Phish 12/31/02

 

[Prologue]

 

Given that Phish always referred to their plan as being on an indefinite hiatus, and not a break or even a break from touring, I wonder what fans were thinking during the short period between 10/7/00 and the band announcing on 8/14/02 that they were back for a ‘reunion’ show to take place on 12/31/02. That’s well over a year, and most of the band were busy with sideprojects/solo stuff so it seemed conceivable the hiatus may be a few years or more. Once the announcement was made it soon felt like Phish were back to life for good, and that hiatus wasn’t so bad after all, was it? They quickly recorded the Round Room album in October; December 10^th it was released. That’s already a hell of a lot of Phish activity to feed on already. Less than a week later they would be on Saturday Night Live (12/14/02) and a bit later appear on The Late Show With David Letterman (12/19/02). By then it was less than two weeks until the band were back on stage at Madison Square Garden, their perennial New Year’s Eve home. (Well..not always…)

Few could have predicted that this reunited band would last less time than they had just been gone, to the tune of 593 days of the post-hiatus/2.0 era vs 815 days of the hiatus itself. Maybe it was the jinx of not appearing at MSG for New Year’s Eve ’03? Who knows. It’s really wild to think that fans had more time to grieve the band’s absence the first time they were gone than they did to enjoy their presence the second time around before another, much (much) longer break-up.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s briefly talk about the Round Room album and jump into the show.

 

[Round Room Digression]

 

I know the production/mastering doesn’t hold up the best, since these were originally not intended to be fully finished studio tracks but rather sort of preliminary recordings to help rehearse for the NYE run of shows. So, yeah, the album does have a strangely artificial/digital and low-bitrate texture to it that’s hard to describe. The closest I can approximate is the weird instrument bleed and harsh cut-off at 4:42 on ‘Pebbles and Marbles’: hear how Fishman’s cymbals seem to bleed over into Trey’s vocals and then as soon as Trey’s vocal is faded down the cymbal-wash-bleedover abruptly stops and it sounds choppy and unfinished? There’s a few other times on the album issues like this crop up.

Yet in spite of this problem I have to say I’ve always loved how raw and ‘live in the studio’ the album does sound and feel; it’s almost like they’re being picked up by a couple room microphones, giving the music a true sense of space and natural room reverb. If I recall correctly, too, outside of ‘Union Federal’, a bonus ‘live’ track from Junta, this is the first studio album with full-on jams included—‘Seven Below’ and ’46 Days’ may not break the ten minute mark but they ‘feel’ like live Phish instead of studio Phish, if that makes sense. And ‘Waves’ is such a satisfying and epic journey of a closer, almost like ‘Piper’ and ‘Prince Caspian’ had a baby. I was tickled to see it got released on vinyl for the first time recently, I bet some of the digital/not-intended-for-release-initially audio quality issues would be masked by that format’s legendary/cliched “warm” sound.

 

[Set One]

Piper- I certainly wouldn’t have predicted this to be the song they’d end the hiatus with but here we are. The hype and energy in the building must’ve been insane there in person; it really comes across on the recording how continuously excited and surprised the crowd was. This ‘Piper’ ends up being a lengthy one, as if they were trying to prove a point—"we can still play, don’t worry!” On first listen this jam really surprised me and gave me flashes of the high energy Trey-led shredding of the post-‘Suzy’ jam from 9/14/00. While I think taken in isolation it’s a really good type I jam it’s never going to be in my top ten versions for this reason. It’s more the momentousness of the band choosing this as the first song back and jamming it out so long that makes it a potential for others’ lists. Still, easily one of the show’s highlights, in terms of what they played and what it represented.

Guyute- I think I’m in the minority on this one but I would treat this song as a piss break song if I ever caught it live. It’s just always been my least favorite of the proggy compositional songs and I feel like it shows up on an oddly high percentage of official live releases. Anyway, my grumbling aside, they mostly play this well. It isn’t as sharp as late 90s versions but it’s tighter than some of the future 2.0 versions I recall being painful. I’m happy it seems to have become a true rarity in modern times.

NICU- Perfect placement as a light comedown from the dense ‘Guyute.’ Trey sure enjoys yelling for Leo!

Horn- Good ballad placement for the most part. I’ve always felt like this song and ‘Sample In A Jar’ are the sort of songs I see on a setlist and I’m a little bummed but then when I experience them in the flow of a set/show, they always get me. ‘Horn’ is underrated!

Wilson- Some shenanigans involving Page’s brother and clips from the movie Castaway during this version. In person this was probably funny and perplexing; at home if you only have the audio it’s just perplexing unless you read the show notes. A fun version otherwise. Trey REALLY belts out “can you still have fun?!” part like a madman.

