Phish 2/21/03

 

As we enter the middle of the Winter Tour ’03, we’re arriving into truly unknown territory for me. I’ve never heard any of the shows from this one through 2/25, and that’s exciting! Coming off the last show the band and audience must’ve been pretty exhausted, and the 6ish hour drive to get to Cincinnati from Rosemont may not have helped. Whether these factors will come into play during this show, we’ll see!

 

Set One

Well, you can certainly tell that the band is carrying on the high energy “we’re coming for ya!” energy of the last show with the opening salvo of this one! We get a somewhat predictable placement of Wilson as show opener, but I don’t say that as a bad thing. Mike seems to really be on a mission to get his bass in the foreground this show, turning up his volume and using a bit of overdrive/distortion to give him a stronger tone especially during the first part of set one. After a quick > we immediately head into Frankenstein. For whatever reason my Phish listening habits the past year or so has seen me avoid Phish’s cover of this song, so when this started I was like “oh yeah, that’s right, they do play this, huh?” During Wilson and this song, the band is going absolutely nuts with loops and noise during the break portions of the songs.

There’s about a minute or so pause until Mike starts playing the Down With Disease intro, though it’s not the usual kind he does, more like he’s scraping his pick up and down the fretboard before turning on the usual windy effect. At 1:10 when Trey sings the first set of lyrics, I swear he half-burps during it. This DwD jam starts off in the usual upbeat type I mold, with Trey soloing a bit and then stepping back to let the others play, and then soloing again some more himself. Around 7:00 we start to crest the hill. Trey drops out entirely to play with some loops that never seem to arrive as Mike and Fishman keep the groove going. Page on keyboards now; Trey patiently rhythmically comping in the background. Around 8:30 the band seem to be in a holding pattern, as though no one can think of a way forward. At 10:25 Page gets on the clav as Trey continues to hold back and noodle around in the background. This is one of those rare jams where my attention wanders to Fishman more often than not because not much else is happening. 13:00, Trey keeps threatening to do full 2.0 shoegazer guitar but it mostly results in a loop and some noodley pitch shifter playing. Eventually it seems like Trey realizes this jam isn’t going much of anywhere and tries to bring things back into high energy rocking focus by coming back to life and soloing. Page and Trey both do their best to make this ending high energy and fun but it’s hard for me not to feel like this DwD was a non-starter that reminds me of some of the lesser ’99 jams that mostly stay in the same style for minutes at a time. Anyway, they bring the song to a close so it’s one of those weird/rare DwD’s that is not left unfinished and doesn’t either segue into or out of another song. Very strange.

Lifeboy follows, a quite strong version indeed, with a long guitar solo from Trey—there’s a reason this is a nine minute version! There’s a sort of half-assed > segue into Boogie On Reggae Woman that Mike starts up seemingly out of nowhere. As you might expect, Mike dominates this version from the jump, to the point they even do a stop/start Mike bass solo towards the end. This may not be a lengthy jammed out version but don’t sleep on it, it’s one of those times Mike is basically leading the band and he kills it. As the song peters out you wonder if we’re heading for a segue, but no. There’s a full second or two pause before Trey starts up Run Like An Antelope. I will say that I think this is the best Antelope of 2.0 so far, though it’s somewhat because of Mike and Page pushing Trey to go to a higher peak that he seems to want to. Antelope is sadly one of those songs I agree was universally stronger during 1.0, there’s just an intense precision that Trey needs for the peak that he can’t seem to nail most of the time post-2000. Keyword is Spliff. After this, you would assume the set was over. Instead, we get a well done, albeit oddly placed, I Didn’t Know. I don’t mind vacuum solo songs or Fishman antics, I simply wish this wasn’t a set closer. Just leaves a weird energy in the air. Reverse the order of this and Antelope, this set flows much better.

 

 

Set Two/Encore

Woo, Mike’s Song to start a second set is usually a good sign! Jam starts out in the typical way, with Mike pounding out the bassline while Trey and Page trade riffs. I’ve been on record as saying that, while I appreciate Mike’s Groove and would dig seeing it live, it always feels underwhelming as a segment for jamming. When was the last big type II Mike’s Song or Weekapaug Groove? I always see it on setlists and I’m like “oooh nice” but then I get through it and it’s almost immediately forgotten. This Mike’s Song at least has some excellent playing from Trey around the 7:30 mark. By 10:00, Trey’s tone has gotten swampier and more distorted though not quite to full shoegazer mode. Trey eventually retreats but the typical Mike’s Song jam continues without him. He starts piling on loops towards the end, because if you can’t think of anything interesting to play, just fall back on unearned walls of sound! See, when people say they don’t like 2.0 Oxy jams, this Mike’s Song is the kind of thing they mean. It’s just the band throwing out a bunch of random sounds and textures without much thought or care or interaction with the other members. Fishman seems to want to give up the ghost and stops playing for awhile while Trey’s guitar has a feedback sounding loop going.

Setlists give a -> full segue into Free but this is bullshit. Only Trey’s loop was going and it ends as soon as he starts playing the Free intro, so this is a solid > style segue only. Anyway! The Last Free, from 2/15/03, really surprised me with how commanding Mike was during the jam. Around 4:40 Page starts playing some weird techno sound on a synth or something I’ve not heard before. Mike is still leading the jam like last time, though Page is making a case for letting him do it! Around 5:30 Trey and Page play rhythmic comping and the jam gets even funkier still. Around this point in the jam I was starting to get the feeling we might be taking this Free out for a rare type II spin, but alas, no. That said, it’s almost a tossup for me between this and the 2/15 version. This song is probably never going to become a jam monster but it’s often a pocket of some hot playing with Trey stepping back more often than not. I again deny a segue here, to these ears I don’t even hear a > between this and Waste. It’s interesting if you go and look on Phish.net the times this song was played, starting off very common during 1996/1997 and as the years go on, making less and less frequent appearances. This Waste is really well done, leading me to fear this is going to continue to be one of those weird shows where the ballads are played with more energy and imagination than the jam songs! Page delivers an ace, classy as fuck piano solo in this version; Trey follows with his own solo, albeit the triumphant bliss jam kind of solo.

After the song ends we enter into a minute and a half or so of between-song ambience into 2001 including Trey quoting Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring with Page eventually following along. This intro as a result is drawn out but not in the expected space funk way we’ve become accustomed to. Around 1:20 on the official LivePhish version you can hear Trey talking to someone on stage, with some possible yelling from an audience member or one of the band yelling just outside of the mic’s full ability to pick it up. This 2001 intro is noodley and unfocused, as though the band are giving each other ample time to try out whatever they want to do. Trey treats us to some lightly distorted, chunky comping before Page drops the organ melody and Trey instantly starts the main riff. Around 5:30 Trey is playing some dissonant feedback sound off and on but quickly stops. Mike and Page take this one over; around 6:08 even more stage banter that the mics are barely picking up, sounds like maybe Fishman and Trey? I don’t really know how better to explain it, this 2001 is simply all over the place in a frustrating way. If you had this on in the background you’d still enjoy it, sure, but as a jam to listen intently to, it’s too many ideas that are introduced and dropped quickly. 8:35ish we get a half-hearted attempt at a Stash quote from Trey, who soon gives up and brings this odd duck of a 2001 back around for another run through of the main riff.

Ironically I might give them a -> for this segue into Harry Hood, because I didn’t see it coming and it sounded somewhat fluid to me. Trey is very noodley in this Hood intro, but will this version be as bizarre and type II leaning as the 2/15 one? Well, Trey sure loves playing with his loops and this intro is bordering on a normal 2001 for how they take their time jamming around before the proper main riff/chorus comes in. Those who wish Hood had some variance would do well to seek out Winter Tour ’03 Hoods, apparently! We’re in full on Weird Hood territory again, folks. Well, at least in this intro part. Once the normal Hood kicks back in, we get a well done but standard bliss jam Hood buildup ending. Until about 13:00, that is, when the bottom drops out and we start to build back up again. Not sure if Trey was trying to see if Mike and Page would go in a different direction or what. Anyway, Hood ends and we’re into a quiet, uncommitted ambient jam that peters out completely. You can faintly hear Trey(?) call out for All Of These Dreams, and that’s what we get. While I love this song, this is already the third I’ve heard in 2.0 and so could’ve done with a different ballad. Trey is really straining to sing this time out, it sounds, well, bad. Again, the solos from Page and Trey are excellent and well considered, but that’s not the kind of playing I fell in love with Phish over, y’know?

Sensing, perhaps, that this second set wasn’t turning out any big jams or otherwise interesting moments, they kick into Possum as a late second set pick-me-up. What can you say about Possum other than it’s a consistent high energy showcase for all of the band’s chops? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a truly great Possum because I’ve never heard one that struck me as half-baked or average! It’ll always remind me of my first show, and how even though it was the final song of the encore, people dug deep and were dancing their asses off all over the place. Much like the first set, you’d assume Possum was the set closer, but instead we get a > into Cavern. Another song that always delivers but rarely is anything special. Trey’s vocals sound strained and tired, and he drags behind the beat a couple times. Almost feels like Page steps in to help him through, too. Big fuckoff ending with tons of loops and sounds and noises; where was this kind of stuff during the jams, boys? We get a Wading In The Velvet Sea encore, which isn’t the worst choice for an encore but as the ONLY encore song is really leaves the show off on an energy level that is the opposite of how it started. As most of this show was high energy but lacking deep jams, I’d have preferred they saved Cavern for coming after Wading.

 

 

Overall

Looking back over my notes for this show, and what I wrote above, I almost feel like I’m simultaneously being too easy and too hard on this show. Set one has good playing throughout but the only real jam, outside of a mostly good but standard Antelope, was Down With Disease, which I thought was listless and never found a direction to go in that produced anything memorable. Set two would go on to be a real letdown in my book. Other than a directionless, standard Mike’s Song jam and a reappearance of Weird Hood, where’s the improvisation? You might look at this show’s setlist and think I must be crazy, but I think regardless of the high energy playing in the first set, consistently great soloing during the ballads, and another excellent Free in the second set, there’s literally nothing about this show that excites me to listen to it again. It’s the sort of show I’m sure people had a great time with in-person, but if they bothered to listen back to it at home with more objective ears, I don’t think anyone could credibly argue any song from this show is even a top 30 version.

2/21/03 is the first time that I haven’t added one song to my 2.0 highlights playlist, and while that doesn’t mean it’s a 1 out of 5 automatically as a result, it’s without a doubt the weakest show I’ve gotten to thus far. I can’t in good faith proceed in this retrospective review series if I don’t give this one a 2 out of 5.

 

[Highlights]

Set One: High energy playing throughout

Set Two/Encore: Free, Weird Hood reappears

Phish 2/20/03

 

Another day off, another change of city, and we’re in Rosemont, Illinois. As we enter the halfway point of this tour, it’s clear that the band, while not as spit-polish clean in the composed sections, has finally found their footing in terms of jamming. We still have most of the 2.0 juggernauts to go but this show, even more than any before, has the deepest jams I’ve seen in this project to date. Yet…do deep jams always equal great jams? Let’s find out. Sorry, that was low energy.       LET’S find OUT!

