahead.

Phish on Dec. 30 - 1992, 2012 & 2022

12/30/1992 - Symphony Hall, Springfield, MA

As a contrast to the later years, it is worth hearing Trey as the guitar shredder in these old recordings.  Hear him completely tear it up in "Split Open and Melt" and "David Bowie" in the first set and "Llama" in the second set. 

With the exception of a missed cue (or rather, an imagined cue) at the end of the "Reba" jam, this show is chock full of the classic songs played with precision on the composed parts and free-spirited flying on the jammed parts (see "Bathtub Gin").  Even that "Reba" is worth a listen for the sweet jam, as well as the insertion of "I Walk the Line" before the song's conclusion.  

Any "You Enjoy Myself" from 1992 is worth hearing, and this is no exception, especially as it starts the sort-of tradition of Trey teasing "Auld Lang Syne" somewhere in the 12/30 show.  The bass breakdown before the vocal jam gives Mike a chance to strut his stuff; and the vocal jam gets weird with the band shouting out "Pete Schall" (a member of the crew) before going into the hymnal sounds that they had been perfecting earlier in the month and then calling out "Oh Kee Pa" (which I thought would lead to "The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony", but instead led to "The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday", dedicated to everybody's cousins (?)).

This show also brings out some tunes that were rarities even back then.  As "David Bowie" begins, Trey leans instead into "Timber" (not played since 1990 and not to be played again until 1995), though I am pretty sure he inverted the two-chord progression.  Toward the end of the second set, they play the jazz standard, "Take the 'A' Train" (they probably could not resist since they were playing in an early 1900's concert theater).  And in the encore, "Ride Captain Ride" made its second appearance of the month, after laying dormant for two years, only to hibernate again until 1998.

12/30/2012 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

Opening the first set with "Runaway Jim" and closing it with "Run Like an Antelope" seemed more like at '92 thing to do, and though 48-year-old Trey did not do the dizzying flurries of notes that his younger self would have done, he did drop a "Dave's Energy Guide" tease in the former and kicked the climax into high gear for the latter.  Not a bad way to bookend the first half of a top-quality show that played to all of the 3.0 strengths.

"The Divided Sky" suffered a bit from not having the manic Trey shredding of old, but at least the composed half was delivered with perfect execution.  Better on the jam front were the tunes with an easier pace to let Trey do some fancy fretwork - like "Back on the Train" and "Ocelot".  

In an age when covers seem to have gone by the wayside, it is now a treat to rewind a decade and hear "Cities" and even "Ya Mar" ("Play it, Leoooo!").  But even more of a treat was the re-emergence once again of "Ride Captain Ride".  Surely, this could not have been a coincidence (though 2012 does have the distinction of being the year with the most plays for the old Blues Image song). 

That was all well and good for the first set, but Set II is where the action really is - the flow of the set, the selection of songs, the way the jams kept moving and twisting and turning through different themes.  It is not just that I was there (feel free to read that account for my extended gushing) because listening to it again today, it still sounds fresh and interesting and thoroughly listenable.  This is a set that I would recommend listening to as a whole, but if you need just the high-quality meat, "Down With Disease" and "Carini" are essential.

12/30/2022 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

Dec. 30 shows rarely disappoint. As the penultimate show of the year, the excitement is in the air and the band delivers with gusto. 

Not so with the gusto this year. In the first set, "Down With Disease" and "Foam" were choppy, if not sloppy (same goes for the "Chalk Dust Torture" encore); and "Pebbles and Marbles", "Reba" and "Run Like an Antelope" were functional. The jams all did stuff, but none of it seemed particularly inspired. And why the hell is Trey singing "The Moma Dance"? 

Even the unusually extended jam in "Theme From the Bottom" felt directionless. It did things, but none of them were terribly interesting beyond the fact that things were being done. The only time the set felt like it had the energy it needed was during "The Howling", the show's only song from the 2020s.

The second set was reminiscent of the 2.0 era - a five-song set with sloppy or weak execution of the composed parts but long, winding, spiraling jams that may or may not have a direction. These are the kinds of jams that make non-phans wonder what all the fuss is about. 

The one to enjoy is "No Men in No Man's Land", but doing so requires patience, a good listening ear, and a willingness to surrender to it and take the long ride - like a road trip where the feeling of merely riding in the car and watching the scenery is enjoyable enough, even if there are no big roadside attractions.

Unlike 2.0, the jams stay rather grounded, with none of the wild abandon of that period; but at least they know how to stick the landings these days, so you are provided with some sort of climax, or at least an arrival, each time. 

While the noisy bits usually reserved for "Split Open and Melt" show up in "Sand", they seem to work better this context. That said, give me a late '10s "Sand" over this one any day. 

Notably, the second set contains the first cover song of the run ("Golden Age") and only one song that is under 14 minutes (a well-played, if not quite climactic "If I Could").

Dec. 30 shows rarely disappoint, but this one, sadly, did.

Phish on Dec. 29 - 1992, 2012 & 2022

12/29/1992 - Palace Theater, New Haven, CT

If you want big guitar climaxes, look no further than "Llama", "My Friend, My Friend", "The Divided Sky" and "Stash" in Set I.  And "Wilson" is worth a listen as it continues the interesting pre-"blap-boom" excursions from earlier in the month.

In Set II, "The Curtain -> Tweezer" is an interesting segue, though the latter does not stray too far out of the song's formula.  Later, rather than go full burn, "Mike's Song" plays around with themes, with Trey landing on "On Broadway" and Page doing "Blue Bayou" (which Mike continues in his "Weekapaug Groove" intro), but there is good usage of dynamics and I suspect something visual must have been happening. Near the end of the show, Trey promises the slowest "Terrapin" ever and delivers.