Mound- The older I get the more I appreciate Mike as a musician and a writer. It used to be I could take or leave ‘Mound’ but I was surprised how much I popped when it showed up in this show. (I do a blind listen of each show to start out). Not a perfectly tight version of ‘Mound’ but Mike is on point here and throughout the show. Apparently it hadn’t been played since 1996 so a huge bustout…but the biggest bustout of the year was yet to come, just not until February. Wink wink, nudge nudge, touch nose.

The Squirming Coil- It’s so very Phish that on the studio album this song is the first track but in most concert appearances it’s a set closer. I love how it’s sort of a mix of prog rock song and a ballad. As ever, Page is one of the most reliable soloists you’ll ever hear. No exaggeration, he nails this solo every version I’ve ever heard.

David Bowie- This ‘Bowie’ starts off pretty quiet during the spacey loop intro and it’s a bit abrupt compared to some ‘Bowie’ intros but eh, what’re you gunna do? Given the reputation of 2.0 I was on high alert to detect any flubs and I think they executed it pretty well. I have to grant that they were on hiatus and as such can be given a reset on repeats but, like…they just played ‘Bowie’ at the last show, 10/7/00. That said I think this one is better overall….so I retract my complaint. Around 6:45 it sounds like Trey is teasing ‘Dave’s Energy Guide’ though I see nobody else mention this online so maybe I’m hearing things. Around 8:30 another big tease of it, I could swear. They really crush the ending of this ‘Bowie’, too—you can tell they really missed playing together. No stage banter after the song, just straight into setbreak.

As the first set back after the hiatus, expectations were likely very high and very flexible depending on how rusty the band turned out to be after a couple songs. Trying to put myself in the shoes of a fan at the time, I think this set would’ve mostly delivered, giving us a bit of everything we love about the band other than segues or truly deep jams. Certain songs you could tell were rehearsed better than others but overall I think it was a decent opener for a three set show. Featuring no new songs, set one played to pleasing the hardcore fans and giving us a bit of improv goodness in the ‘Piper’ opener and ‘Bowie’ closer. It would be nice to get another couple jams, or even one big type II experience, though I’m expecting not to see much of that until the Winter tour proper in February ’03. NYE shows are generally more about the spectacle and celebrating the previous year, and in this case we’re also celebrating the return of the band, so it makes sense if that ends up being the focus of all the New Year’s run of shows.

 

[Setbreak One]

I’ve been casting about trying out a couple games recently but neither one truly hooked me. Figured I’d share my quick thoughts for both of these setbreaks just in case it interests anyone.

Cosmic Star Heroine looks and feels like someone put Phantasy Star IV and Chrono Trigger into a blender but for me the results are nowhere near as good as that formula suggests. I really wanted to love this game because I’ve been a fan of the Penny Arcade games the developer worked on in the past, and I think the writing/dialogue is better than the average retro-inspired RPG, yet I can’t shake the feeling that the gameplay depth comes purely from if you play on the harder difficulty and get really fiddly tinkery with the party build, equipment/skills, etc. In some games I enjoy this but in Cosmic Star Heroine I feel it’s not fun, like at all. The aesthetics don’t help the game’s case; the music is either ‘pretty good’ or ‘irritating and too ambient’, and the overall design style of the characters, the world, and the color palette choices mean it’s not only kind of ugly to look at but on the world map and dungeon areas it can be hard to see where you can and can’t go. Your mileage may vary. I gave it about seven hours and I was out.

 

[Set Two]

Waves- Ah, so here comes the new songs. I’m excited to hear another jammed out set opener even if it does stick to the type I template of the studio version until the final minute or two. This is the sort of performance of a song that if you see it in person you really enjoy it and immediately forget about it because just as the jam is entering type II territory it goes into the next song instead. However, this mini-type II jam provides a glimpse into Phish finding its new jam style. The use of effects and instruments and the overall ‘feel’ of this jam is halfway between the ‘99/’00 loop heavy ambient-groove style and what would come in ‘03/’04 with the dark, spacey, abstract jams. This 2.0 jam style feels as nascent as could be here, as if they’re throwing a lot of sounds at the wall and seeing what works together before Trey kills it and begins the next song. Still…you can sense some attempt to push into new territory and find a new way. Or ways.