 

Set One

Rift > Rock and Roll to get us off to a high energy rocking start! A shame Rift has Oxy Trey in full effect, though, with some sloppy joe playing that leads him to redeem himself with the solo and with his performance during Rock and Roll. I’ve gotta be honest, this cover is ok but it’s not one I would’ve picked for them to keep in the rotation after the Loaded Halloween set. Now that I’m not an alcoholic sadboi Loaded is actually my favorite Velvet Underground album, though I’d have pinned ‘Train Round The Bend’ or ‘Lonesome Cowboy Bill’ as the Phishiest feeling to keep in rotation. But I digress. This Rock and Roll has valiant efforts from Mike and Page to keep up but Trey is determined to steal the show, pulling out his usual bag of Machine Gun Trey tricks. Not saying they aren’t effective…simply that if you’re looking for the jam chart Rock and Roll’s, this ain’t it, chief. “It was alright”, indeed.

Guyute is…look, you read what I said the last time. I’ll just add here that I’ve never seen a Guyute get segued into or out of; it’s a lead weight that brings a set to a crashing halt each time, for good or ill. Driver is a fun not quite ballad, the lyrics give me a They Might Be Giants feeling, maybe that’s just me? Waves. Ok, now we’re starting to open up the jam jar. Out of the crop of new songs off Round Room, this and Seven Below had the most obvious jam potential to my newbie Phish ears back when I started listening in earnest in late 2003/early 2004. Anyway, this version is shorter than the debut from 2/15/03 but I actually like this one more. Page and Mike, as they have been this whole tour, are playing their asses off, and the times during jams tonight when Trey lets go of the reins lead to some incredible jamming. Anyhow! This Waves doesn’t deviate from the studio version but has the energy and interplay that can only come from a live version; hell they should’ve waited a year and put out Round Room Live on the anniversary of Round Room’s release date with all live versions. But I digress. As would become standard, Waves is brought back around and finished up with another run through the chorus, and then some eerie/calm vocal refrains over some spacey ambience that will either lead into a jam or a segue into another song. This one doesn’t leave us hanging too long as Trey emerges from the interstellar muck with the Simple riff.

Now, OK, I think someone screwed up the lyrics at one point. But this Simple has to go down as an all timer. And by that I mean, version of the song and as a jam in general. While it has those dark/spacey Trey-trying-to-replicate-My-Bloody-Valentine moments we associate with 2.0 type II jams, it also feels a bit like some of the best 3.0/4.0 style jams that move between different sections and styles almost as if the band is composing a multi-part song in real time. I will never forget hearing/seeing the 10/11/23 Ruby Waves aka Dayton Ruby Waves in person, and at some point wondering if they had segued into another song I didn’t know. But I digress yet again! This Simple, though starting off like most modern non-jammed Simple’s with a slowing down/quieting down mellow jam, starts to hint at its true attentions around 6:45 when Fishman starts up a new drum groove and Page and Mike keep pulling Trey further and further away from ending the jam. By 8:00 it’s clear we’re in for it, lifting up to the heavens on a beautiful, soaring jam that reminds me of a less serene, more melodic version of the Flatbed Jam from The Clifford Ball. 9:15 finds Trey using his pitch shifter to play in the upper register as he’s wont to do during spacey jams. Page gets nasty on the clavinet around 9:40 while Mike and Fishman boom and rumble in the background. Trey has all but disappeared into loop territory by now as Page can’t decide between piano or clav. Lovely little melody from Trey around 11:20 that’ll get stuck in your head. Mike starts using his super reverb bass domination effects pedal around 11:50; Page jumps on a synth and does droning, rising sounds. We’re in full on space jam territory now boys, almost as deep as 6/14/00. Right as I say this, Trey-trying-to-replicate-My-Bloody-Valentine starts up in full effect. At first the rest of the band doesn’t know quite what to make of it, so Mike doubles down on his bass effect and gets reverb sucked into the vortex being made by Trey and Page. I fear for the people in person who were tripping when this switched from a pleasant ‘99/’00 ambient jam into a hellacious shoegaze portal. By 14:24 Trey has returned to the pitch shifted loops but it’s all being swallowed up in a maelstrom of sound, texture, and noise that can only be described accurately as psychedelic as all fuck. I can see how hearing this in person, with imperfect acoustics, could just sound like a mess of incoherent noise, like some contemporary reviews were saying. That said…listen to this fucking thing! The last two minutes alone is more interesting than the best of the jams during the NYE run, shades of the 4/2/98 Twist and the 9/29/99 2001.

After that space/time matter/anti-matter explosion, you’d be forgiven for assuming they were going to give us a short Gotta Jibboo; maybe 10ish minutes total, bit of a jam, get in get out, that kind of thing. But nope, whatever was powering Phish tonight had only had its first of many fission flashes. I know a lot of 1.0 fans prefer the old ‘99/’00 Jibboo’s which mostly kept the same funky groove and had Trey loops and Mike pounding it out front and center for 8 to 15 minutes, and while this one is largely following those blueprints for a couple minutes it eventually turns into more of a rocking Trey led masterclass in type I Hose. Think the 6/14/00 Back On The Train in terms of everyone locking into a groove and responding to each other and playing their asses off, but making it sound effortless. Was it Bruce Lee who said, “be like water”? Anyway, around 7:40 Trey starts playing a super high energy, uplifting guitar melody that reminds me of the 7/6/98 Ghost, and round 9:30 it’s reminiscent of the post-Suzy Greenberg jam on 9/14/00. At this point Machine Gun Trey takes over and absolutely scorches Rosemont to ashes; you can barely hear Mike and Fishman trying to keep the groove going so Trey doesn’t fly off into the stratosphere.

At 12:00 Page starts trying to take over on piano, and Trey responds by stepping down a bit and playing more raw guitar tones in lower registers. Page jumps on the funky, funky clav for some fun wailing as Trey keeps a lockstep groove bubbling with Mike and Fishman. Thanks to Page we get increasingly funky albeit with a Hendrix-ian distorted, raw texture instead of typical ’97 wah-wah action. By 15:00 Page is back on piano and Mike tries to bring us back to the Jibboo bassline and melody as Trey resists and croaks out guttural guitar lines. So by this point in set one we’ve gotten a full space/ambient jam, a dark/evil 2.0 jam, a kick ass Trey-led Hose jam, and a funky grooving jam, what else can they do? Jibboo just keeps going and going…until it doesn’t. Perhaps sensing they need to save something for set two, Trey eventually gets back on the Jibboo bus and we bring the song to a normal ending, albeit a huge peaking one and a triumphant capper to an astounding 38ish minutes of music (counting Simple, duh) to end the first set.

 

Set Two/Encore

As if to leave no doubt the kind of mood they were in tonight, Phish open the second set with a dependable workhouse: Tweezer. While the general pace of the composed section is classic late 90s, they waste no time in establishing that we’re in 2.0 now with the ranges this jam goes. (No, it’s not as good as the forthcoming one, shut up, we’ll get there!) Trey is busy fucking with his pitch shifter loops so Page and Mike pounce on the jam around 5:35. Other than some faint loops, Trey must be adjusting something because he doesn’t play anything until 6:00ish. Around 8:00 Page is on the clav and organ in turn, while Trey is steering them further into a somewhat standard type I Tweezer jam like you might hear in 1996…until just after 9:00 when Trey starts to add some extra grit to his tone. Mike goes deep to get just below him. Page is on what almost sounds like a Fender Rhodes around the 10:30 mark but I think it’s just a keyboard/synth. Soon Trey starts to do these patient, spaced-out-by-a-few-seconds single note growl/moan sounds. This section stagnates with not too much development as Page tries out some different textures indecisively. It’s during some of these 2.0 jams where I can’t tell if Trey is just in his own world or he wants to just play in the background with guitar noises. Mike and Fishman try to add some momentum and by 15:00 we’re finally hitting on something interesting, with Trey making these weird slide guitar-ish sounds as Page follows him into the tornado. Still not finding their purchase, they gear up into a rocking jam that Trey takes center stage for. We get a fun and well done yet standard big rock Tweezer reprise feeling ending (but not Tweezer Reprise feeling) that feels to me like it should’ve been in the first set’s Rock and Roll to give that more meat but eh, whaddya gunna do? After a final run through of the Tweezer riff they do a slow down, slowly falling apart sounding ending which I vaguely remember being how early Tweezers ended.

Out of the feedback of the Tweezer ending, we > plop into Punch You In The Eye. Huh, another strange setlist placement on this tour. Anyway, it’s PYITE! It rules. Next! I’ll give them a quick, half-earned > segue into Fast Enough For You, which is the perfect cool off placement after the god damn jam gauntlet they just threw down between the end of the first set and now. Good vocals tonight, great Trey solo—but isn’t it always? I call malarkey on the notion there’s a > into Seven Below, they definitely fully end the song and then Trey takes half a measure or so to start the riff. Sorry, not having it. Right out of the gate during the jam, Mike and Page jump out front as Trey muddles around in the background. Page again can’t seem to decide between piano or the clav. Around 4:45 I feel like the tempo has increased and Trey is coming to life as well. Man, pay attention to Page around 5:30, dude starts fucking killing it on piano. That’s really one thing I notice more often in these 2.0 shows, the other band members seem to really assert themselves a lot more. Page on the clav soon with Mike wandering all over the place in the background, half melod/ half whirling dervish. Around 7:30 it almost sounds like everybody but Fishman is soloing at the same time yet somehow playing together too, it’s crazy. Page throws organ darts across the room around 8:15 and goes back to piano. We continue our way into what feels like a super high energy Bathtub Gin jam, and Page going absolutely apeshit on piano sure aids this feeling. Trey drops back to some funky rhythmic comping around 10:55 as Fishman brings the Seven Below drum beat back around. Mike seems to be splitting the difference between the original bassline and just jamming.

Before we’re know it, we’re in a funky jam that reminds me of the segue between Piper and Gotta Jibboo from 6/19/04. (Oh, we’ll get there!) Well, I have to say, I certainly wasn’t expecting a 2.0 spin on a type III aka porno-funk/cow-funk jam, but here we are! There’s a huge building crowd cheer around the 13:00 mark, I assume either a new cool lighting effect or the crowd settling into how insane this show has continued to be. By 13:42 we’re so far into blissful Hose funk jam territory I’m amazed more people don’t talk about this jam! It’s up there with the aforementioned 7/6/98 Ghost for “you have to hear it to truly get it.” We just keep grooving along on the Rosemont funk express. Actual Trey ’97 style wah-wah at 15:00! Man, not that the 2/16/03 version was remotely bad, but this version sets such a ridiculously high bar I’ll be curious to see if future versions top it. I can’t imagine what a dance party it must’ve been; by the 16:00 mark of this jam I would’ve been exhausted.  We’ve slowly entered into a more abstract, spacey jam by 17:15. Mike’s got his super reverb bass effect going for a while. Fishman is kicking up some fun new grooves in the background and Mike responds in kind around 17:50 as we head into proper fucking space funk territory. 18:45 stop start jamming for a few bars and then a building spacey jam that resolves itself like a cloud passing back into the sunshine and you blink and you’re back in Seven Below and they close it off. If I were in person by this point of the show I’d probably be beyond words and just grinning ear to ear and dancing.