There are two "Big Ball Jams" - one in the second set, as a segue out of "My Sweet One", and one supposedly a capella in the encore (though it does not really come through on the tape). They finish with a "Rocky Top" that is so ridiculously fast, Fish can not even keep up. 

For some rare lyric flubs from that period, check "Guelah Papyrus" and "Tela" (the latter providing an instance of the '22 version being better than the '92!).

12/29/2012 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

I do love a "Crowd Control" opener, setting up some good energy. That energy made its way into "Rock & Roll" and "Gin", the highlights of Set I - the former is an ass-kicker and is nice to hear since '92 was too early for it and '22 seems not to have any covers; the latter takes some time to get there but once it starts peaking you're happy you stayed.

For Set II, "Golden Age" (see "R&R" above) and "Waves" make for some good 3.0 jamming, "Boogie On Reggae Woman" provides some excellent bass action from Mike, and "46 Days" rocks out a big ending. Sadly, I recommend skipping most of the encore - "The Squirming Coil" is cringeworthy and "First Tube" doesn't really smash as hard as it should. But "Grind" is always fun to hear, so at least the encore is not a total loss.

12/29/2022 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
This show comes out swinging with an excellently executed "Fluffhead" that extends the coda into a jam where new themes are explored as it moves into the territory of a 3.0 Everyjam (thanks to aLi for that phrase). Eventually, it teases "Dave's Energy Guide" before it melts into a segue to "Your Pet Cat" which, along with "Hey Stranger" and "Blaze On", is a refreshing change after listening to '92 and '12 shows all month. 

The Everyjam comes again during "Tube" and again in the second set's "David Bowie".  That is not necessarily a bad thing.  While they are rather interchangeable from song to song, they are perfectly enjoyable when they do it well (and they usually do it well).

The oddest thing about the first set is the "Slave to the Traffic Light" that clocks in at a mere 6:41. That's got to be the shortest "Slave" since the 1980s, right? Someone needs to look into that. 

Things really heat up in Set II with the trio of "Everything's Right", "You Enjoy Myself" and "Ruby Waves", the essential 51 minutes of this show. When Trey decides it is finally time to shred, hold on to your hat.

Bringing the sweet "Lonely Trip" into the mix offers a well-deserved cooldown before closing out the set 1990s-style with "Back on the Train" (sounding fuller and shinier when Page moves from the clavinet to the piano) and "Character Zero".

For the encore, "Guyute" gets rather bungled and "Possum" mostly falls flat, but Trey saves it at the end by getting goofy, and who doesn't love when Trey gets goofy?

Phish on Dec. 28 - 1992, 2012 & 2022

12/28/1992 - Palace Theater, New Haven, CT

The four-show New Year's Run tradition begins!

Prior to 1992, Phish played a few NYE shows, even doing groups of two or three shows.  But 1992 was the first four-show run, setting the standard for every future holiday run to the present day (with the exception of 1999). 

They picked up where they left off on fall tour with mostly solid playing and big energy, but with nothing new or reveletory, and set lists not deviating from the formula they had been perfecting.  The opening "Maze" and Trey's banter in "Buried Alive" in Set I are definitely must-hear, though.

Set II has a "Melt" done right, to which you will want to listen before the inevitable '22 "Split Open and Mess" (thanks to aLi for that one).  The second set also has a hot "You Enjoy Myself", renditions of "Harry Hood" and "and "Reba" that are great even by the high standards of 1992, and "Fire" that burns up the encore.

12/28/2012 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

In Set I, "Army of One" and "Nellie Kane" are nice to hear considering they do not get played much.  Mike's bass is surprisingly bouncy in "Stash", "Kill Devil Falls" has some good energy into the finish, and the "Wolfman's Brother" jam takes a little time but finally swerves into a fun "Little Drummer Boy" theme for the holidays.

Set II opens with a "Tweezer" that also takes its time.  I was at this show, on the floor and pretty close to the stage so I had all my time and attention to give; your results may vary.  It is worth hanging with, especially as it ends up in the key of E and sounding like a "Wolfman's" jam in its original, proper key.  "Maze" does all my favorite early-'10s things with Trey provided awesome, clanging counterpoint during Page's organ solo; "Twist" continues the "Drummer Boy" fun; and "Bowie" has an interesting and playful jam that is worth a spin.

12/28/2022 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

"Buried Alive" is a bold opener for the old guys, and while it is awfully choppy, there is a good energy that continues into "Wolfman's Brother" and "Maze" (but not as good as a decade earlier). "Sigma Oasis" settles more for pretty and that is fine. "Tela" was surprising to hear and executed quite well.  The "Stash" jam goes into a major key and stays in the '20s wheelhouse where the jam uses chord structure, phrasing and counterpoint rather than guitar heroics, until Trey finally unleashes a flurry of 32nd notes just to let you know it is, indeed, the climax and he is still the Ernesto Giuseppe Anastasio that we all love.

On the negative side, "NICU" is sleepy; "Steam" is OK, but never really feels locked in to the slinky groove, which you may know is very important to me; and "Melt" is...well, you know.  "Free" gets a good groove going, but Mike's bass is criminally low in the mix and you can hear Trey doing things with his voice to overcome his old-guy limitations (though it is nice that he is putting his vocal coaching into practice). 

"A Wave of Hope" is the star jam of the night, with the kinds of twists and turns they tend to do these days in place of shredding (see "Stash" above).  And I would be remiss if I did not mention the relatively new "Leaves", which manages to do gorgeous things in the unlikely setting of a hockey arena.

"Plasma" and "Twist" do a nice job of building jams like that, too.  They do not melt your face, but are fun and pleasing to the ear.  Sadly, the former neglects to go to the ending and the latter shits the bed at the end. "Hood", however, does a good job to close.