Divided Sky- This is where I have to address Trey’s 2.0 guitar tone. Forgive me if I’ve said this before but I’m of mixed opinions, since I think it sounds great with the new material of 2003 and 2004, studio and otherwise, but with the older material which sometimes had more delicate/quiet sections, it sounds too raw and with too much distortion and ‘attack’ to it. By contrast Mike’s bass is also different yet just as good as the beloved ’97 to ’00 era; his tone still sounds full and bright and clear, with a fat bottom end, but this time it’s also got more of a bounce and borderline-vocal quality to it. Eh, maybe that’s all just me, though. Trey’s tone doesn’t really ruin these kind of songs with pretty composed elements, just not my preferred of his tones for them. The two minute pause is interesting both for its duration and the sounds I vaguely hear—is it just me or does anyone else hear what sounds like Page holding down an organ note for awhile in there with a softened sound that is swallowed up in the crowd roar? At any rate, I think this version is a good example of the ups and downs of 2.0 Phish. There’s a few obvious flubs by Trey in the post-pause section that take me out of it, but in-person I’d have to imagine the ending jam/solo section brought the house down because it is absolutely demolished by all four men.

Lawn Boy- Perfect placement for this song! Felt for a second like Page wasn’t sure if Mike was going to take the solo or not but he was definitely feeling it when he got going. Modern fans will always think of the Baker’s Dozen “is this still Lawn Boy?” jammed out version but for me I’ll always think of the Slip, Stitch and Pass version.

Carini- Now here’s an older song that sounds better with Trey’s new guitar tone…This is another of those songs that used to bug me because I found it too nonsense/in-jokey and predictable but I’ve come around to it. It helps that nowadays it’s graduated into a regular jam vehicle instead of a rare one. Around 4:00 Mike gets a bit active leading the jam. Trey throws on all kinds of swampy guitar effects as he and Page fill the foreground. Page in particular seems to be trying out some of his new gear during this jam, and simultaneously I’m noticing how Trey’s dominant “throw down some delay loops at the start of every jam” phase from ’98 to ’00 has started to come to a definitive end with this show. Around 7:15 Page starts to really cook on piano—hard to pick out in the mix however—while Fishman starts to hit those splash cymbals that to me always feel like he’s trying to get the attention of the rest of the band to either change tempo or get back to the main ‘body’ of a song. Like the ‘Piper’ and ‘Waves’ jams this didn’t go far out though I will say I enjoyed it more on subsequent listens than I did my first blind listen.

Rift- Hoo boy this was a rough one. It sounds like at least one or two guys are half a beat too early or late, and the vocals are top flight speak-sing Trey. Say what you will about Trey doing professional vocal training the last few years, I prefer the new approach over the sometimes half-hearted stuff of 2.0. Anyway, Page plays a lovely solo like usual and they get more in-sync as the song goes on but that ending is once again quite rough. Trey sounds like he’s playing in the wrong key or something, and Fishman or someone is rushing them a bit. They didn’t sound too rusty up til now so maybe they just hadn’t practiced this one much if at all and someone called this in the moment without consulting with the others.

Harry Hood- Another set, another two-in-a-row of songs that usually end sets. Regardless, how can you complain about this song no matter where it shows up? Phish obviously love it as much as we do and this version gets a lively, active intro/reggae sequence including some gnarly new-sounding guitar loops from Trey. It’s a minority opinion but I’ll address it now: I love audiences singing “Hood!” back to the band. I know that’s not how the original is “supposed” to sound but it’s weird to me when I hear early versions without the call-and-response. At 5:00 Mike turns on a new synth-bass effect that we’ll be hearing more of in the shows to come, and I will always love it. Otherwise, yeah, what else to say? It’s a good ‘Hood.’ Everytime I hear one I’m like “holy shit this version is fire!” and then the next one I get to I’m like “holy shit, this version is amazing!” and then the next one…you get the idea. It’s a never-fail song.

Character Zero- This song still has its haters but the era of it feeling like it ended every other set for years in a row has long been over. For me it’ll always be a mood dependent song. If I heard it live I’d probably get into it in the moment. On Billy Breathes it always works well for me. Listening to a show at home…eh, it depends. In this case it’s a little of a softened blow because it feels like a bit of a bonus song after the preceding ‘Hood.’ It sounds like Trey is playing the intro in the wrong key or something, something is definitely off and it feels like nobody is acknowledging it or correcting it. So maybe it’s just me? I dunno something weird going on. Some of the vocals seem a bit off and mistimed. Perhaps like ‘Rift’ another case of not practicing it or not practicing it enough?