Pebbles and Marbles follows after a minute’s brief respite. OK, now they’re just trying to kill us! I’m almost praying for it to turn into a super mellow ambient jam instead of the set ending rampager it usually is. Trey seems to be enjoying playing really loud and noisy around the 6:50 mark, nearly drowning out Mike and Page entirely. Page again switches between clav and piano as if he can’t decide what to do. Meanwhile Trey himself can’t decide between actually jamming or just holding sustained noisy sounds. Around 9:40 it sounds kind of like what I assume O Sees playing this song would have their jam sound like. Trey’s attempts to reproduce Loveless on his own give this jam a very claustrophobic, grindy, noisy quality you’re either going to dig or hate. Mike is very active starting around 11:25 as if he, Page, and Fishman are trying to push the jam somewhere further. Trey keeps dropping what sounds like crashing stars or meteors from the sky for a few seconds before he snaps out of it and goes back to shoegaze guitar. In fact, yeah, call this the Rosemont Shoegazer Pebbles and Marbles, it’s intense as any other dark, deep type II 2.0 jam. Right around 13:50, through the wall of noise I can hear Trey starting to play the main melody and the band soon gets back into step with him as the walls of sound dissipate.

You know the part in Pulp Fiction where Mia Wallace does the bump of cocaine in the bathroom of the 50s diner and she pops up into frame and mutters “god damn, I said shit, god damn!” or something like that? That’s how I feel after this set. There can’t have been anything left of the crowd after this jam, just a simmering pile of goo.

Encore is 3 songs, fuck yeah! Golgi Apparatus, always welcome, and I don’t think Trey really flubbed up once. Eh but after these sets I wouldn’t count the flubs in this encore anyway! A pretty, well played but shortish Anything But Me soon gives way into, what else, Tweezer Reprise! (There’s no > between them like setlists say, nope, not even close) Sheesh, how was anyone left alive, audience, band, or crew, after this show? Mike’s bass bomb during the opening of this had to have destroyed someone’s pacemaker and caused another person to be cured of arthritis. Huge big noise ending with tons of loops and effects and insanity at the end. I think I just developed and then was cured of arthritis listening to that.

 

Overall

Looking at the setlist for this show, you might think it’s a pretty average one for the era. But there are fully five songs with long, intense jams to the point that Tweezer, motherfucking Tweezer, is not in the running for the top two jams of the show. What this show lacks in excellent fluid segues and rarities/covers it delivers in the jamming. For 2.0 this show is an embarrassment of riches the likes of which we hadn’t seen in 2.0 thus far.

I’m really switching back and forth between giving this show a 5 or a S out of 5. The sticking point for me is that this show lacks some ingredient to truly make me comfortable giving it the highest tier. If the Tweezer had been an A instead of a B, if the first set hadn’t come to a flow/pacing halt with Guyute and Driver,  if there had been some rarity or new cover, if the playing/lyrics during the composed sections had had less mistakes, if there had been some other X factor to contribute to the total score, I’d give it a S and not look back. As a show for beings who only love Phish for the deep jams, type II or otherwise, this show is an easy S for ya’ll. For everyone else…It’s with a heavy heart (well, not really, I don’t this stuff that seriously) I have to be somewhat objective and say it’s a 5 out of 5. I will say I think it’s a bit better than 2/16/03, for what that’s worth!

 

[Highlights]

Set One: Waves > SIMPLE, GOTTA JIBBOO

Set Two/Encore: Tweezer, SEVEN BELOW, Shoegazer Pebbles and Marbles, 3 song encore including a dynamite Tweezer Reprise

Phish 2/18/03

After three shows that gradually pushed the pedal to the floor, Phish had a day off to travel and recuperate. Other than perhaps 3/1, it seems like this show gets lost in the shuffle of Winter Tour ’03 discussions, so I’ll be curious to see if it’s not that good of a show or if it just suffers by comparison. Taking a look at the setlist you’d sure be forgiven if you thought this was an early to mid 90s show for the first set. Ten songs and no segues to be found! On a personal note, this Denver show took place on my birthday, though this won’t skew my opinion in either direction since back in 2003 I was only beginning to give Phish a second try.

 

Set One

Hard to be mad at a Runaway Jim opener, even as common as it is. It’s always been interesting to me how much it varies over the years, sometimes a jam vehicle, sometimes not. This one is a normal one. Similarly, Twist has only a short jam. At a certain point in this set it feels like they’re just playing random songs. Like, why is The Squirming Coil the fourth song of set one? Odd placement to be sure. As I said in the intro, this set feels like a throwback to the early to mid 90s. There aren’t really any big jams until Walls Of The Cave but everything is played with very high energy and all four members are really giving it the gusto. It’s always great to hear The Wedge, and both Stash and Birds Of A Feather have decent jams, but they’re only that: decent. Walls Of The Cave ends the set and has some type II jamming but nothing that quite sticks with you afterwards. In general this first set is well played and has a lot of variety, but it’s also the kind of set that has no effective flow or pacing. I know some fans don’t mind sets like this, and I’m not trying to hold this set to too high of a standard, since everything is played well. It’s just not the kind of set that sticks with me or gives me anything to add to my list of excellent 2.0 jams.

 

Set Two/Encore

I kind of remember from listening to ’98 through ’00 shows that The Moma Dance never really became the big jam vehicle people were predicting at the time. It feels like such an obvious song to be the big jam vehicle of the funky era of Phish but by 2000 it was mostly just leading to high energy rocking type I jams. So while I may not be 100% correct, I believe this might be the first type II laced Moma, indicating that Winter Tour ’03 would continue to have jams in unexpected places. This Moma is really a lot of fun, from a Dave’s Energy Guide tease to the very Dark Phish 2.0 feel when it goes full type II. I’ll give the -> segue to them though it’s a bit sloppily executed. Limb By Limb follows and while it doesn’t go full type II in my opinion, it does get a bit more experimental and dark-shaded compared to typical versions. I have this lingering feeling like Trey is cutting off the jams before they get really deep this set. This and the forthcoming Carini are good reasons why. After a loose Thunderhead, we’re treated to a somewhat rare set II appearance from Divided Sky. Nothing much to report with this one, it’s well played and gets high energy just like a lot of set I was. Carini, as previously stated, starts to go into full on 2.0 jamming but there’s a moment toward the end where Trey seems to be waiting for a new direction and when it doesn’t come he just starts awkwardly playing the main riff to bring the rest of the band back in line and end the song.

It’s no contest to say the set ending You Enjoy Myself is the best version of 2.0 yet, as well as the true highlight of the second set, and by extension the show as a whole. It features some excellent high energy jam segments where Trey hangs way back and lets Mike and Page take the reins, and when he finally does come in he just wails and makes an already strong YEM even better. Machine Gun Trey had his hands all over this show. The vocal jam is all over the place like usual until someone starts doing something vaguely similar to the “ah-weem ah way” vocals from The Lion Sleeps Tonight and next thing you know they’re just doing a cover of it. It’s obviously one of those unrehearsed covers they occasionally stumble into, so the lyrics/arrangement may not be totally correct. They seem to suddenly realize they don’t know how the song ends and it’s one of those vocal jams that peters out yet abruptly at the same time. Anyway, encore time! We get one of only two encore appearances of NICU (the other is 7/15/22), and this song will never not sound weird to me when it starts on its own and isn’t segued into. Am I crazy? Certain songs just never sound right when started from a full stop; see also Weekapaug Groove and Makisupa Policeman. But I digress. Definitely a loopy encore with Mexican Cousin bringing the show to a close, but hey, at least it’s not another underwhelming one song encore.

 

 

Overall

Taken as a whole, this show is well played start to finish. In fact it might be the tightest show yet in terms of the execution; Trey must’ve really been practicing on the day off between 2/16 and this show. Looking at the first set, it’s fun and has a ton of variety, but it doesn’t go very deep and it has really inelegant flow/pacing. Set two is the jammier set so you’d think it would automatically be better, so, can I shock you? I think they’re both pretty equal. The jams there may go deeper and venture into type II territory though this is one of those exceptions to the rule where the setlist and song runtimes tell the story: it just never gets that deep. It’s almost like a tease, and like I said above, it’s like Trey gets impatient and pulls the plug on the jams. YEM -> Lion Sleeps Tonight is an excellent capper, and the encore is just ok with an uber rare NICU placement.

So there’s a lot of positive and neutralish stuff I’ve said about this show and my feelings towards it as a whole are similarly muddled. Had I attended this show I would’ve really loved the experience; it’s a fun and varied setlist, and there’s a lot of mid 90s-esque high energy playing from everyone, especially in set one and the YEM. However, I think this show is textbook 3 out of 5.

In my preamble to this review series I wrote: “A 3 can be a Phish show you attended and have a lot of fondness for but can admit wasn’t one of the best ever/on that tour/that year.[it] can be a show that has at least two highlights, or at least no real lulls/downsides, but doesn’t make a lasting impression otherwise.” And I think that description is perfect for 2/18/03. This is the only show so far where I had to really debate about adding any jams to my ongoing 2.0 best playlist, and in the end it was just the YEM. I think that says a lot.

 

[Highlights]

Set One: Everything is well played and high energy but there’s no obvious highlights.

Set Two/Encore: The Moma Dance -> Limb By Limb, You Enjoy Myself -> The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Phish 2/16/03

 

OK I’m going to start this with a spoiler because I can’t contain myself anymore! After an excellent first night in Vegas, Phish would deliver, hands down, the best show they had played in the 2.0 era to this point. 2/16/03 may not be as well-known as 2/28/03 but I could actually see someone enjoying this show more, depending on a few different factors. This is also one of those rare shows where the setlist kind of does tell the tale, with some exceptions we’ll soon get to!

 

Set One

Hearing a bunch of loops and Fishman on the ride cymbal, so is it Maze? No, holy shit! What else can you say to a David Bowie opener?! It was the first in nearly a decade, it seems, but what makes this even more special is the Catapult sandwiched in the middle. Trey is not doing his best during the composed parts, at one point seeming to stop playing altogether and try to get back on the horse, as it were. This Bowie jam, thank god, is one for the ages, with interesting staccato jamming sort of like the beginning of some Stash jams, a Manteca quote around 8:40 from Trey, a non-riproaring Trey mostly playing abstract repetitive lines and letting Page and Mike lead for awhile, a fun Catapult appearance, and a strong ending. This Bowie -> Catapult -> Bowie segment would set the scene for the rest of the show. After a dependable Horn (no segue) and a fun Guyute (still one of my least favorite composed songs but it’s growing on me), Round Room starts up.

