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General Info Members:Trey - Guitar, Mike - Bass, Page - Keys, Fishman - Drums Biography (wikipedia): Phish is an American rock band that was founded at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont in 1983. The band is known for musical improvisation, extended jams, blending of genres, and a dedicated fan base. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the primary lead vocalist.
The band was formed by Anastasio, Gordon, Fishman and guitarist Jeff Holdsworth, who were joined by McConnell in 1985. Holdsworth departed the band in 1986, and the quartet lineup has remained in place since then. Their lineup stable, Phish performed together for 15 years before beginning a two-year hiatus in October 2000. The band regrouped in late 2002, but disbanded in August 2004 after a farewell performance at their Coventry Festival in Vermont. They reunited in March 2009 for a series of three consecutive concerts at Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia, and have since resumed performing regularly.
Phish's music blends elements of a wide variety of genres,[3] including funk, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, folk, country, jazz, blues, bluegrass, and pop.[2][4] The band was part of a movement of improvisational rock groups, inspired by the Grateful Dead and colloquially known as "jam bands", which gained considerable popularity as touring concert acts in the 1990s.[5][6]
Phish has developed a large and dedicated following by word of mouth, the exchange of live recordings, and selling over 8 million albums and DVDs in the United States.[7] In 1998, Rolling Stone described Phish as "the most important band of the '90s."[8] The magazine later wrote that the band helped to "spawn a new wave of bands oriented around group improvisation and extended instrumental grooves".[9] Major Discography: My favorite studio albums are Story of the Ghost, Fuego, Billy Breathes, but Phish's live shows are what I mostly listen to
Sounds Like Genre: improvisational rock Similar Artists: None Similar Bonnaroo Artists: None
Suggested Listening MSG 1995, all the Bakers Dozen shows
Physical Reaction/Live Show See personal notes below.
Personal Notes
NOTE: Setlists and technical show notes copied from phish.net. Below each show (or run of shows) are my personal notes about the show(s).
PHISH, FRIDAY 06/23/2000 LAKEWOOD AMPHITHEATRE Atlanta, GA SET 1: Ya Mar, My Soul, Bathtub Gin, Heavy Things, Back on the Train > David Bowie, Cars Trucks Buses, Farmhouse SET 2: Rock and Roll > Jesus Just Left Chicago > Down with Disease[1] > Twist, Contact > Makisupa Policeman > Character Zero ENCORE: Brian and Robert, Possum [1] Unfinished. Disease was unfinished.
PHISH, SATURDAY 06/24/2000 LAKEWOOD AMPHITHEATRE Atlanta, GA SET 1: The Moma Dance > Runaway Jim, Bouncing Around the Room > Tweezer, Strange Design, Cavern SET 2: Birds of a Feather, Bug, My Sweet One[1], Run Like an Antelope, Frankie Says, Carini, The Squirming Coil, Prince Caspian ENCORE: Guyute, The Inlaw Josie Wales, Driver, Tweezer Reprise [1] Botched. Band intros from Trey, extended solos from Fish, Mike, and Page. Tweezer included an I Know You Rider tease, a Silent in the Morning tease from Mike, and a Fire (The Ohio Players) tease from Trey. My Sweet One was botched, which led to band introductions from Trey and extended solos from Fish, Mike, and Page. Trey explained that My Sweet One and Dog Faced Boy were both written about the same person by Fish and that one was at the beginning of the relationship and the other at the end, finally asking the crowd "can you guess which?" Mike "bantered" a bit and showed off his fight bell. During the banter after My Sweet One, Page teased "Charge!" twice.
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My first shows. I graduated high school Spring 2000, and seeing Phish in Atlanta was “top priority of the summer”. Actually that Summer I did two things, either of which could have changed the course of my life: I went to my first Phish shows, and I went to my first rave.
I went to the rave first. The rave was at a now defunct water park somewhere not far outside of Mobile, I don’t remember exactly where. I don’t remember any of the DJs performing, but there were a handful of stages and the whole scene was a mess. People on drugs looking like shit, people not on drugs all pissed off because they weren’t on drugs looking like shit. It was crazy and fun, people swimming and going down waterslides and shit while drum n bass and/or trance music blasted from various directions. This was also the night one of my good friends had “too much too fast” and broke his brain. Taught me the meaning of the term “acid casualty”, although in retrospect he probably had a pre-existing condition that was accelerated by drugs.