As an added bonus, the encore of super-oldie rarity "Esther" and "46 Days" (the lone 2.0-era song of the night) is definitely a go-home-happy treat.  I like my 2022 shows full of variety, with every decade and era represented, and this one had it all.

"A Picture of Nectar", thirty years later

To honor the 30th anniversary of "A Picture of Nectar", I gave it an attentive listen, something I do not think Phish fans do often enough.  As far back as I can remember, a new studio album from Phish was often met by fans as a flight of fancy - an interesting diversion (or even a <gasp> sellout!), but not the real meat of what Phish was about.  Sure, the album is OK, but have you heard [insert awesome show date]?

This is a shame, because Phish albums are quite good.  They can be multi-layered, nuanced recordings that add new flavor and instrumentation to the songs we know or snapshot representations of the band's craft with minimal yet supple production.  Sometimes, both. The first three albums, however, are neither of those things.  While one might expect the major-label debut of "Nectar" to utilize the full force of Elektra to beef up its sound, it instead sounds like the end of a trilogy of Phish emerging from the studio with an album of Phish songs, performed in the exact arrangements as Phish plays them at its many, many gigs.  The upshot is that these are expertly executed, well-recorded, high quality versions of these soon-to-be-classic tunes, in a time when - get ready for this, kids - the internet was not a big thing; when fans relied on taped shows copied endlessly on cassettes of varying quality.

Thus, my first thought today, the moment "Llama" began: This sounds great!  The recording is "produced by Phish" according to the liner notes, but it does not so much sound "produced" as it does well-engineered (courtesy of Kevin Halpin).  It is a bright, sparkling, trebly record - a hallmark of 1990s CD-era production.  Aside from some vocal processing (heavy reverb, some flange, and the down-pitching of Trey Anastasio's lead vocal in "Chalk Dust Torture" that makes him sound almost like his future Oysterhead bandmate, Stewart Copeland), a few instances where rhythm guitar can be heard alongside a lead guitar part, and a guest appearance by Gordon Stone on pedal steel and banjo ("Poor Heart"), there really is not much production going on.

While the bass guitar is not as high in the mix as I am sure the People for a Louder Mike folks would have liked, Gordon's bass is distinct, clearly audible and, wow, truly amazing.  Little melodies fly in and out in "Stash" and "The Mango Song", slapping and plucking abound on "Cavern" and "Tweezer", and a rolling bottom-end anchors "Poor Heart" and "The Landlady".  It is all on wonderfully crisp display.

The drums, too, offered some surprising moments to which my ear never really tuned before.  I had never even remembered there being drums at all on "Eliza", but Jon Fishman offers elegant tom and cymbal accents.  The clarity of the open-and-close of the hi-hat in "Glide", the light jazz touch of "Magilla" and tight-snare sixteenth notes on "Chalk Dust" are a delight to hear without the room noise of the audience recordings of the shows.  Even the soundboard recordings of those early shows do not capture this much detail because those mixes are meant for the room, not for the tape.

The two places where everything comes together beautifully are (no surprise) the two jam features - "Stash" and "Tweezer".  On both of these, the band members lock into a groove and then proceed to branch out in different directions, while still remaining completely in step.  Pay attention to any one of the instruments and it is like you are listening to a whole new take on the song as each comes unglued and builds to a frenzy of controlled chaos.  Page McConnell's playing is stellar as he tickles the ivories of the real piano (as opposed to the keyboard he used during that era's shows).  And of course, there is the frenetic yet focused drive from Trey's guitar solos which bring the jams to their peaks.  There is not a bad or wasted note. 

Taken as a whole, though, this is a strange album.  While it may have been the most accessible Phish album at the time, this is not the one you want to play now for someone that has never heard the band.  The running order alone challenges a newbie to hang on for dear life.  

Things start off with rockers "Llama" and "Cavern", which sandwich the pretty interlude of "Eliza". The quick bluegrass detour of "Poor Heart" hints that, yes, this is an eccentric band (or, as a flyer from a then-recent gig put it, an "eclectic, wacko quartet from Vermont"). "Stash" has a rhythmic structure that was not like anything you heard on the radio, but the quality of the performance is enough for even the biggest skeptic to get what the fuss was about, and the brief "Manteca" tag lets the listener know that there is somehow a Dizzy Gillespie influence here - not your typical rock n' roll move. All sense of anything typical goes out the window during "Guelah Papyrus", where the verse-chorus structure gets interrupted midway by a fugue.

Then comes the middle third.  Lyrics fall by the wayside as the band shows off its instrumental chops.  "Magilla" is a Duke Ellington-esque jazz number, followed by the Santana-like Latin clave rhythm of "The Landlady".  Both are completely wordless and any other band would probably stagger these two curios as interludes between their actual songs.  But these are not mere diversions for Phish.  They are placed together in the middle of the album as a centerpiece.  During the next 13 minutes, lyrics appear in "Glide" and "Tweezer" but are unimportant.  These are not songs, per se, so much as exhibitions for the full power of Phish's musical interplay.

The final third of the album starts with what is closer to an actual song ("The Mango Song") but even that is turned sideways when, for the final verse, instead of repeating one of the previous verses, as a rock or pop song would tend to do, they repeat all three verses at the same time.  The album's most accessible rocker ("Chalk Dust") - the one that any other band would likely put toward the top - finally, satisfyingly, hits before the full left turn into Weirdsville ("Faht" and "Catapult") makes any uninitiated listener think that maybe that flyer was right.  After "Tweezer Reprise" offers a hefty climax as a variation on (but definitely not a mere rehash of) its namesake predecessor, one can only stop and reflect on everything that had happened in the previous hour. 