Overall set two is more up and down than the first. I did appreciate the ‘Waves’ and ‘Carini’ jams, and most of the songs were played with passion and fire, but there were some obvious flubs and some awkward vocals sprinkled throughout to bring it down a notch or two. All that said, it’s still overall an enjoyable set even if it does have a touch of “set one part two” instead of the usual big moments/jams that we tend to associate with set two. NYE shows are a different beast, being three sets, so we’ll see what awaits later.

 

[Setbreak Two]

The other game I tried out was Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. This was an experience that, for the first hour or two, I was convinced I was going to love the game. It has just the right mixture of ideas from other games and yet makes them all its own, and the janky-fun to janky-aggravating scale was firmly toward the former than the latter. But about five to seven hours in I began to experience more janky-aggravating things, and I wasn’t loving how combat “felt”—and no, I wasn’t expecting it to be like Dark Souls! Anyway, I got far enough to see what others were able to love about it, but nowadays I just don’t have the patience to give a game more than 10 hours of my time if I’m not feeling at least a little hooked.

 

[Set Three]

Sample In A Jar- What a weird choice for a set opener! The only thing I can think is somebody REALLY wanted to play it or they knew the timing for the NYE Countdown gag was going to be off so they had to play something short-ish to stall.

Seven Below- Another debut; happy to see right out of the gate they were mixing in new material in logical places. After spending the first two sets largely revisiting the past it was a good decision from a ‘shows as a storytelling device’ to do the NYE gag with this song. You can read about this gag online, but you’d have no clue anything was going on just from the audio—other than some of the ‘dancers’ who were on stage continually popping balloons through the next song or two. Anyway, this very first ‘Seven Below’ is a pretty good type I jam. Perhaps playing it a bit safe here, this song would definitely go on to be a jam vehicle in the not-too-distant future. It’s always kind of been an unpopular opinion of mine that having these NYE gags during songs kind of ruins the musical moment. In this instance it’s pretty clear if they didn’t need to suddenly do the countdown they’d have kept the jam going.

Auld Lang Syne- You know, they should play this just once at a non-NYE show just to fuck with people. Nothing else to say. Just as ‘Seven Below’ abruptly did a non-full-segue into this song, it in turn does an abrupt segue into…

Runaway Jim- I will preface this by saying I’m not too familiar with other big jam versions of this song, but this was probably my surprise of the night, beyond the jammed out ‘Piper’ show opener. Trey is clearly amused by the ‘dancers’ popping balloons since he drops a few lyrics here or there and chuckles audibly into the mic. Mike comes out strong early in this version, and yet again demonstrates that, I’d argue, more than any other member of the band his musicianship and overall confidence have taken another step forward with post-hiatus/2.0 Phish. As Trey messes around with some drones and his pedals Mike does this cool bubbling bassline that nobody else seems to pick up on, but I dug. It almost feels as if Trey is trying to do something along the lines of My Bloody Valentine with noisy guitar loops over each other. It starts to suffocate the jam and Mike keeps trying to hold down the forward movement and give us some kind of a melody to follow. Around 5:25 Trey finally relents and the clouds clear; Fishman starts to vary the beat and we head into type II weird jam territory for a bit. Fishman continues to play a lot of busy fills and tumbles in the background as Page doggedly stays on piano to try to center the jam. Around 7:30 Mike begins to insert himself again, adding a bouncey groove to the somewhat aimless Trey and Page textures. The latter finally switches to the clavinet or other keyboard around 8:20 and we get a bit funkier. Around 8:53 Trey puts down a few classic ‘99/’00 guitar delay loops and plays in the upper register with the pitch shifter pedal. Though this jam has more active and melodic presence from Mike, it really starts to sound like a classic ’00 space/ambient jam a la 6/14/00 at times. You can tell they’re still getting a feel for a new jam style as the jam winds down and we slowly do a full-on segue into…

Time Loves A Hero- This segment of Runaway Jim -> Time Loves A Hero is a clear highlight of the set, and the show as a whole. No, it’s not the tightest cover that Phish has done, but in the spirit of the moment and the band doing a classic Phish-style “big jam into unexpected cover” moment, it’s a fantastic, fun exemplar of the type. Some cool keyboard sounds from Page at the end. There’s dead air for a minute or two; you can faintly hear the band talking to each other on the LivePhish official tapes but I can’t make anything out.