It's no hyperbole to say this Round Room jam is one of my favorite jams ever. Ever! It’s just such an insanely unique and interesting jam, with Fishman starting us off on woodblocks and the jam becoming bouncy and rhythmic. Trey mostly hangs back and plays textural stuff as the jam gets more energetic and abstract/dark, with an excellent ending that feels like a storm cloud passing overhead and away into the distant horizon. Sublime! As a bit of a chaser to that magnificent cocktail we get super rarity Golden Lady, played here for only the second time to date. To be honest I’m a very selective Stevie Wonder fan though I will say this one is pretty great and a good fit for Phish, so I wonder why it isn’t played more. Boogie On Reggae Woman is better, ok sure. Anyway. Setlist yet again shows a > where there clearly is none. Poor Heart is up next. It’s fun, almost feels like it’s playing the part of a short high energy song to set up the set ending song. Where I wish there was a > there isn’t one, though. Ah well. Pebbles and Marbles closes out a stellar set one.

 

Set Two

The opening of set two is sure something! “He’s gunna fuck it up! Fishman doesn’t know this song!” Oh Trey, you who live in the glassiest of glass houses, maybe don’t cast stones? Anyway, another rager of an open to set two, with a fucking killer Down With Disease -> Seven Below -> Down With Disease sandwich, complete with one of those rare non-unfinished Disease’s. Enjoyable but standard DwD jam, starts to get spacey before Fishman drops the Seven Below drum beat and Trey picks up on it immediately as the rest of the band slowly gets on board and we hit a near-perfect -> into Seven Below. Despite forming the meat of this sandwich the Seven Below jam doesn’t go super deep before we head back to Down With Disease. Well -> back into DwD I should say. After a big loop ending to DwD we > gently into Anything But Me. This is one of my favorite Phish ballads, so happy to hear it! Especially since my understanding is they don’t play a lot of Round Room album songs because it brings up bad memories for Trey. After a good but not great version we get a minute or so of ambience before Piper starts up. This Piper, often dubbed the Viper (for Vegas Piper, get it?!), is a monster type II beast (not necessarily in a spacey/experimental way though) and is one of the best versions ever. 2.0 really was a great time for this song, as next year we’ll get to the phenomenal SPAC version. But I digress, back to 2003! You simply have to hear this one to get a full grasp but at one point toward the end they start playing the DwD ending/riff but in the musical key of Piper, it’s nutso. Around 19:05 it sounds like Trey is starting up Rift for a few seconds, maybe just a tease? Fishman plays the Seven Below drumbeat as the jam just keeps going. Soon, before you know it, we’re -> to Makisupa Policeman. Keyword was ssssssssssssSpliff. Fairly high energy Makisupa too, some excellent solos from Mike and Page. Trey keeps emphasizing the word “house” in this version for whatever reason.

I’m still not happy hearing so many Character Zero’s on this project so close together. This is actually a pretty good version with a decent solo from Trey, though I do wish if they’re going to close a set with this song they either jam it out a bit or segue into something else to be the proper capper. Anyway, the mood deflates with Friday. Ugh, another single song encore, and a Friday encore to boot. Unlike 1/4/03 version, which had killer soloing from Trey, this one just lands like a wet hunk of sod. Page tries his best but it’s just a meh ending to an otherwise killer show.

 

Overall

Well, 2/16/03 is easily a 5 out of 5. It has some of everything that’s great about this band: insane jamming, fluid and fun segues, a rarity (and a cover to boot!), excellent set pacing, etc. My only complaint is the show ends on a bit of a downturn, as neither Character Zero nor a single song Friday encore are acceptable in my opinion.

On a bit of a side note: 2/16/03 is useful as the kind of show that exemplifies the difference between a 5 out of 5 and my top tier S out of 5. It’s just not quite there in the pantheon of the all timer shows, but it’s still a truly exceptional show and is the best of 2.0 thus far.

 

[Highlights]

Set One: Bowie -> Catapult -> Bowie, ROUND ROOM

Set Two/Encore: DwD -> Seven Below -> DwD, PIPER -> Makisupa

Phish 2/15/03

 

After a surprisingly strong tour opener, Phish rolled into Las Vegas for a two night stand that would further solidify the strength of the Winter tour. While the 2/16 show is well known to me (no spoilers beyond that), I have to say I was surprised how good the previous two shows were. Man, has Phish ever played a bad show in Vegas?

 

Set One

Good but throwaway Llama opener that is immediately forgotten as Wolfman’s Brother starts up. This version has excellent full band interplay with a jam that is by turns funky and rocking and towards the end, abstract. One thing I keep noticing in 2.0 so far is how much more I hear the other members step up to lead or contribute new riffs/ideas during jams, but also how much Trey has been sitting back and choosing the right times to ‘take over’, so to speak. This Wolfman’s really gets abstract and interesting towards the end, with the 2.0 Trey guitar groan/drone sounds and all, and we get a > segue into Reba (which for some unknown reason I wrote down as Bathtub Gin when I was taking notes). There’s some lyric flubs from Trey but Page steps up and helps recover, as well as some sloppy playing from Trey during the complex composed parts, but what else is new? There’s a strange, hard to explain, almost restless feeling to Trey’s playing during this Reba that makes it worth a listen but not worth being a top tier version by any means. No whistling, man, I forget how rare that is…Next up is a bustout of Life On Mars?, which if I remember right was inspired by NASA announcing back in 2003 that they had found water on Mars for the first time or something. Anyway, it’s an OK cover, not much else to say.

46 Days follows, has a loose jammy intro (even more than the studio version) but ends up being a fairly standard Trey guitar rock showcase. It’s Ice is a sort-of-rarity that I find myself liking more as I get older and hear more Phish, for whatever reason. It’s too bad that this one feels so succinct and off, somehow; the ambient part is rushed, for instance. Setlists say there’s a > into Frankie Says but I don’t hear any. This song is another sort-of-rarity, and always welcome. Another non-segue into Run Like An Antelope, for what it’s worth. Like the It’s Ice, this one also feels off and rushed. Couple flubs from Trey; oddly low energy peak and slow build throughout. Keyword was spliff instead of spike.

 

Set Two/Encore

Waves to open a set is always welcome! Great jam along the lines of the studio version; towards the end they do this extended vocal outro, with ambient/spacey backing getting more intense until a > segue drop into Bug. We’re back to the initial vocals, like with Twist. This ballad has really grown on me over the years, though ironically I think I prefer the ’00 and studio version without the extra set of lyrics (I feel like Phish started out not really caring about lyrics and they’ve overcorrected and have too many lyrics in each song now!). Another > segue into GHOST! First of 2.0, wooo! The intro sounds jammy and uncertain, as if the band expected Trey to do the usual delay loops and instead he was doing the initial ’97 style where it kind of just starts. Trey really hangs back at the start of the jam and lets Page and Mike tear it up. Once he tags in, we get a high energy rocking jam that goes for awhile before we settle into a weird outro segment, with organ washes and repetitive grinding playing. This is a really good Ghost jam but I don’t quite get from it what others seem to, labelling it the best ever. To me it’s a B+ instead of an A version.

There’s a sort of -> segue into Free. I gotta be honest, between Free and Character Zero I’m kind of over both of these songs being played so often in 2.0 so far. Less Billy Breathes, more Round Room, guys! Now, all of that said, this version of Free is FUCKING KILLER! No, it’s not some 20 minute type II masterclass, but it’s a fucking rager of a funk/rock jam that Mike steals the show during. You can either hear him turn himself up or the mix turns him up because he’s playing soooo good. I wish it had kept going but they bring it to a close and a > segue into Harry Hood. I’m officially going to label this Weird Hood, because it is weird as hell. The intro is loosey goosey, not in a “Trey forgot how to play it” way, but in a “let’s stretch out these composed parts of this song and have fun” kind of way. The ending jam segment has what setlists call a “silent jam” (hard to explain but you’ll know when you get there) and even gets genuinely type II for a few minutes before we head for the usual feel good ending. Speaking of feel good endings, this show lacks one. Hey, wait! Let me explain. I really like Sample In A Jar, but if they’re going to play it in the encore, they have to play something else too. These one song encores are a bummer if they don’t give it socks like they did 1/4/03 with Friday. Now THAT’S how you sell a one song encore.

 

Overall

Some of these shows I’ve waffled on the score because it feels like depending on my mood I could go either way. This show is one that I knew the final score of before I even sat down to write this. Oh, I briefly considered giving it a 3, largely because I think the first set lets the full show down. Not that it’s a bad set by any means—that Wolfman’s is really enjoyable, and the rarities are nice if not particularly well played—but it lacks anything truly seismic. Set two really shines, though. I may not like the Ghost as much as others but this set flows really well and contains some extremely fun and raging moments, including Mike tearing down the building on Free and the Weird Hood. Had the first set been stronger, or the show opener and encore been better, we might have been looking at a 5. But in the end this is a textbook 4 out of 5 show if there ever was one.

 

[Highlights]

Set One: Wolfman’s Brother, few rarities/bustouts including Life On Mars?

Set Two/Encore: GHOST -> FREE, WEIRD HOOD

Phish 2/14/03

 

Historically speaking, tour opening shows for Phish are rarely the highlights of said tour or year. Yet occasionally you get shows like 7/15/98 or 9/9/99 where they’re surprisingly strong right out of the gate, possibly because they hadn’t been off the road for that long (in the case of 7/15/98, not even a week off!). No need to keep you in suspense but I think 2/14/03 is overlooked as a fantastic tour opener, and it rings in the true arrival of 2.0.

Set One

This show starts off with a nod to Valentine’s Day as well as a debut cover that nods to their cover story in Rolling Stone magazine before we really get cooking. Chalk Dust Torture lets Trey loose and continues the high energy, focused soloing from the previous show. Then there’s Fee! This version gets jammed out and spacey, including a full segue into Taste (which for some reason in my head I kept thinking was Free so that it’d be Fee -> Free). Trey is a little shaky and inaudible with his guitar playing at the start of Taste but the jam segment is more potent and a bit looser than normal—not at all type II but kept my attention more than the standard Taste. The jam times continue to roll with Bathtub Gin, which I’ve now heard a few times already in this retrospective review series. This is by far the best Gin of 2.0 (so far), setting an immediate high bar for the rest of the tour and year. This is like a modern/2.0 cousin to the legendary Great Went Gin, very fluid and bouncy and uplifting. Heavy Things is in my opinion a real dull thud of a song to follow with, so I was happy they closed with Golgi Apparatus.

 

Set Two/Encore

Something about these setlists is weird to me; I understand opening with My Sweet One to acknowledge Valentine’s Day but Possum to me is always a set closer or encore kind of song. Anyway it serves its purpose well, nothing too remarkable. The energy and especially the jamming reach a new height with Walls Of The Cave. This rare type II version is, along with the first set’s Fee and Gin, the birth of the 2.0 jamming sound. WOTC takes awhile to get there, and it isn’t as focused as future 2.0 behemoths, but it’s by far the best and most interesting jam I’ve heard in this series so far. There’s a fun grinding/chaotic segue into Carini that resolves the jam nicely. Carini is a bit slow and sludgy, though, and Trey holds back on the short jam. All Of These Dreams serves its purpose as a mid-set breather. Limb By Limb, while not an all-timer, has a focused and patient jam segment that shows now that the band has their shit back together they will not sleepwalk through songs. A fun and a bit sloppy Oh Kee Pa slams into AC/DC Bag, which also feels like weird setlist placement, close to the end of set II.