The Phish show to my virgin eyes was in stark contrast to the darkness of the rave. Yeah people were partying, but it was a much more open and welcoming vibe. People were kind. We had multiple cars full of friends caravaning up to the infamous Lakewood lot. It was a fortuitous venue to have my first show because the Lakewood lot is incredible. Very little police presence, basically a free for all. As soon as we arrived I popped out all fresh faced and 18 and started chatting up our lot neighbors. They looked very tired and were silently huddled around a family size can of Chef Boyardee ravioli heating up on an electric bunsen burner. I started yammering at one of the kids about how I hoped they played “You Enjoy Myself”. I thought this would make me look cool because it’s a long instrumental and I wanted to signal that I’m not like those other newbies that only want to hearing “Bouncing Around The Room”. One of the ravioli kids gave me one of the best pieces of advice straight away, that it’s best not to go into the show with any preconceived expectations about what songs I was going to hear, cause Phish plays what they want and chances are I’d end up disappointed. Years later I really appreciated the kindness those tired ravioli people showed me.
Both of these shows were incredible, even objectively and in hindsight, a hell of a run to start my Phish career. Obviously life-changing. I recognized maybe 20% of what they played, and I had little to no idea when one song started and another one ended. I didn’t know what was a jam and what was a composed section. Fun fact, from these runs I got a “Jesus Just Left Chicago”, “Driver”, and “The Inlaw Josie Wales”, and I have yet to hear those songs live again since, some sixty shows later.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 03/01/2003 GREENSBORO COLISEUM Greensboro, NC SET 1: Chalk Dust Torture, The Moma Dance, Foam, Lawn Boy, Character Zero > Divided Sky, Mountains in the Mist, Waves > Sample in a Jar SET 2: Rock and Roll > Wilson > Piper > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Wolfman's Brother -> Boogie On Reggae Woman, Wading in the Velvet Sea > Run Like an Antelope, Carolina ENCORE: First Tube > You Enjoy Myself -> Proud Mary[1] [1] a cappella. Trey teased San-Ho-Zay in Chalk Dust. Instead of emerging from behind the piano with his own microphone for Lawn Boy, Page came front stage and used Trey’s microphone and stand. The move prompted a raucous response from the crowd. A portion of the Piper jam was based around the chords to Oye Como Va. Trey subsequently teased Oye Como Va, as well as Another One Bites the Dust, during YEM. Carolina was played for the first time since November 18, 1998 (144 shows). The YEM vocal jam included a Daniel Saw the Stone tease. Proud Mary was performed a cappella (including renderings of the musical breaks) to conclude the vocal jam. Only one other version of Proud Mary is known – a full-band version at the first ever Phish show on December 2, 1983 (1,362 shows).
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The Summer 2000 Lakewood shows were the only 1.0 shows I saw. I had friends try to invite me to other shows after that but I could never get it together to get to the show (I’d developed a drug addiction during my early years of college that made spending money on not drugs very difficult). While I was still in the throes of my active addiction when the Greensboro show arrived I managed to get it together enough to make it, with the help of friends who got my the ticket, drove, booked hotel room, etc. This was also my first time seeing Phish indoors, which is a whole different experience than an amphitheater.
Crazy lot at this show. It started raining and there was a huge crowd of people trying to get into the show. The staff outside was slowly letting people in, and I was struck at how calm and cooperative the crowd was, despite standing in the pouring down rain everybody’s attitude was great, the staff were all smiles and honestly shocked at how well-behaved we all were. We get into the show and get to our seats, and what followed was IMO one of the more underappreciated 2.0 shows.
Ferocious Chalkdust opener and a welcome Foam in the first set, but the second set + encore was where it was at. Great Piper > 2001 (2001 is one of my favorite songs to hear live). Acapella Carolina to end the set, and the only Carolina I’ve gotten. Everytime I see Phish and they setup for an acapella song I always hope it’s Carolina (or dare I say, Hello My Baby) but it’s always Grind. I’ll keep coming back.
The biggest mindfuck was the encore. Come out with a “First Tube”, which is almost always a “one and done” encore because where can you go after the high energy of First Tube? When they wrapped first tube and Trey went directly into the opening notes of YEM the crowd went apeshit. I distinctly remember my friend next to me grabbing his face and screaming “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON”. The YEM vocal jam morphed into Proud Mary, which was last played (as a full band) at Phish’s first show at a ROTC ball on December 2, 1983, 1,362 shows prior (they tell the story of the ROTC ball in Bittersweet Motel).