I cannot imagine another band on Earth sequencing an album this way.  That said, I also cannot imagine another band on Earth throwing so many different styles into one pot that even they referred to it as  "soup" when they promoted their next, more focused and fully-produced album, "Rift".  But Phish was never a band that made any concessions in order to find people.  "A Picture of Nectar" shows a band that put it all out there to reward the people that find them.  Three decades later, those rewards keep coming with every listen.

Phish at Atlantic City beach - Aug. 15, 2021

While walking along the uncomfortably crowded boardwalk, we heard the opening strains of "The Landlady".  Nice.  As we made our way to the entrance to the beach venue, Phish started playing the intro to "Scents and Subtle Sounds", which they had skipped the previous night when launching into the meat of the song.  Wow, that was weird and interesting.  Never miss a Sunday show, they say.

And though the rest of the show did not follow through on that promise for the crazy and unexpected, it was a solid show that continued the trajectory of the tour, with the band getting tighter at every stop.  The first couple of shows had be cringing.  What a difference a few weeks makes. 

The first set's selections touched on four decades of Phish - with a classic Mike's Groove ("Mike's Song" > "I Am Hydrogen" > "Weekapaug Groove"), "The Sloth" and a set-closing "You Enjoy Myself" covering the 1980s; that "Landlady" plus "Roggae" and "Back on the Train" (both of which are better than ever) and a "The Moma Dance" that was so good that Phish deemed it the only track from the entire A.C. weekend worth posting on its You Tube page, covering the '90s; the "Scents" intro touching on the brief '00s period (ah, 2.0, weird times); and the face-plant-into-rock of the Kasvot Vaxt tune, "The Final Hurrah" repping the '10s.  When I see Phish, I want variety and boy, did I get it!

You know what else I want?  Flow.  And the second set had it.  A "Carini" set opener always sets the stage for some hot jamming, and this one was no different.  Speaking of hot jamming, the set also contained a mid-set "Piper" and a "First Tube" closer.  That is what you call placement.  Somehow, "Waves" and "Simple" - two songs that have been known to launch giant improvisational explorations - managed to be the shortest songs of the set, which may have been disappointing in some ways, but this set was about the flow.  And while complaints could be made about Phish's versions of "Set Your Soul Free" and "Beneath the Sea of Stars Part 1" compared to the versions by the Trey Anastasio Band and Ghosts of the Forest (respectively), the performances on this night were just right for the mood.  The former was big and uplifting, while the latter was soothingly perfect for a beautiful night on the beach.

Another GOTF tune, "About to Run," has become common in Phish's sets, as well as TAB's, so I guess Trey really likes it, but I am not totally sold.  Even from the original GOTF shows, I thought it was one of the weaker songs.  At this show, it was the only thing that broke the awesome flow.  

Trey, if you are going to play some more GOTF, give me some more of that "Ruby Waves" action.  How about "The Green Truth"?  Better yet, really surprise me with the rock-out of "Beneath the Sea of Stars Part 3 (Blue)".

Speaking of surprises, I certainly did not expect "Fluffhead" in the encore.  Heck, with "Tweezer Reprise" played the previous night and "YEM" out of the way in the first set, I wondered what would happen at all.  And if the triumphant ending of "Fluffhead" wrapped things up nicely for the weekend, "Backwards Down the Number Line" was the bow on top.  

I do not think I will be attending any more Phish shows in person - not with COVID still being a problem (and everyone there acting like it is not a problem).  I have attended 156 shows in 14 states over 28 years.  It was an amazing experience.  Fifteen years after the Coventry debacle that we all thought ended our Phish travels on a sour note, I am happy to now end my journey on a high note.  This is a band that is still worth listening to, and I intend to keep doing so as "couch tour" phan.  

In case you are wondering, I did my stats on Zzyzx's website (ihoz.com) and my most seen song is "Chalk Dust Torture".

Phish at Atlantic City beach, Aug. 14, 2021

First order of business - get up before the crack of dawn and start running. 

I planned out a 19-mile run from Galloway, east through Absecon, then south through Pleasantville and Northfield, then back again. I love these long runs on Phish tour because I get to really see the neighborhoods, not just the areas surrounding the venues and hotels.

It was early, I was tired and groggy, but it was imperative I got out there before the heat really kicked in.  It was already in the 70s and the sun was coming up.  The goal was to keep it slow and steady and get it done so I could join my wife and friend for some lunch and head over to the second night of Phish on the beach in Atlantic City.  As the run went on I slowed from low 8s to low 9s, and then took a wrong turn to end up doing more than 20 miles.  My overall pace was 8:46, and that was fine, especially after a night of dancing and five hours of sleep on a crappy bed.

The first set of the second show had some neat surprises, like my first "Slow Llama" and "Soul Shakedown Party" in years, and the always welcome back-from-the-dust-bin "Destiny Unbound" (a song I have been hearing a lot as I have been listening to all of the 1991 shows).  But for the most part the first set was very first-set-y.  "Tube" had us dancing, "46 Days" had us rocking, "Reba" was pretty standard and, well, "Melt" is going to "Melt" these days (the light show is fun to watch on the latter, but that is all I can really say).  For a brief moment, I think I had an idea of what those Mexico Phish shows must be like, as Phish played the breezy island sounds of "Ya Mar" while I splashed around in the ocean.  But before I knew it, the set was closing with "The Squirming Coil".

Trey Anastasio's solo album from last year yielded a few songs that have worked their way into Phish's set lists, so it was not much of a surprise to hear "I Never Needed You Like This Before" to open the set, but the doors blew wide open for a big "Drowned" jam, which eventually gave way to "Ghost" - always reliable for a groovy jam - and then, to my delight, the criminally underplayed "Scents and Subtle Sounds".  Unfortunately, they skipped the intro to the latter, as they tended to do back in 2004, and then cut the jam jarringly short.  Of course, it is hard to complain when the ripcord is pulled only to fire up "Chalk Dust Torture".  