(A quick aside, if you’re wondering what on earth happens: a fan jumps on stage during the composed part of AC/DC Bag and interrupts a lyric to say he loves someone and to either wish them happy birthday or Valentine’s Day; it’s hard to hear. This freak occurrence seems to influence where the Bag jam goes)

Anyway, this one has one of the most unique jams I’ve heard from Phish. This Bag is nothing like even other type II versions like Hampton ’97 or the recent NYE ’23 version, with Trey stepping back and playing mostly just simple patterns and staccato rhythmic playing while Mike and Page try to figure out a place to go. Instead the jam stays in place for a few minutes before getting more quiet and sparse and a full-on segue into Prince Caspian. I don’t know if this is a great Bag but it’s certainly a weird one and a must hear for people seeking out jams that are non-standard. Anyway, Caspian is ok and has a weird ambient ending I haven’t heard before. The set as a result kind of just…peters out. Loving Cup, the final Valentine’s nod, closes out the show with an exclamation point after the weird trail off into ellipsis that was the end of the second set.

 

Overall

I said in the last review that the show was all sizzle and no steak, well, they certainly brought the steak to California for this show! Even moreso than 1/4/03, this show proved that Phish was back and trying new things. For a tour opener it’s incredible how strong it is; this didn’t at all feel like they’re warming up for a night and the jams are still coming. I’ve previously heard about half of the Winter ’03 tour and I can see why some people say it’s very consistent and one of the most underrated tours. 2/14/03 really brought the jams, and the rest of the playing was of high quality, too. The song selection and setlist placement is a little wonky and threw me off at first, though honestly on subsequent listens I like them trying new things like Possum opening a set or a quiet, peter-out ending to Caspian. I’m ALMOST tempted to give this show a 5 out of 5 but for as strong of a show as it is, I don’t think the overall experience quite gets there. The jams, while either nascent deep/fresh 2.0 jams or high energy rocking fun like Gin or Limb By Limb, most likely aren’t going to be among the best versions of the year. I do highly recommend this show, and it’s easily the best I’ve heard in this review series so far, but there just isn’t that X factor that tips the scales to 5 out of 5 or a S out of 5.

[Highlights]

Set One: Fee -> Taste, BATHTUB GIN

Set Two/Encore: WALLS OF THE CAVE, AC/DC Bag jam

Phish 1/4/03

 

Given the extremes of the last show, it was nice to get back to something normal with this one. While I will say that this New Year’s run of shows wasn’t outright bad, listening through them will confirm for you why you don’t see people talk about them. Anyway, 1/4/03 is probably the most consistent of the NYE run, as both sets are well played and feature at least two well played songs/jams.

Set One

This is a strong first set that starts out pretty good and gets better by the end. Especially compared to the previous show’s first set, this one is mostly tight and locked in, with just a couple flubs from Trey here or there. Roggae has some killer soloing from Trey and stands out a bit above the average version. Maze is a typical heater; high energy with Trey’s solo section a bit more droney and holding onto notes than is the standard. Saw It Again makes a rare appearance, but the real set highlight is the Split Open and Melt. This jam more than any other hints at where 2.0 is going with the jamming style, as it’s as intense as the usual Melt but uses more loops and spacey/droney playing from Trey and Mike. In all likelihood it won’t be one of the highlights of the year but as far as 2.0 shows so far, this Melt is the top of the pile and a must listen for 2.0 spelunkers like me.

 

Set Two/Encore

Not in terms of the jamming or anything else except the setlist itself, it’s really stark how set one has NO segues at all and set two is mostly all one continuous set of music. Yet as the saying goes, the tale is in the tape not the setlist. This set is a clear indicator that they’re getting their mojo back. Good but not noteworthy Rock and Roll opener, fairly standard Mike’s with a cool semi ambient ending/outro; full segue into Mountains In The Mist with an amazing Trey solo worth seeking out, sort of quiets down and stops IMO before Weekapaug starts up from zero (this song always sounds so awkward when it doesn’t arrive on a segue) and is a good high energy version that dips its toe into type II toward the end; full on segue into What’s The Use? (which in some ways could be used like I Am Hydrogen in a Mike’s Groove) which has a quiet ambient ending that segues into a rip-roaring Down With Disease, which, while not very experimental and barely over ten minutes in length, has some killer playing from Trey throughout including a cool, unique wah wah pedal loop segue into Fast Enough For You, which like so many songs from this set has an astoundingly good Trey solo in it (legit one of the best FEFY performances); after FEFY the song seems to have ended and the Phish.net setlist says there isn’t a > segue into 2001 but IMO there is one it’s just quiet and lowkey. This 2001 is actually one of the more short and tired sounding versions I’ve ever heard, and the big rock vamp endings mentioned on the setlist notes isn’t as fun or interesting as you’d expect.

Friday encore ON PAPER looks like trash. I can’t stand this song typically, let alone as the encore to cap off a run of shows…but GOD DAMN this is the best version and everyone else who says so is right. Trey was absolutely brilliant with his solos this show overall but especially second set and encore!

 

Overall

After finishing this show for the first time I scribbled “All sizzle and no steak, but it’s great sizzle.” I believe that’s a good summary! This was the best of the NYE run overall. There maybe were some moments especially on NYE itself that were more memorable, such as the jammed out Piper opener and the Runaway Jim -> Time Loves A Hero, but this show actually sounds like a real Phish show and has excellent, energetic playing in both sets. Gotta go with a 4 out of 5. Trey really stepped up his game since the last show but with a few exceptions there simply isn’t anything here that is noteworthy and will be on lists of greatest jams or shows ever from this period.

 

[Highlights]

Set One: Roggae, Maze, and Split Open and Melt especially!

Set Two/Encore: Strong set overall, Trey’s playing/soloing was on point throughout especially on the ballads like FEFY and Friday.

 

 

Phish Project Update

 

One of the most important things I ever learned about being a writer is to know the difference between wanting to quit a project and actually needing to quit a project. Sometimes it’s a matter of needing to restructure your life so that you can finish what you started. Other times it’s more about changing the scope/scale of a project so that not only can you make progress, you can actually progress towards finishing it.

I started this Phish catch-up project because I needed a new series to help motivate me to write on a consistent basis again. In starting it, I always had in the back of my head that this was probably too ambitious of an undertaking, and I’d probably want to quit multiple times because it was too daunting and time consuming. What I should’ve been thinking this whole time is that it’s not an all or nothing project, and I need to stop making this feel like a series of college essays I have to do research and take notes for. It should be fun to do this project, damnit! But sticking to my structure of talking about the show in song-by-song detail simply isn’t possible.

Now, there may still be shows that I have more to say about, and will write longer reviews about. But it’s obvious to me I need to drop the set by set, and song by song, approach. This simply takes too long and I’d probably already be close to done with the Winter ’03 tour if I didn’t start out like this. I’ve been stuck on the 1/4/03 show for weeks simply because it’s not a show worth taking so much time and effort for. If I can get my thoughts down in a couple paragraphs and highlight the important/best moments of the show, why am I going to try to say something interesting about every performance of Waste or Rift? Why am I writing linear walkthroughs of each jam if most of them aren’t top tier versions?

So, whoever is actually reading this: starting with the next review, you’ll be seeing shorter but more frequent posts. And we might actually make it to my first show, 10/11/23, before I’m 50 years old!

Phish 1/3/03

 

Before I get to the review, I wanted to apologize for the lack of posts. Without going into all the details, it’s been a rough month or so, including losing a longtime beloved pet just as I was starting to work on this review again. I know I don’t have to explain to anyone who has experienced these times in your life, that you simply can’t focus on endeavors like this, that don’t really matter and are read by like negative one people. Anyway.

 

[Prologue]

Without giving too much away ahead of time, I have to say that this show is the earliest example of the worst and best that 2.0 Phish has to offer. As the third in a series of four ‘reunion’ shows, you can deduce from the setlist and song lengths that the band were continuing to reignite their jamming skills. Hell, it’s a five song first set, and the encore is the only one this run of shows that is two songs instead of just one! But a setlist doesn’t tell the tale of the tape, and all is clearly not well in Phish…

 

[Set One]

Tweezer- OK, yeah, I’ll take a ‘Tweezer’ show opener! I mean, 11/17/97 has a five song first set that opens with ‘Tweezer’, I’m on board! There’s something a bit sluggish and slightly off about the composed section of this song. Trey does that weird riff-variance thing he does a lot during 2.0 where he kind of plays the main ‘Tweezer’ riff but he kind of plays a different riff at the same time. Anyway, jam starts off like a ‘99/’00 era version minus the Trey loops, with Mike taking commanding lead while Trey and Page comp in the background. Around 7:00 Trey starts some patient, restrained soloing. I don’t know about you, but I don’t always need my ‘Tweezer’ to be type II so I’m pretty happy with this one so far. Around 8:00 Trey lays down a loop but it gets a bit swallowed up in the rest of the sound going on. They start putting the pedal to the metal around 8:30, increasing the tempo from a crawl to….err, an amble. Big peaking jam feeling starting at 9:45, are we heading for a peak and cool-off? Heading out into type II? Trey and Page play responsive lines around each other for a minute or two, by 11:00 Trey has fully woken up and started cooking. Page stays on the organ to play chordal accompaniment as Trey hits an enjoyable but pretty standard peak and steps back with sustained notes. By 12:35 we’re cooling off, quieting down and possibly heading to an ending. Nope. Trey starts playing high register spacey guitar noodling and they feel stuck in place, unsure where to go next. Loops from Trey at 13:45ish but they’re quickly overwhelmed by Mike’s deep space bass sounds. Soon Trey starts a sluggish -> segue into the next song. All in all not a BAD ‘Tweezer’ but a very forgettable one. Another jam that feels like throwing things against the wall and waiting to strike gold that is never found.

Theme From The Bottom- Just as a jam being long doesn’t mean it’s good, a segue being a full -> doesn’t mean it’s a good -> segue. This one is both too drawn out and too clumsy. Not for the first and certainly not for the last time tonight it sounds like Trey is playing in the completely wrong key and his fingers are fumbling all over the place. To be fair, the jam portion is high energy and around 6:30 and forward Page is really saving the day with his playing. But I have to address this: there’s a big difference between ‘being rusty’ and just straight up fucking up, and this first set should be a key example of that difference. Look, I’m not here to judge anyone; I’ve had my own substance abuse issues and I don’t want to come off like I’m so much better than Trey. But I’m also not charging people money to listen to my band live. I’m glad he’s sober now and that we got the happy ending of the story, but it doesn’t excuse how embarrassing the flubs are during 2.0.