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PHISH, FRIDAY 07/25/2003 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE - CHARLOTTE Charlotte, NC SET 1: Funky Bitch > Chalk Dust Torture, Two Versions of Me, Bathtub Gin, Limb By Limb, Back on the Train > Horn > Golgi Apparatus > Character Zero SET 2: Drowned -> Kung -> Twist -> Heavy Things, Harry Hood > David Bowie ENCORE: The Star Spangled Banner, Bug Kung (first since September 29, 1999, or 106 shows) was sung over the jam connecting Drowned and Twist. Bowie included a full-band Tweezer tease.
---- The following Summer we went to two shows. Insane traffic getting into Charlotte. In the traffic jam some dude hopped in our car and sold us some corn from his “personal stash” that ended up being low flavor. Before the show I ran into a buddy of mine from high school selling beers in the lot, and while we were hanging out we heard the opening notes of “Funky Bitch” echoing over the parking lot. To my knowledge this was the only show I wasn’t in the building for lights. This was a weird show, very “2.0”, meaning it felt like Trey wasn’t in the best of shape. Nowhere near Coventry levels of incompetence though. Having said that the Drowned -> Kung -> Twist was welcome, especially the Kung, I haven’t gotten one since.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 07/26/2003 HIFI BUYS AMPHITHEATRE Atlanta, GA SET 1: Wilson > Cars Trucks Buses, The Wedge, It's Ice, My Mind's Got a Mind of its Own > Wolfman's Brother, Mexican Cousin, Guyute > Taste SET 2: Piper > Mountains in the Mist, Waves > Tweezer -> NICU[1] > Cavern > You Enjoy Myself[2] ENCORE: Wading in the Velvet Sea > Tweezer Reprise [1] Bass solo instead of Page's usual organ solo. [2] Lyrical change to reference "IT." Piper included a Can’t You Hear Me Knocking tease. NICU included a bass solo from Mike (complete with Trey yelling, “Play it, Cactus!”) instead of Page’s usual organ solo. YEM included a lyrical change to reference “IT” and concluded with a Happy Birthday tease for Chris Kuroda.
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Back at Lakewood!I was pretty fucked up for this show and don’t remember much. Mike came out in the parking lot before the show on a Segway and talked to everybody. Somebody asked him for advice and he said to always go to the portolet on the end of the row because they tend to be the cleanest since most people choose one in the middle. I’ve followed this advice ever since. I have flashes of memories on the lawn, and then a specific memory riding in the backseat of my buddy’s car heading back to Auburn, giggling and eating jolly ranchers.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 08/14/2004 NEWPORT STATE AIRPORT Coventry, VT SET 1: Walls of the Cave > Runaway Jim -> Gotta Jibboo, You Enjoy Myself > Sample in a Jar > Axilla > Poor Heart > Run Like an Antelope[1], Fire SET 2: AC/DC Bag -> 46 Days > Halley's Comet -> Ya Mar, David Bowie, Character Zero SET 3: Twist -> The Wedge, Stash > Free, Guyute, Drowned > Friday ENCORE: Harry Hood[2] [1] Tom Marshall on vocals. [2] With Trey banter. At the end of Hood, the band stopped playing allowing the audience to sing the "You can feel good, good, good about Hood" refrain. This was the first show of the Coventry festival and was simulcast in movie theaters nationwide. During YEM, the band gave away their trampolines. Throughout the duration of the set, groups of fans held the trampolines above their heads, and some fans jumped on the trampolines as well. Tom Marshall sang the lyrics to Antelope. Trey teased Waves in Halley's Comet. Before Bowie, Trey told a story of the summer he spent living in a cabin in the Northeast Kingdom where he remembered writing several songs, including Bowie. Trey explained that Bowie was an attempt to see “how far can you push it in the harmonic and rhythmic language and still have people dancing.” During Hood, Trey (speaking in rhythm) noted that because there were a row of rocks separating the band from the crowd, they were feeling a certain level of disconnect (particularly when Mike plays a "sexy" note). To remedy the situation, Trey and Mike ventured down onto the rocks for the duration of the song. At the end of Hood, the band stopped playing, allowing the audience to sing the “You can feel good, good, good about Hood” refrain.