Taste- Given how long it took the band to figure out the lyrics and arrangement for this song, I feel bad in saying that it’s one of those songs that I love on the album but live it never sounds quite precise enough and musically I find it sounds…labored over. This first 2.0 performance is a bit loose in places though it does come across that the band are excited to play this material for the first time in two years or more. I’m happy to be proven wrong about this next notion, but some of my blah attitude toward ‘Taste’ is that, on the surface it sounds and feels like a big jam vehicle, but I’ve never known it to be. At least all the 90s versions I’ve heard are the same thing over and over, like ‘Theme From The Bottom’ but with polyrhythms. 2.0 represents a unique time for Phish in that they were starting fresh in some ways, so they sometimes would take non-jam songs out for a ride. This ‘Taste’ isn’t really that, though in a couple moments it flirts with voyaging a bit out-there. Around the 8:30 mark is the sort of Phish jamming that I’d be digging if I was there seeing it live, dancing and going nuts with the crowd, but on tape it gets boring by the time you’ve heard it once during a show already, and will probably hear at least once more.

Strange Design- How can you not love a Page-sung ballad? Dude is just the most consistent member of Phish in so many ways. Pretty good set placement too. Give us a bit of a breather before a big rager of a set closer.

Walls Of The Cave- Just planting this here: my first show, 10/11/23, had a set one closer of this song and I could swear I heard a clear ‘Dave’s Energy Guide’ quote from Trey at one point but I don’t see anyone else saying this online. Want to make sure I remember when the time comes. Anyway! Another new song debut. I’ve always liked this song though on Round Room I feel its thunder is stolen by ‘Waves’ as the album closer. This song is absolutely one that helps define the 2.0 era—you can tell the crowd is digging it when they start clapping along in the intro. Despite what people seemed to say online at the time, crowds responded well to the new material, at least if the audience cheers and interaction from this show are anything to go by. Not necessarily musically but this song fills the same spots songs like ‘Harry Hood’ or ‘Slave To The Traffic Light’ do, often as set closers or close-to-set-closers, non-ballads but with some pretty parts in the composed intro sections. ‘Walls Of The Cave’ winds through a few sections before catapulting itself into a big guitar rock jam, and we get the first of many versions that stick to this template. Well, mostly this sticks to it. There is flirting with a type II, non-standard version of this song from 10:00 to 16:30 but during this jam section they either never fully commit to one idea for too long or they’re all kind of pulling in different directions. Feels like the ‘Waves’ jam from earlier, one of those “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, switch between different keyboards and effects pedals and textures/rhythms arbitrarily” jams that doesn’t ever show up on lists of best versions. Anyway, they bring it back around and close out the song with a reprise of the chorus. Another good initial version that like the ‘Runaway Jim’ and ‘Seven Below’ jams hints at potential but didn’t deliver all of the goods.

Wading In The Velvet Sea- Certainly wasn’t expecting this for the encore and show closer. Really thought they’d play at least two songs, and no serious ballad songs at the very least. Someone—Trey?—comes in too early on vocals but quickly corrects himself. That said, hey, it’s another Page-sung ballad. And even though Coventry has always cast a shadow over this song, I will say that this performance was really well done and I won’t let Coventry psyche me out so early in this process.

Set three and the encore, while not lighting the world on fire, were quite enjoyable and mostly well played. During some of the jams there are clear hints of what was to come in the future, even if the jam style wasn’t quite formed yet. The Runaway Jim -> Time Loves A Hero is an early 2.0 highlight, and the ‘Walls Of The Cave’ debut surely hints at its potential in the future, as both a set closer/show closer and a possible jam vehicle—we’ll have to see on the latter, because at least in my memory it never is one. But I digress.

 

[Final Verdict]

Though I had some criticisms here or there over the course of the epic three set show, I mostly walked away from this show feeling good, like I had a good time. It feels like a very NYE show, focusing on the moment and having fun but not getting too deep into jams or rarities and whatnot. I think NYE ’02 has a little bit of everything that people love about Phish, and it is without question a historic show. For my final score, I’m going with a 4 out of 5. To tip the scale I feel I needed either one of the jams to truly have gone type II and gotten somewhere new or at least deep, or for there to have been a few more segments like the Runaway Jim -> Time Loves A Hero. All of that said, if I were a fan at the time, I’d have walked out of this show feeling intensely optimistic about the future. Overall it’s a better show than 10/7/00, I’ll say that much. If I was there in person as a fan after waiting more than two years for Phish, I’m sure it’d be a 5 out of 5.

[Highlights]

Set One: ‘Piper’ jammed out opener, rare bustout ‘Mound’, ‘David Bowie’ set closer

Set Two: ‘Waves’ had a promising debut, pretty good ‘Carini’

Set Three: ‘Seven Below’ had good jam until cutoff by NYE gag, Runaway Jim -> Time Loves A Hero is an early 2.0 highlight, ‘Walls Of The Cave’ had promising debut.