Foam- Oh boy…Was Fishman trolling Trey by starting this song? If you can’t hear that Trey is fucked up beyond control, you have no business calling yourself a fan of this band. I can excuse a mistake here or there but Jesus this first set is cringe inducing. As a hardcore fan I can and do try to look past these things to see the good parts of 2.0 but I would never play a show like this for my wife or around friends who are more casual fans. It’s no exaggeration to say it honestly sounds like the couple of times that I put on Phish or The Grateful Dead and tried to play along on guitar, just halting and off-time and hitting sour notes and so on. At least the rest of the band are on their game tonight, Page treats us to some lovely soloing like he always does. When it comes to Trey’s solo he seems eager to redeem himself, a thread that will run throughout this show and 2.0 as a whole. This ‘Foam’ nevertheless instilled a faint sadness and permeated the rest of the show the first time I listened to it, just like “oh, a song they used to play with effortlessness in ’94 is now a struggle to get through for the band and me”, such that when complicated songs came up later in the show I was bracing for impact. Oof the ending of this ‘Foam’ though…

Pebbles and Marbles- Sound of Trey tuning a string before this song. Despite this being a new song and its debut, so you’d assume it was practiced a lot recently, there’s still a roughness to Trey’s playing that cannot be put down to “well it’s been two years, they’re rusty.” No, Trey is just incapable of getting it together though I will say he does ok with the vocals. Maybe it’s just me but I can feel the rest of the band stepping up to help carry him through this song until he gets to the easier parts like the big rock jam breakdown at the end of the studio version. Sounds like we’re taking this one out for a spin. Around 7:45 still a standard jam on the song’s main theme. Page continues to carry the jam on his back by 8:30, trying to spur Trey on it feels like, who is starting to realize he can play guitar after all. At 9:15 Mike tries to introduce a bouncy bassline but Trey ignores it and starts doing his chorus pedal bliss jam peaking thing. Gotta say despite all the jams that look long and interesting on paper, this NYE run has been underwhelming. Like, a 15 minute ‘Pebbles and Marbles’ sounds amazing and intriguing in theory, but not when you realize it’s longer than the album version and is the same exact kind of jam yet I’d argue is less effective. My headcanon is that Trey keeps wanting to prove he isn’t fucked up on drugs so instead of doing dark/dissonant or spacey/ambient type II jams he wants to be like “look I can still do Machine Gun Trey and play fiery rock solos!” OK, great, good to know, but can we get something else? So far this first set is cringe inducing composed sections and ho-hum paint-by-numbers jams.

After the song ends on the official release I think it’s either the band or some audience members talking loud about it being “psychedelic” and “Xan’ing out on that drone” (as in Xanax I assume). A portent of things to immediately come. You can definitely hear someone saying Trey’s name.

You Enjoy Myself- This is like “school recital” levels of fucking up. Even though Trey stops the band and admits how ashamed he is, this is still one of the lowest of low points in all of Phish history. Look, at this point we all know he was in the depths of his addictions during 2.0, so his playing it off like “we” are “rusty after two years off” is a lie not even worth calling out. He continues to not play the best once they do restart the song and I’m remembering now why when I was listening to 2.0 in the past, I’d always skip past the composed sections of songs. I mean, the ambient section is cool I guess, but that’s the easiest part to play! Around 6:15 it’s particularly obvious Trey is lost and forgets what to play. Can we please get to the jam already? Mike and Page solo sections are decent enough. As Trey starts his solo Fishman introduces a funkier beat and Mike starts to drop bass bombs. At 12:25 though we’re back to a standard issue ‘You Enjoy Myself’ jam. At about 14:15 Trey starts a fun guitar line and the band picks up a bit. Twirl and release playing at 15:00 that is the most interesting thing he’s played all night. As with the running theme of 2.0, Trey really pushes himself to redeem the flubbed composed section with high octane soloing. I guess if you’re going to end a pretty wretched set like this one has been so far, this is the way to do it. I mean, sheesh, did somebody give Trey a bump at some point during the jam because he’s finally playing with drive and purpose! Around 18:13 I can hardly hear Mike or Page because Trey has overwhelmed the audio mix. Mike bass solo at 18:45 with this cool new gooey space bass effects. Someone starts the vocals back up before I think he was really done but eh, oh well. Vocal jam is the usual take-it-or-leave-it strangeness: a George Takei theme combined with a melody that vaguely sounds like ‘Tweezer’ or something, and an ending including groaning and moaning.

 

It's no hyperbole to say that this is the worst set I’ve ever heard Phish play. I’ve heard sets that were worse than this one in terms of being boring and forgettable, but they’re inoffensive. Despite being familiar with at least a dozen shows from the 2.0 era, I was shocked at how obviously fucked up Trey was during this set and how many mistakes there were. On paper this set looks like jam heaven but literally nothing about the improv in this set is noteworthy. Even for type I jams they aren’t notable or enjoyable. I understand this is all just my opinion but I’m concerned about anyone who can defend this set. Even with the 2.0 considerations, it doesn’t have any jams or playing that redeems the sloppy composed sections and off-feeling. It’s truly the worst of everything that 2.0 has to offer in one set, and I can only imagine how they felt backstage during set break.

 

[Setbreak]

I’ve been having the kind of weekend where you listen to seemingly random music as your mood changes. For some reason yesterday afternoon I was in a Lana mood and saw that my wife and I had never listened to Blue Bannisters on vinyl despite owning it for over a year. It was the right idea because I was reminded of how I admire this album’s musical consistency and blue/blues theme running throughout its lyrics. I can see some people not liking it as much as her other albums for this musical consistency though for me that’s part of the appeal. It’s kind of a long album and only had a couple songs I think really caught fire online, but trust me and give it a chance when you’re ready for its introspective, contemplative mood.

 

[Set Two]

Birds Of A Feather- Ok, Trey was still kind of off with his playing, but it’s nowhere near as egregious as the first set. Pretty decent but standard ‘Birds’ jam you’ve come to expect. You can just feel Trey willing this set to be better than the first by a Texas mile. Whatever he did during setbreak, it’s not my concern or place to judge, but it sure worked.

Wolfman’s Brother- If ever there’s a case of a band or a sports team coming back strong after half-time and salvaging the day, this show has to be it. I simply can’t in good conscience dismiss the first set just because they delivered a decent second set—because make no mistake, as strong and fun as this Wolfman’s turns out to be, this set would otherwise only enter the discussion in terms of best sets of the NYE reunion run. Everyone knows that the Winter tour is where 2.0 started to cook, but it’s fun revisiting this run to see the sparks starting to relight in the band. But I digress. The Wolfman’s jam has some fun sparse playing between all members around the 7:00 mark. Mike feels like he’s leading the jam, and throughout this set it feels like he’s also determined to step up and salvage the show after set one’s shit sandwich. Some “oooh, ooo” vocals around 7:45, I think from Trey and Page? It’s blink and you miss it. 9:00 has Trey using some raw, growly effects and a pitch shifter to make his guitar tone lower, which I feel is one of those hallmarks of this era and certain jam styles in general. 10:00 Page goes back to piano and the jam suddenly comes alive and sounds brighter, as if you opened the drapes and let the full sunshine in. Mike is still dropping bass goodness all over the place as Trey takes fire and treats us to a rocking, peaking Wolfman’s. I don’t know for sure if this is the first time a 10 minute plus Wolfman’s had this kind of bright rock jam and wasn’t a funky and/or spacey type II jam. I seem to recall really loving the first Wolfman’s they played at Hampton during the ’09 reunion NYE shows, and it following a similar funky to rocky jam journey. Am I crazy? Anyway. 13:00 is Trey remembering who he is, Lion King style. Locked in, hosing us all down with patient yet energetic Trey soloing his ass off. Almost before you realize it, though, he kills his guitar and starts doing funky rhythmic accents as Mike hits his kick ass cyber bass. Or is that Page on a synth? Maybe. Anyway, before you know it, a very abrupt and not at all -> full segue like some setlists say into…

Makisupa Policeman- Man was it good to hear them laughing again. I do wonder if anything Trey references was real. Again, knowing by this point he’s said in interviews he was already a full-blown addict, I unfortunately am the kind of person who is like “hmmm, was it a fatty joint, or…pills…?” Anyway, that’s shitty of me and let’s move on. This is a fun Makisupa! I love versions that take their time and get dubby with loops and stop/start dynamics, had me flashing back to some ’97 or ’00 versions I vaguely recall. As it should be, Mike is the force driving this Makisupa jam until Trey’s loops start to divide like cells and overwhelm the mix around 4:15 onward. Man this really sounds like a ’97 or ’00 version but I can’t remember which, maybe 11/19/97..which also followed a Wolfman’s (albeit a BEEFier version). Page gets NASTAY on the clav around 5:30, and this reminds me that while the other members were never slouches during 1.0, I really think 2.0 brought especially Page and Mike to the forefront. Sometimes to rescue Trey, mostly to add their own ideas and be more assertive more often. Things just kind of come to a stop and after a few seconds someone counts off…

Axilla I- I was a bit concerned about this one but I’m already sort of grading on a curve for the show at this point even after the mostly great preceding three songs, so let’s go! Actually Trey seems to have nailed the lyrics and I don’t think I noticed him screw up on guitar once. Not like this song is a super composed complex one but it requires a certain energy and focus, y’know? Sadly no Part II ending though they tease it. Overall, gotta give it to Trey. This was also really great song placement for the flow of the set, bit of a pick-me-up.

Twist- The opening of this, oof, not great but they pull it together before the lyrics. Speaking of, I wonder why they went back to the “substituting every sound” lyric from the pre-Farmhouse album version? Some lovely piano playing from Page at 3:35ish at the start of the jam. Really feels like he and Trey are locked in and Mike is right there with them. Twist has always been one of my favorite Phish songs, in terms of the song itself as well as how it can be used live. They can either keep a tight, blues-rocky jam like the Vegas ’00 version or have long type II odysseys or serve as a segue point/energy shifter between other songs in a set. This is another song in terms of this writing project I had heard very recently, during the 10/7/00 show. That version, while longer, also had a similar jam vibe and ended with a short spacey/ambient section before segueing into the next song. Hmmmm. Well, I don’t want to accuse a band of copying itself too much too close together so I’ll close this song by saying, I fucking LOVE the keyboard sound Page uses around 8:20. Well, I’ll also say, this is another part of a jam during the NYE run that I feel doesn’t quite get there but hints at the jam style that most people associate with 2.0 Phish.

Free- Why did it feel like Trey was laboring even more through this than he remotely was during Axila I? I’ve always had a so-so, mood-dependent opinion of this song. Not for nothing, but has there ever been a type II version? It’s like Undermind where it feels like such an obvious song for jam fodder but I don’t think they ever did, and they hardly even play Undermind (and when they do it doesn’t sound like the album version). So, yeah, it’s Free but played a little slower than usual and Trey sounds exhausted throughout it like he’s singing after running a mile in gym class.