When "Chalk Dust" fizzled out and led into "No Quarter", I could not help but think they were playing the wrong Led Zeppelin song.  I mean, they played "The Ocean" in Mexico, why not do one for the folks on the beach in the U.S.?  

A beautiful "Slave to the Traffic Light" and a rollicking "Suzy Greenberg" ended the set and my poor legs were tired from all the dancing after all that running, so when the ballad "A Life Beyond the Dream" was played for the encore, I was happy to hear it, even if it ended up not being a great performance of it. 

I figured they would save "Tweezer Reprise" for the end of Sunday's show, but...nope....here it was, and I had no choice but to dance and leap as I have been doing since my 20s when that song is played, sore legs be damned.  Another satisfying end to another good show, though I think I enjoyed Friday's show better (or at least Friday's second set).

Gloria, Ali and I wanted to find somewhere to hang out post-show within A.C. but the boardwalk, the casinos and the restaurants were overflowing with people.  The crowds were too big, and it was all too much for me to handle.  There was nowhere I felt comfortable at all, let alone somewhere I would have felt comfortable enough to remove my mask.  So after a lot of walking around (and with a grand total of 56,405 steps for the day), we retired back to the hotel room.

Phish at Atlantic City beach, Aug. 13, 2021

When tickets went on sale for Phish's autumn and New Year's Eve shows in 2019, I made a decision - skip the tours, save some money, then really do it up for summer tour 2020. 

Of course, had I known the world would go kablooey, I would have gone to as many shows as possible in the second half of 2019.  

Before the pandemic hit, the idea of doing it up A.C.-style was exciting.  By the time the shows, came around in 2021, I had no desire to go anywhere in public, let alone a crowded Phish show.  But I was vaccinated, it was outside on the beach, and the possibility of being away from the crowd made the prospect a little better.  Even still, I kept my mask on any time I got remotely close to another person.  

The venue was a blocks-long stretch of beach, and we stayed in the back, away from the crowd, even hanging out in the water for a while because it was such a pleasant night.  The sound was good enough that we could hear everything pretty clearly, if not loudly or crisply. 

It was nice to hear "Cars Trucks Buses", especially as an opener, and "AC/DC Bag" and "Funky Bitch" were standard first-set fare, but "Blaze On" and "Wolfman's Brother" kicked things up with jams that stretched out a bit and had us, as Trey Anastasio sang in altered lyrics to the former, "dancing on the beach."

I have been listening to a lot of 1991 shows lately and there is no doubt that, in comparison, vacuum solos by Jon Fishman are a lot harder to come by these days, so to get one in the first set of my first show in two years (in "I Didn't Know") was a treat.  Having also listened to the whole 2021 tour up to that point, I shuddered a bit when "Rift" started up because, well, Trey had not yet had a precise performance of it.  He almost got through it with no flubs, but at least it was better than the previous two, and the "Sand" set-closer, with its trademark perfect mix of rock and funk, made up for anything that was previously lacking.

The second set came out swinging hard with back-to-back fun-time jams in "Tweezer" and "Bathtub Gin" and the party kept rolling with "Everything's Right".  I hate to say it, but I do not have much interest in "Possum" anymore.  However, I actually get a kick out of watching how everyone else still loves it - especially because several people in the audience were not even alive when Phish first played that song with its songwriter and founding band member Jeff Holdsworth. 

Things got interesting for me again in the back half of the second set with classics like "2001" and "Harry Hood" and two of my newer favorites, "Rise/Come Together" and "More".  Even with "Possum" in the mix, that second set was as solid and fun as a Phish show can get.  Add a "Loving Cup" encore to that, and it is hard not to be happy coming away from that.

Egress from the venue was pretty easy, and we managed to get back to the Red Roof Inn in Galloway at a reasonable hour.  Unfortunately, the hotel was terrible and the beds were ridiculously uncomfortable, which was bad news because I was planning on a 19-mile run the next day.

Mad Marathon, Waitsfield, VT (part one)

48 hours after Gloria and I drove home from the Phish shows in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., we headed north again, and this time it was a six-hour drive to Waitsfield, Vt., for the Mad Marathon.

Northern Vermont, of course, is the birthplace of that band that I love so much, and the area is steeped in Phishtory.  The last time I was up there, I went to Burlington and saw Nectar’s, which is now legendary for being the venue where Phish essentially formed its sound by playing dozens of shows there in its early years.

A lesser known venue, however, is Gallagher’s, where the band played several gigs in those same formative years (often between Nectar’s gigs).  Though Gallagher’s is no more, the building still stands and is occupied by Sage restaurant. It just so happens that the place is at the end of Main Street in downtown Waitsfield, down the block from the start line of the Mad Marathon.  It was quite interesting see the little building where the same band that had sold out Fenway Park that very weekend played to tiny audiences 30 years ago.

As with our previous three marathons, it was pouring rain on the day before, and packet pickup was under a tent outside the Waitsfield Inn on Main Street.  Despite it being warmer than 70 degrees (F), the rain gave me chills.  At that point, I just wanted to eat an early dinner (delicious Italian food down the block at Peasant), have a local craft beer (at the Local Folk Smokehouse), check into our hotel (the lovely Sugarbush Inn in nearby Warren) and wind down.

There was no time for sightseeing on this trip.  We would be in town for less than 24 hours.  But I knew that if the hype was to be believed, there would be plenty of scenery to view during the marathon.  After all, that was why we made the trip to Vermont, only four weeks after the Hatfield & McCoy Marathon.  This race would be all about taking it slow and taking it all in.