PHISH, SUNDAY 08/15/2004 NEWPORT STATE AIRPORT Coventry, VT SET 1: Mike's Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, Anything But Me, Reba, Carini > Chalk Dust Torture -> Possum > Wolfman's Brother[1] > Taste SET 2: Down with Disease[2] > Wading in the Velvet Sea[3], Glide, Split Open and Melt -> Ghost SET 3: Fast Enough for You, Seven Below[4] -> Simple > Piper -> Cool Jerk[5] -> The Dickie Scotland Song[6], Wilson > Slave to the Traffic Light ENCORE: The Curtain With[7] [1] Explanation from Trey as to the history of the song; also features Trey's mom, Mike's mom and John Paluska on "sexy bump". [2] Unfinished. [3] Page and Trey break down. [4] "Seven Below" shouted by all band members sporadically during the jam. [5] Phish debut; lyrics changed to honor Mark "Bruno" Bradley. [6] Debut; lyrics referenced Hadden Hipsley and Dickie Scotland [7] Jam segment stopped and restarted in correct key. This was the second show of the Coventry festival and was the presumed “Final Show.” When Trey made his “break-up” announcement the preceding May, he indicated that Coventry would be the final Phish shows. In reality, this turned out to be the final public show for over four and a half years. This show was simulcast in movie theaters nationwide. Before Anything But Me, Trey announced that, for the first time in 21 years, he was nervous performing a Phish show. During Wolfman’s, Trey revealed that the Wolfman’s Brother is, in fact, Fish (as well as the fact that he handed the phone to his friend Liz Durfee). Also, during Wolfman’s, Trey and Mike invited their mothers onstage (and later John Paluska) to do the “sexy bump” dance. Disease was unfinished and featured Trey briefly playing his guitar with a glow stick. Both Page and Trey broke down during an especially emotional Velvet Sea. After a thoroughly botched Glide, all four band members offered words of thanks to the fans for their continued support and dedication and brief reflections on their twenty years together. Trey then stated that what they really needed to do was “blow off some fucking steam” before starting up Melt. There was an enormous glow stick war during Ghost featuring hundreds, if not thousands, of orange glow sticks. This version of Seven Below saw all of the band members sporadically shouting “Seven Below” throughout the jam. The Phish debut of Cool Jerk contained alternate lyrics honoring monitor mixer, Mark “Bruno” Bradley. The Dickie Scotland Song was spontaneously created and included lyrics in honor of production manager, Hadden Hipsley, and tour accountant, Richard Glasgow (a.k.a. Dickie Scotland). Before Wilson, Trey asked the crowd to sing to another of their friends “for the last time.” There was a fireworks display between the end of the third set and the encore. Before the encore, while explaining the origins of The Curtain, Trey jokingly announced that the entire Chicago Symphony and the Twyla Tharp Dance Troupe were going to perform Gamehendge. Trey explained that they chose The Curtain With as the last song to bring them full circle, because, not only was it one of the first Phish songs he wrote, but he wrote it in a cabin one town over from Coventry. Trey stopped and restarted the jam segment of the Curtain With, because they were in the wrong key or, as he explained, ”Since we are going to be bringing ourselves back in time, we may as well do it in the correct key.” There was no P.A. music after the Curtain With.
i'm likely repeating myself since Coventry ties in with my getting clean story. I won't get into all the nooks and crannies of that that proceeded Coventry, but it's helpful to have a baseline. Apologies in advance for inaccuracies in the below, some memories are clearer than others:
I started college out of high school in 2000 and very quickly developed an addiction to drugs and alcohol. I'd done my share in high school but something about college really made me go crazy with it. I was never a big opiates guy but I drank and smoked daily and after the first semester started using amphetamine/cocaine/benzos frequently. Plenty of psychedelics of course, but it was the speedy stuff and the alcohol that destroyed me. A successful high school career turned to shit pretty quickly in college. Lots of bad grades, class withdrawals, lies to my family and friends, etc.
But I loved live music and caught as many shows as I could, mostly because I had good friends that would take care of the logistics for me and carry my sorry ass around. Around when Phish announced their "final" shows at Coventry my girlfriend at the time and I decided we were in. She had never seen Phish before but had heard me wax about them at length, so she decided to make Coventry her first shows. Needless to say given my predilection for substances our relationship could generously be described as tumultuous. Constant fighting, infidelity, etc. At the time I resented her deeply and blamed her for many things, but hindsight makes it clear I was impossible to deal with. We'd done Roo 2004 earlier that summer and it was a fucking mess.
