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
No comments:
Post a Comment