Phish at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. - July 3, 2019

On March 6, 2009, when Phish returned to the stage for the first time since 2004, they opened with “Fluffhead”, a song they had not played in almost nine years.  Opening with “Fluffhead” is their musical equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet; a promise, nay, a prideful boast, that says the band is ready to attack its composed material and take you on a special journey.

It is too bad, then, that when they opened with “Fluffhead” on July 3 at SPAC, it fell a bit short of the lofty expectations that it presented.  The “Who Do? We Do!” and “The Chase” sections had some flubby playing by Trey Anastasio, taking me out of the moment. The triumphant “Arrival” ending temporarily lifted my spirits and had me literally leaping, but a thoroughly botched middle section of “Guyute” had me cringing as Jon Fishman somehow ended up being a half-measure ahead of Trey in the fast-jig part.  It was brutal.

Thankfully, they knew to come back with a gimme in the form of “Martian Monster”, an easy riff for heavy jamming.  Course corrected, fast numbers like “Llama” and “Poor Heart” kept spirits high, “Crazy Sometimes” reminded me why it is one of my preferred newer Mike Gordon tunes, and “Steam” brought the slinky groove I love so much. “Silent in the Morning” (preceded by a barely-played “The Horse”) was perfectly placed at the back end of the set, giving way to what was, at first, a surprise in the rare performance of “Sleep”, but made perfect sense as it led into my favorite new multi-part epic, “Drift While You’re Sleeping” to end the set.  It was the first song to be repeated from the Camden run and, boy oh boy, I was still as glad to hear it as I was just days before.

That grouping got me thinking about how the titles of some of the other new tunes by Ghosts of the Forest share similarities with older Phish songs.  Maybe in the future we can see “Ghosts of the Forest > Ghost”, “Friend > Friends”, “About to Run > Run Like an Antelope”, “Halfway Home > Home”, “The Line > In Long Lines”, “Waves > Ruby Waves”, “Brief Time > Liquid Time > Party Time” or “Waiting in the Velvet Sea >  Beneath a Sea of Stars”.

Picking up on the much improved second half of the first set, the band got everyone dancing right away in set two with “No Men in No Man’s Land”, and even though on paper, it might seem like a disappointment to have the ballad “Dirt” in the second slot, it worked nicely and it gave way to the best sequence of the night, as “Plasma” wove its slow-funk groove into “We Are Come to Outlive Our Brains”, only to eventually have “Plasma” briefly teased before a full-on segue into “Tweezer Reprise” that caused the crowd to erupt, with glowsticks flying everywhere.

Somehow, they managed to shift the energy after the enormous “Reprise” into a well-played “The Wedge” that I was really hoping would slip back into “Plasma”, but it was not to be.  No arguments here, though, on the choice “Sneaking Sally Through the Alley” to keep the groove party going.  And while “Run Like an Antelope” is almost always welcome, it was absolutely the weakest “Antelope” jam I had ever heard.  Thankfully, they knew not to end the set there, giving us an excellent “More” that could (and probably should) have ended the set.  Instead, much like the opening of the show, expectations were set high to end it on a glorious note with “Slave to the Traffic Light”.  The jam was big, but I have seen bigger and better.

The show ended with the second shortest encore of the tour – a seven-minute “Rock and Roll” that packed a big punch in the jam and its super-big ending, despite the thoroughly bungled lick from Trey in the middle break of the song.

With the exception of the first half of the second set, this was a show that may be worth a casual listen, but without any expectations that minds will be blown.  Not the best way to end my five-show run, though I still would not trade it for anything.  Summer 2019 was shaping up to be one heck of a tour.  I am excited to hear what is to come at Mohegan Sun, Fenway Park and Alpine Valley.

Phish at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. - July 2, 2019

SPAC has a long and fruitful history with Phish as a venue where excellent shows have taken place during each era of the band. The 3.0-era, especially, has seen some multi-night runs that have produced fantastic jams and the venue continues to be a fan favorite. 

Imagine my surprise when my wife, Gloria, and my friend, Marshall, both attending SPAC for the first time, expressed their displeasure with the place. Sure, it has its problems - the stage is not visible from the lawn, the venue can get quite crowded and the entrance and exit usually elicits a feeling of being herded like cattle - but still! This is SPAC, a magical place where great music consistently gets conjured up (their Twitter handle is even @MagicOfSPAC)!

Thank goodness the music made up for the venue's alleged shortcomings. We staked out a spot in the rear of the main lawn near some trees as the party got started with a debut opener from out of nowhere, the old Everly Brothers song, "Cathy's Clown" followed by the "Tweezer Reprise" we thought we would get in Camden - the rare first-set appearance of the latter hearkening back to that wacky time they opened and closed a show with it at SPAC in 2010 (after playing it twice at the previous show).

Things stayed pretty rocking for most of the set, with "Carini", "AC/DC Bag", "Home" (during which they nailed the harmonies) and a total rager of a "Bathtub Gin". "Theme From the Bottom" slowed things down and the usually reliable set-closer "Walls of the Cave" fell flat. But there was levity and laughter, too - when Jon Fishman came in before the modulation for his vocal on "The Moma Dance" and then almost aborted it (making me think for a brief moment that it would end up as its instrumental counterpart, "Black Eyed Katy"), and when Fish and Trey Anastasio continued cracking each other up with a strange "heee-hawww" lick that the former sang and the latter played on guitar (something they had been doing in Camden, too) during an extended "Meat".

The second set really packed a punch right out of the gate with the Kasvot Vaxt song "Cool Amber and Mercury" to open and back-to-back amazeballs jams in "Down With Disease" and "Scents and Subtle Sounds" (the latter including the rarely played intro section). The set then turned from straight-up rocking, with "Twist" and "Wilson", to romping fun with "Scent of a Mule", "Halley's Comet" and the rare oddball "Fuck Your Face" (not a dirty song, as one might suspect, but rather about a guitar that sounds so awesome it will do what the title suggests). A good (but not great) "Harry Hood" closed the set.  Had that been the show closer, it might have been a little disappointing, but we had an encore to come.