All Of These Dreams- It’s not a perfect album but I really love Round Room and I was excited to see it towards the end of this set. Trey actually holds it together pretty well on vocals, too. Somebody—Page?!—accidentally starts to sing the chorus again around 2:14. Well I guess it’s not just Trey who can be off his game. Yeah? Yeah. Anywho, it’s a decent first version of this ballad, big pop from the crowd for Page’s piano solo! Browsing the LivePhish app it looks like this song became a bit of a rarity, that’s too bad!

Possum- I was never big into this song until it was part of the encore of my first show and everybody, even people who weren’t dancing before, seemed to suddenly be grooving and jamming to this song. As such, I now understand its power and what a fantastic choice to end the set. As so often happens with this song, it’s basically the same jam every single time, but like Antelope, Trey is able to just pop off and do his Jedi mind tricks. Since it’s just a bunch of wall of sound end rock song live vamp stuff, it was honestly kind of hard for me to tell but toward the end of this version of Possum, they do some instrument switching shenanigans. They seem to randomly bust out this gimmick like a sort of carny trick to pop the crowd. I guess live, seeing it in person or even visually, it would work, but on tape it’s just like…ok yeah, they do this at the end of most sets? I would never have known they were swapping instruments.

Contact- So we start the encore with a silly celebrity guest joke from Trey? Alright, I’m listening. This song is so dumb but so great, it’s pure Phish. We get a decently long, fun stop/start funk jam in the middle like it’s 1997 all over again. Ok, yeah, this second set and encore still don’t come close to offsetting the dumpster dive of set one, but I’ll give it to them, they’re sure fucking trying. For a hot minute this jam was starting to give me Dayton ’97 Tube/Dayton Jam vibes. This performance alone makes this the best encore of the batch of shows I’ve reviewed so far. Where was this in set one, lads?

Tweezer Reprise- Yeah, they’re probably always going to play this song during a show with Tweezer. But given the sad showing of set one, did they really earn this one? I guess that’s up to you to decide for yourself, but to me it feels a bit like a victory lap that was only earned at the very end, like sniping someone with a red shell just before the finish line in Mario Kart. In pro wrestling terms, this song can be cheap heat. Sure people will always react well to hearing it but it always feels the most appropriate if the show had a truly type II beast Tweezer (or even a Tweezerfest).

 

So, this set was more normal, right? I mean, it’s got some decent jam moments sprinkled in, and it’s actually competently played (mostly), so nothing to either greatly praise or criticize. The encore was a big highlight even if I didn’t personally feel they earned that Tweeprise.

 

[Final Verdict]

I was going to say that this was a tough call for me—set one is absolutely a 1 out of 5, no question, and set two is a 3 out of 5 because I was grading on a curve, so do I split the difference or…?—and spend multiple sentences hemming and hawing and possibly some mulling over for good measure. But re-reading my original description of what a 2 out of 5 show is, I feel like it’s all spelled out there and this show is that to a T. If they had rebounded with a second set that existed in the top tier of the best ’03 sets that were yet to come, I could maybe, maybe talk myself into considering a 3 out of 5. If the wind was in its favor and I had had an especially good nap that day. But damn if this isn’t one of the weakest shows I’ve heard from this band. After hearing the first set I literally—and I mean that word truly—couldn’t bring myself to listen to the second set for at least a week. It bummed me out so much it made me feel like I had seen a close friend get sloppy drunk and piss his pants while crying and apologizing to everyone. The second set at least reaffirmed that this writing project was worth continuing, not because it’s any great shakes but because they could pull it together and deliver a pretty good second set and excellent encore.

So, yeah, 2 out of 5.

[Highlights]

Set One: Nothing (no, not the song Nothing, literally nothing was remotely good)

Set Two: Trey was still alive, Wolfman’s > Makisupa, Possum was fire as always

Special Commendation: Contact! This song had one of the best jams of the night.

Phish 1/2/03

 

[Prologue]

After a most satisfactory reunion show, Phish took a day off to recover and travel to Virginia for a very rare post-NYE three show run at the venue perhaps most associated with them, Hampton Coliseum. Indeed, I wonder if some fans and/or the band saw these shows as the “real” reunion. The big pressure was off, the press attention was over (apparently some news outlets really thought Tom Hanks appeared on NYE), and it was time to have the first—for lack of a better term—normal show.

[Set One]

Chalk Dust Torture- You know, this is one of those utilitarian songs in Phish’s catalogue that they use as everything but a ballad: it can open a show or set, it can close a show or set, it can be a jam vehicle, it can be a setup for a great segue, it can help the energy level come up or go down…As it happens on this night, it’s a jam vehicle! Now, this wasn’t the first true jammed out, type II version of ‘Chalk Dust Torture’ but it does give us another dose of Phish finding their footing in group improvisation again. It’s a standard version until about 4:18 when you can start to feel they might be doing something a bit different. After returning to somewhat standard jam fare, around 5:00 there’s a big cheer from the audience—not sure what that’s about. At 5:22 Page starts playing some oblique piano notes, dancing in and out of the rest of the band, and Trey responds at 6:00 with guitar groans and noise as Mike starts to play some warped rhythmic lines. The band again tease going into type II and at 7:22 Trey steps back from the jam almost entirely for a few seconds—probably fiddling with pedals. Ah, yep, there’s the pitch shifter pedal. Mike is playing mostly as texture in the background here; Page jumps on the clavinet. By 9:00 they still haven’t hit upon something that everyone engages with, they start to feel like they’re all going in different directions and not in a fun way. At 9:53 we suddenly get quiet and ambient, as though a fog suddenly settled over the crowd and stage. Trey continues to play with his effects pedals and puts down a couple subtle loops. I think this ‘Chalk Dust Torture’ jam is one of those exemplars of the notion that just because a jam is long doesn’t mean it’s good. It’s also another time you can see them pushing to discover the 2.0 jam style; around 11:57 they almost get somewhere before Trey at 12:18 brings us suddenly back to the standard CDT ‘big rock jam’ ending. All in all it was an interesting jam and show opener but unlike NYE’s ‘Piper’, this one never really gels into something enjoyable and memorable.

Bathtub Gin- Setlists I see online say there’s a > segue into this from ‘CDT’ but that’s a bald-faced lie. Pedantic, I know, but it had to be said. ANYWAY. I guess we aren’t fucking around if they’re following an exploratory ‘CDT’ show opener with ‘Bathtub Gin.’ It’s worth noting that the unfairly derided Hampton ’04 show opens with a ‘CDT’/’Gin’ jammed out one-two punch show opener as well. I’m assuming it has to be intentional and something I never noticed until I listened to this show. ANYWAY! Who doesn’t love ‘Bathtub Gin’? It never disappoints and it’s never not one of the big jams of the night. It’s like when you hear a ‘Tweezer’ or ‘Ghost’ start up, it’s always like, oh fuck yes, here we GO! This ‘Gin’ starts off in typical upbeat, Trey swirling guitar lines-led style. Around 6:00 he steps back briefly as Page hits upon a pretty little filigree melodic lines. At 6:36 we get some funky, chunky sounds from Trey and Mike and Fishman keep the engine powered in the background. Page on funky organ at 7:08ish and it’s starting to feel like ’97 in Hampton Coliseum. 8:05 shows us why Mike is so damn good, with an amazing funky lead line. It starts to feel like they’re maybe jamming on a song or quoting something but I can’t tell what, if anything. Mike is still going strong at 10:00 while the rest of the band continues a fairly standard type I ‘Gin’ jam. Nothing wrong with that, though. It’s about the journey, not the destination, when it comes to ‘Gin’ and actual gin. Around 10:55 Trey plays around with the main ‘Gin’ melody, perhaps leading to an end to the song, but it turns out to be one of those ‘resetting’ revisits of the song’s melody or chorus to get the jam going in another direction. At 12:00 almost exactly, spiraling Trey guitar uplifting lines like he loves to do in the ’bliss’ jams of a ‘Ghost’ or ‘Weekapaug Groove.’ Around 13:00 Trey starts to really catch fire and play slide guitar-sounding lines with a chorus pedal or something going on and off as he jams. We enjoy this vibe for a few minutes until they break back into ‘Gin’ and bring it to a close. All in all, a decent if somewhat standard issue ‘Gin.’ It gets the job done but you wouldn’t serve it to your friends as your best stock.

It's Ice- Trey cracks a joke about the NYE Tom Hanks incident before the song begins. It’s pretty amusing but his clumsy playing of this song’s intro isn’t amusing. One of my unfortunate memories of the 2.0 era is how sometimes it feels like he either just stops playing or only plays the ‘easier’ parts of a song while the rest of the band have to make up for him. And it’s really a shame because I love ‘It’s Ice’—it’s one of those Phish songs that they seem to play just often enough that people know it but still rarely enough that nobody gets sick of it. Well, thankfully, Trey eventually recovers his skills after a few minutes. At 5:00ish we get the spacey/ambient section that is often a bit type II-y around the edges, though I’d have preferred it go on longer and not end with a jarring snare drum hit. A standard, somewhat short ‘It’s Ice’ that wasn’t particularly well played in the first few minutes. Hmmmph.

Back On The Train- Were I a fan going to shows in the ’03 era, I would’ve been looking forward to further performances of this song, since it seems like such a natural jam vehicle but has only occasionally been so. This version starts off with a loose, jammy intro until Trey counts off and they lock in to the groove. Big cheers at the first “took me a long time to get back on the train” lyric, as you might imagine. Trey’s solo around 2:15 is prime 2.0 wonkiness. His guitar tone is muffled and distorted, he seems to stumble at what he’s playing a couple times…it kind of sounds cool and it kind of doesn’t at the same time. Around 4:45 we start to head into a direction that brings to mind the beloved 6/14/00 and 2/28/03 versions, patient and mid-tempo grooves with Trey, Page, and Mike interweaving in a top flight type I jam. At just over 11 minutes this version is definitely a jammy one, though I have to say it’s still bested by the two I mentioned a bit ago. But it’s a case of those being 5s and this one by comparison is more like a 4. All of that said, I’m happy with how jam heavy this first set is so far. Even if none of them are among the best of all time or for the year even, the jams have been flowing steadily.

Round Room- They need to play this song more, god damnit. It’s such a fun song in and of itself, and I’m already going to bring up the fan-fucking-tastic 2/16/03 jammed out version, thankyouverymuch, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what they do with it in the 3.0/4.0 eras. Also I didn’t think about this until just now, but I think it says a lot that their new album was named after this Mike song. I’m trying to think if any of the others were named after a song by him? Feels like Trey and the guys were being really respectful of him as a fellow artist. Anyway, it’s well played and Page does a pretty good job reproducing the weird keyboard sounds at the end from the album version. Kinda like with ‘Fee’, which sometimes has a bright/calm melodic jam at the end, this one has that feel but with more spacey sounds from Trey and Page. Feels like they’re experimenting with how they want to end this one because Page keeps blasting away with different synth/keyboard sounds until they just all stop. Gotta say, a pretty cool version altogether even if 2/16/03 is my current GOAT.

