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
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