The band came back onstage and played "Fee", which I predicted right away would involve Trey Anastasio messing up the lyrics.  Not only was I correct, but the megaphone through which he sings the verses started conking out on him, too, leaving the whole thing a bit of a mess.  But, hey, this is summer 2019, when encores have usually been at least two, sometimes three or four, songs, so there was room for redemption.  And redemption we got with the absolutely gorgeous Ghosts of the Forest song "A Life Beyond the Dream" followed by a banging "First Tube" that got some numbnut in the audience so excited, he jumped onstage, ran past Trey and then around by Jon Fishman's drums before being escorted away.

It was a slamming end to a show that was not perfect, but had some excellent bits that are definitely worth a few repeated listens ("Cathy's Clown", "Bathtub Gin", "Disease" and "Scents", for sure).  Not only that, but it was the fourth show in a row with no repeated songs, which is one of the big reasons I have kept coming back, especially to the magic of SPAC.

Phish at BB&T Pavilion, Camden, NJ - June 29, 2019

A “Mike’s Song” show opener is quite rare.  A classic “Mike’s Groove” (“Mike’s Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove”) is also quite rare.  So a classic “Mike’s Groove” to open the show?  That is how you start things off on the right foot.

Set list statistics are fun, but when it comes down to it, Phish is only getting half the job done by playing rarities that make us get all giddy with excitement.  The songs also have to be played well and, thankfully, the execution was precise – not only on the opening trio of tunes, but the entire first set, which was comprised almost exclusively of classic-era tunes. “Divided Sky” was lovely and perfectly appropriate as sundown approached with an orange-tinged sky; “Guelah Papyrus” was spot on and fun (even the middle “The Asse Festival” section was well-played); “Sparkle” had its usual hoot of an ending; and “Roggae”, though not the best version I have heard, was pretty. “Everything’s Right” was the only 3.0 (modern-era) tune of the set and it is hard not to groove on its funky beat and positive vibe; and the 2.0 (middle-era) “46 Days” closed the set with total blistering rock.  Though the jams were good, this set was not about that. Much like first sets such as 12/30/1994, this was a master class in how to play a killer set without even needing to create jams that people will talk about for the ages.

The second set followed suit, for the most part, with the only song that was more than 10 minutes long being the new Ghost of the Forest song “Ruby Waves” – and quite a jam it was.  The set opening “Blaze On” also stretched out nicely, but “Golden Age”, usually a good launching pad for a long and varied jam never really lifted off.  The Kasvot Vaxt tune “Death Don’t Hurt Very Long”, a vehicle for scorching slow-blues soloing in previous renditions, stopped short at three minutes this time around. “NICU” was standard, “Rift” left a bit to be desired (Trey Anastasio hit a lot of clunkers in the closing section), and the lack of a bigger jam in “Ghost” would have been disappointing if not for the quite-natural segue into a big, loud “Say It to Me S.A.N.T.O.S.” (another KV tune that was great to hear for the first time live) to close the set.  Still, it was the slow section of the set that really moved me – the Ghost of the Forest tune “Beneath a Sea of Stars Part 1” and “Waiting All Night” played back to back provided 13 minutes of prettiness that some fans might find tedious (I am looking at you, Marshall), especially if they want to dance and rage, but I find to be a perfect showcase for the way Trey can paint a beautiful aural picture with his guitar.

With the set ending at around 11 p.m., there was plenty of time for a long encore, and we got one – 20 minutes of Phish’s signature song, “You Enjoy Myself” (excellently played), along with an a cappella “Grind” (hilariously botched) closed out the night on another satisfying note.

Phish at BB&T Pavilion, Camden, NJ - June 28, 2019

It was too bad that Phish had already played "Petrichor" at their previous show because no night would have been better for the lyrics "and the rain came down" than Friday in Camden.

Gloria, Marshall, aLi, and I staked out a spot all the way in the back of the lawn section. Rumor had it that the sound on the lawn would be improved this year, thanks to Phish bringing some of its own speakers to help round out the usually thin sound back there.

But shortly after we got there, the skies opened up and a torrential storm erupted. It was so bad that an announcement was made encouraging everyone on the lawn to go inside the pavilion until it passed. We did so, but by then we were already soaked. The storm eventually did pass, but the show did not start until around 8:45 p.m.

We were wet and uncomfortable (especially my companions in their cotton clothing - whereas I wore my polyester running gear!) but we were ready to rock.

The first set had some well-played tunes with standard jams that were not mind blowing, but certainly effective to keep us dancing and grooving ("Set Your Soul Free", "Halfway to the Moon", "Birds of a Feather", "Wolfman's Brother"). "The Old Home Place" is a favorite of mine and aLi's from way back, "Horn" was nice to hear with Trey Anastasio hitting the ever-modulating solo perfectly, "Timber" is always fun to hear, and the lyrical forgetfulness made "Train Song" funny.

The big Set One highlights, though, were the rarities - my third "Wombat" (played only 17 times since its debut six years ago), which I had not seen since summer of 2014 but still makes me dance like a big ol' dancing fool; and "Strawberry Letter 23", the old Brothers Johnson tune debuted by Phish on Strawberry night of the Baker's Dozen run in 2017 and played only one other time since then - and the new "Drift While You're Sleeping", which debuted two months ago by Trey and Jon Fishman in their other band, Ghost of the Forest. Of all the songs from those shows, I did not expect this multipart, intricately composed and arranged epic to make it into the Phish repertoire (but, duh, that is not exactly strange territory for Phish), and I am glad it did, because those four simple yet profound lines in the gorgeous climax ("We move through stormy weather. We know our days are few. We dream and we struggle together; and love will carry us through") give me chills every time.