The Horse- Can I yet again shock you with an opinion? I don’t really understand why this song and ‘Silent In The Morning’ are separated. “But it means they can potentially perform something else in between, or out of order!” you cry. Well, they could still do that, they’ve done it before with single songs. I know, it’s hugely unimportant but it’s always bugged me for some reason. Not much to say here. It’s well played.

Silent In The Morning- It’s well played. Crowd cheers and Page smiles as he sings “just last year!” I have to give the band credit, the vocals are well done. See, not all 2.0 era Phish has off-vocals or badly played composed sections. What I will say, though, is….again, I don’t think Trey’s new guitar tone works super well with the ballads. It’s too raspy and distorted sounding through some of ‘Silent’. Just a personal preference, though.

Stash- ‘Round Room’ through ‘Silent’ was a nicely played comedown after the jams. This takes us back to jam territory. I was a little nervous about hearing a 2.0 ‘Stash’ though I yet again have to give the band credit: I think they mostly nailed this one. Before I get to the jam I have to say, it was around this time in the set I thought “huh this must be the closer, this set is starting to feel a bit long.” Turns out set one of this show is a potent hour and a half, which is longer than any of the NYE sets by at least 20 minutes. And with a band like Phish, whether it’s in a good or bad way for you, dear individual, you really do feel when a set starts to get long. ANYWAY back to the jam. Some excellent type I ‘Stash’ jamming early on; around 6:44 Trey starts an amazing bit of guitar work. I’ll always say for the guy during 2.0, he may slop it up in the composed sections but his improvising abilities rarely wavered. I love how out of control really great ‘Stash’ type I jams can feel, with time and rhythm playing havoc with my ears, and this one adds in a dash of Trey effects pedal goodness. If I pay attention to certain times of the 2.0 era I can clearly hear the Kevin Shields/My Bloody Valentine influence that Trey has talked about. Much like the NYE ‘David Bowie’ this one doesn’t reinvent the wheel but is a satisfying ‘standard’ version. I always hope for a ‘Manteca’ with my ‘Stash’ but this time the crab was firmly not in my shoemouth.

Water In The Sky- Even on the LivePhish app version of this official release, there’s an audible fadeout/fade-in between ‘Stash’ and this song. I don’t really know why unless someone uploaded a 3 CD version of this show or something? ANYWAY I like this song. It’s refreshing and light, like drinking a wheat beer outside on a Summer afternoon.

Character Zero- I don’t know why it is but when I listened to this show for my initial blind listen not looking at the setlist, I thought they had just played this on NYE. But nope, they couldn’t have, they never do repeats. And they certainly wouldn’t repeat the same song also in the same slot, as a set closer. OH WAIT NO THEY FUCKING DID. I don’t even dislike this song but god damn that’s just lazy. Like did they forget they had played it last time, and it was in the same slot? Are they fucked up on drugs or trolling us? Am I overthinking this? I dunno. But I’ll be honest, if I was a fan at the time, I’d have been pissing and moaning about it to everybody at setbreak. It’s so hard to care about this song unless you’re really drunk or you haven’t heard it in awhile. It bores the piss out of me if it’s not a non-standard version. Actually, you know what? I’m putting a “fuck this song” sign up for now and will refuse to talk about this song in future shows with more than a sentence or a shrug. This is my own personal ‘Prince Caspian’ for the foreseeable future.

Set one of this show is sure something. It’s long, front-loaded with mostly jams. It has some flubby/bad playing at times. It ends with a repeat song from NYE, a song that sucks for me for now. But, overally, in pure musical terms this set was the best so far in 2.0. Some great playing and promising potential jams on the horizon, if it’s anything to go by.

[Setbreak]

I was struggling to think of what to write about for this one because I haven’t been focused on too much other than random YouTube content and Phish. Furthermore, a couple of the movies I watched for the first time were so excellent I want to possibly write a longform piece about them, someday, instead of the short blurbs I usually do for the setbreaks. Lucky for me a song randomly popped into my head on the drive to work today and I was reminded of an album I haven’t listened to in what feels like a decade, Casino Vs. Japan’s Go Hawaii. This record was introduced to me by someone I’m no longer friends with (long story, but aren’t they always?) based on my obsession with the first two Boards Of Canada albums. It’s totally in that wheelhouse, down to the oddly unnerving child vocal samples. Still, it’s a great little ambient-ish IDM album in the BoC style, and the opening track ‘Theme’ is a banger.

 

[Set Two]

46 Days- I was excited they played this song so early in the 2.0 run. It’s one of the songs that both band and audience really connect with, and when they do jam it out, it goes some interesting places. But it’s also the kind of song that can just be 7 to 9 minutes and serve as a rocking type I jam that Trey can go nuts on. Imagine my surprise when the very first version played goes for it! Jam starts in earnest around 8:12. Bit of a preview of the 2.0 ambient jamming style for a few seconds until Trey starts playing some twirling leads and the band is poised to go with him. For a few minutes we float in place, a spacey psychedelic jam complete with gooey Page keyboard sounds and Mike’s deep but foggy bass bubbling up and down in the background. Trey noodles around with some repetitive guitar phrases, unsure of what he really wants to do At 12:55 Fishman becomes more active and spurs the band forward, the tempo increasing a bit at a time. By 13:30 we’re cooking back into a rock jam, with Page taking lead on organ as Trey comps along on guitar. Mike is the secret weapon, keeping on the beat with Fishman but responding subtly to Page and Trey, too. Around 14:26 I start to think we’re about to segue into ‘Birds Of A Feather’ though instead Phish continue to hasten the pace and Trey coats his guitar in dirty, raw effects sounds. We keep chugging along on this distorted funky rock jam with Mike and Page taking the reins as Trey’s guitar continues to self-destruct. Round about 19:00 it starts to become clear we’re headed somewhere, whether it’s a segue into another song or the band bringing up the energy to finish the song. Around 19:47 excellent Fishman and Page interplay. Soon Trey is playing some big obvious chords as if trying to signal something to the band. They must sense what I’m not getting because the sort-of-segue into the next song, where everyone else stops playing and Trey starts up ‘Simple’, doesn’t sound as clumsy as I probably just made it out to be.

Simple- This song just gets better with time in terms of jamming vehicle. This performance though…Well, there’s a roughness to this performance that feels more like “we haven’t practiced this much recently” than it does the usual 2.0 sloppiness. Around 2:55 Page fucks up the lyrics, or maybe they all do, I can’t tell. It’s a mess. But at least musically they performed the song well! Around 7:10 we start to realize we may be getting a jam and not just the usual ending. Well, I guess it's more like an extended coda to ‘Simple’ than true jam. I hesitate to even label it a type I jam since it’s just a longer version of the 90s endings to this song. The crowd cheers for some reason around 9:09, not really sure why because it’s a pretty mundane ending to a ‘Simple’. Around 9:35 Mike starts to get spacey with his bass and Trey has laid down a few guitar loops. Well, maybe we are getting a jam after all! Just as I’m starting to get excited for a space/ambient jam Trey breaks into the next song. It’s a full -> segue but it’s just on this side of the line.

My Friend, My Friend- Of all the songs I thought I’d like hearing best in 2.0 with Trey’s new guitar tone, this song was high up on the list. Couldn’t you just hear a long 2.0 style jam on this song, dark and a bit abstract and psychedelic? Anyway, it’s a well-played standard version of ‘My Friend, My Friend.’ Until Trey flubs around 2:28, that is. Eh, that’s ok, it’s otherwise well played. I will say it feels as though this version is short compared to others I’ve heard. Maybe it’s just because the last one I would’ve heard was the jammed out one from a show on the Summer or Fall ’23 tours. Well, we got a MIFE ending at least!

Limb By Limb- Another obvious fadeout/fade-in between the last track and this one. ‘Limb By Limb’ I mostly like but eh…it reminds me of ‘Taste’ where it feels like a song the band really labored over to get it right, and I appreciate the rhythmic complexity of it and all…but much like ‘Taste’, at least in my listening experience with Phish, it never turned out to be the jam vehicle it felt intended/destined to become. Both songs rarely segue into or out of other songs, so on top of also not being jam vehicles they always feel a bit isolated from the rest of the set. That said, they play this just infrequently enough that if I heard it live I’d be digging the hell out of it. Hell, I’ll even say it: this song is like a better ‘Taste’ in some ways. Anyway, they actually do a great job playing it, and while the jam section is nothing to write home about, it’s still a fun time. Trey has a ball playing out-of-time with the rest of the band during the early part of the jam, and Mike and Page continue to give you plenty to love if your attention goes their way during any part of the jam. Reminds me a bit of the first set’s ‘Back On The Train’: a solid performance even if it is mostly unremarkable.

Thunderhead- I love how loose and noodly this debut performance is. The playing is a little rough here or there in the composed part but nothing as noticeable as some of the earlier ones. I’ve always wondered why they don’t play this song that often, it looks like they’ve only played it once since 2003. So another song that really defines the 2.0 era when you hear it.

Run Like An Antelope- Something about Trey felt way off during this song. It takes him awhile to really get cooking during the jam portion, too. But when he does finally catch fire it’s quality Machine Gun Trey with 2.0 guitar tones.

Cavern- I was dreading this one given 2.0 Trey’s penchant for forgetting lyrics. And of course he flubs several lines and laughs it off. OK, haha, it’s funny once in awhile but by this point of 2.0 this has already happened too many times. All I ask is some kind of jam to make it up to us but of course this isn’t that kind of show so we get a standard ‘Cavern’ ending.

Mexican Cousin- While I can still enjoy this song ironically, it’s kind of always been cringey otherwise. Looks like they resisted temptation and have only played it once in Mexico. Given Trey’s drug and alcohol addictions this song hasn’t aged well. And playing this throwaway as an encore really sucked the air out of the room. Especially as a one song encore. I get that set one went long so they probably were up against the venue’s curfew or something but eh…why not save ‘Cavern’ as part of the encore? ‘Antelope’ would’ve been a fine set closer.

Set two and the encore….hmm, well the encore sucked, let’s get that out of the way since we just talked about it anyway. As for set two, I thought it was mostly good to great—there was some shaky playing and flubbed lyrics, but there was mostly a feeling of fun and the band pushing themselves to play new songs and go down some exploratory jam moments. 2.0 still hasn’t had its first thoroughly great set or overall show but the post-NYE buzz is growing.

 

[Final Verdict]

When I look at the setlist and the length of some of the jams, I want to give this show a 4 out of 5. Yet in my heart of hearts I know this show is a 3 out of 5 because it’s a textbook case of “the setlist and song lengths don’t tell the full story.” While there were more and deeper jams than the NYE show largely featured, I found this show less satisfying overall because the 2.0 jamming was still being developed and it seems obvious to these ears that they’re learning how to improvise as a group again.

[Highlights]

Set One: A few decent jams, ‘Round Room’ debut

Set Two: A couple decent jams, ‘Thunderhead’ debut