The six-song second set contained the big jams, like "No Men in No Man's Land", "Light" and "Mercury" (one of my favorite songs of 3.0, which had me worried at first because of the sloppy solo in the "tomb of the red queen" section). We also got some more newer tunes like the Kasvot Vaxt hit "We Are Come to Outlive Our Brains" and the GOTF song "About to Run" (not my favorite, but still good). The only song that was not from 3.0 in the set was the set-closing, heavy-climaxing (despite Fish missing the cue) "Run Like an Antelope".

"Sleeping Monkey" and a perfect "Quinn the Eskimo" provided an encore that left everyone in my crew (all of whom like different aspects of Phish) happy and satisfied. And ready for more.

Phish at Madison Square Garden - Dec. 30, 2018

Any multi-show run in one venue plays out like a single, giant show, so I listened to the Dec. 29 show on the morning of Dec. 30, the second set while doing my 14-mile run.  That way, I would not have missed anything by the time we went to the show that evening. 

"Corrina" was not only nice to hear, but well played and reminiscent of its bust-out on 12/30/99 (Big Cypress Seminole Reservation, Florida). "46 Days" had a swifter-than-usual tempo and a jam that was rocking in the first half, and pretty in the second half; but Trey pulled a 2011-style ripcord - within 30 seconds of Mike and Page establishing a nice vi-IV pattern that could have totally been explored, Trey forced a segue into a sloppy "Cities". The fun of the first set was a "Wolfman's Brother" into which Trey crowbarred elements of "Party Time", probably trying (but failing) to swerve the jam into that song proper.

Set II of 12/29/18 gave us the absolute best jam of the four-show run.  Shortly into the opening "Carini" jam, they shifted into a major key, and instead of the usual 10-plus minute jam, we got a surprising segue into the jam-of-the-night in "Tweezer". People will be talking about this one for a while. There was such great interplay, with Trey and Fish initiating stops and starts to goad the crowd into some "woo"s and, afterward, they did a pretty, uptempo jam, followed by a segue to "Death Don't Hurt Very Long". But instead of taking the solo himself, Trey threw solos to Fish and Mike before another segue back into "Tweezer", which had another pretty but, by now, perfunctory jam which was brought way down for a segue into "No Quarter".  

With "Death Don't Hurt" as well as "Turtle in the Clouds" played on Dec. 29, we had six remaining Kasvot Vaxt songs on the table as we arrived at Madison Square Garden for the Dec. 30 show. We had decent seats in section 202, across the arena, but with an almost head-on and unobstructed view of the stage.  The sound was not so bad, either.

Opening with "Alumni Blues -> Letter to Jimmy Page -> Alumni Blues" followed by "Mike's Song" gave the show a classic '88 feel, but a big surprise came in the place between "Mike's" and "Weekapaug Groove" usually occupied by "I Am Hydrogen".  Instead of that song, they busted out "Glide II", played exactly once before by Phish, on 5/16/95 (Lowell, MA) - though the real bustout was actually when Trey blew everyone's mind by dusting it off earlier in December during his solo tour.

Speaking of old dormant songs tested by Trey during his solo tour, the short acoustic number, "Bliss", from the 1996 album Billy Breathes that mostly serves as an introduction for the album's title song, also showed up for the first time ever at a Phish show on Dec. 30.  It came off of a "Crosseyed and Painless" that was seamlessly segued out of "Weekapaug" and led into "Billy" as on the album.

After that, there was about 18 minutes of dancing, with "No Men In No Man's Land" laying down some funk and "Weekapaug" showing up again in the middle of a "Tube" jam. "More" closed the set to great and powerful effect, as it often does. As first sets go, that one was pretty hard to beat.

If Set I kept things mostly classic, the first two-thirds of Set II stayed firmly rooted in 3.0 with a fifth Kasvot Vaxt song ("Cool Amber and Mercury"), a large "Everything's Right" that included a big major-key bliss jam, a "Plasma" that had Page tearing it up on the clavinet, and a 20-minute "Light" during which Chris Kuroda's lights were the definite MVP of the jam - not that the band was too shabby either, especially when they peaked, brought it way down, and peaked again.

To close out the set, "Wading in the Velvet Sea" was a pleasant choice, and it was followed by a very 3.0 "Split Open and Melt" (and you know how I feel about those).  That almost did not matter though, because the encore more than made up for it, with a rare four-song selection of classic-era tunes - "Funky Bitch", "Wilson", "Rocky Top" and a "Cavern" that included a nod to Kasvot Vaxt ("Your time is near, the mission's clear, you'll face plant into rock.").  

Despite the lack of any 2.0 era songs in the show, and the way the 3.0 and 1.0 songs were played in separated clumps, this show felt like it had a ton of variety and, most importantly, the playing was incredible - a band doing what it does best on the night before its year-end spectacular.  It was my 10th Dec. 30 Phish show and, once again, it did not disappoint.  I came away satisfied with it being my last show of the year.

The next night was everything New Year's Eve should be, with big, fat jams in "Down With Disease" and "Seven Below"; a fun song sandwich that put "Passing Through" (KV song #8 after "Play By Play" was the seventh in Set I)) in the middle of the "Harry Hood" jam; and, of course, an elaborate production to ring in the new year (this time based around one of my favorite newer songs, "Mercury" and a ninth KV tune "Say It to Me S.A.N.T.O.S.").  I watched it with friends at home on Jan. 1 and it felt like I got to ring in the new year all over again.  

Fans seem to be using "This is what space smells like" (from "S.A.N.T.O.S.") as a catchphrase, but when it comes to Phish's New Year's Run, I think the next line is much more appropriate - "You will always remember where you were."