So myself, GF, and one other friend fly up to the festival. Arrive late at night, rent a car, and head to the venue. We enter obligatory festival traffic, no big deal, I'd seen this at Roo 2003/2004. But the traffic just doesn't move. I mean we are just sitting there all night long, I think it was a good twelve hours, maybe more, basically at a standstill. This is of course pre smartphones, so it's impossible to know what the hell is going on. GF and I get in numerous full out screaming fights in the car while my poor third wheel friend sits in the backseat. I have no recollection what the nature of said arguments were, I'm assuming we were just exhausted and terrified and didn't even know it.
At some point word starts to trickle through the traffic jam that the festival is cancelled. It had rained for weeks before the festival and the grounds were destroyed. They were trying to tow cars into the festival through a massive mud pit one at a time. Can you imagine how slow going that is? 110,000 tickets were sold, ultimately about 65,000 were at the festival, per wikipedia FWIW. We ended up pulling over and paying someone $30 to park at their house by the road, abandoning all our shit, and walking into the venue. I have no idea how far we walked but it was really, really far. I used to say twelve miles but I can't verify if that is accurate. Walking past cars blaring Mike Gordon at the radio, pleading with fans to turn around and go home, the festival is cancelled, don't come in. But we were fucking dead set on making this happen, and apparently so were a lot of other people, so we walked.
I clearly remember entering on foot through the tollbooth and seeing them towing the cars in through the mud. Crazy. We managed to find our friends who had gotten there very early and setup camp. They took care of us, fed us, etc. The three of us with no provisions slept in my buddy's car.
Heading into the grounds the next day for the first show was a nightmare. The mud was unbelievable, I'd never seen anything like it. Literally up to your thighs, just trudging through just to get to the field. And the field itself wasn't much better, just everything is mud, everything is wet and damp. People would put down blankets and immediately they were consumed by the earth. At one point my girlfriend fell deeply in the mud and thought something down there bit her, she was terrified, we had to go to the medical tent. So now we are thinking there are mud snakes or something down there.
And after all that, Phish comes out and for arguably the first time in their career, the extent of Trey's drug problem showed up on stage. There had been sloppy playing in the years building up, but nothing approaching the trainwreck of Coventry. Trey blabbed way too much on the microphone, telling long meandering stories about a dream he had last night, or the rambling stories about the origins of songs. I can't recall exactly what he said because I've never listened to recordings of the show.
At one point, during "Wading in the Velvet Sea", Page starts crying so hard he can't even sing. I'm tripping, everyone around me starts crying, it was horrific. Standing shin deep in mud, everyone around you is bawling, it was so fucking sad.
here is a very short video from Coventry which sums up the music perfectly:
starts with Trey telling why they are closing with "The Curtain With". Some argue you can see Trey sniffing a bag before starting the song, but it's probably just a guitar pick he's putting in his mouth. But the video cuts to a close up of Trey during a jam, and it's clearly a clip of a man dying. He is nodding on stage in the middle of the performance, it's one of the saddest things I've ever seen. If he had died I wouldn't be able to watch it, but as it stands it's the only recording of Coventry I watch, a reminder of how bad things can get.
On top of the destroyed grounds and terrible playing, the setlist sucked too. Trey couldn't even get it together to play the more difficult songs, and the songs they did play that were more technical just fell to pieces.
Towards the end of the set on the last day we realized our flight was at 6am and our car was a dozen miles away. We somehow end up paying some townie to take us to the road but he won't take us to the car. We literally stand in the middle of the road and block some local girls from driving, we beg them to take us to our car, and for some insane reason they do. We miraculously make it to our flight in time and head home.
I think the trauma of Coventry is why I'm so obsessed with festival logistics today, and am so impressed when it is done correctly.
GF and I broke up not to long after that. She was the first person to straight up call me an alcoholic, I told her to fuck off, and spent the next several months trying to kill myself with drugs and alcohol. April 25, 2005 I took my last drink/drug, went to treatment, started working a program, and have been sober ever since.
Fast forward 5 years, story continues below.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 03/06/2009 HAMPTON COLISEUM Hampton, VA SET 1: Fluffhead, Divided Sky, Chalk Dust Torture > Sample in a Jar, Stash, I Didn't Know, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg > Farmhouse, NICU, Horn > Rift, Train Song,Water in the Sky, The Squirming Coil > David Bowie SET 2: Backwards Down the Number Line[1] > Tweezer -> Taste, Possum, Theme From the Bottom, First Tube > Harry Hood, Waste > You Enjoy Myself[2] ENCORE: Grind, Bouncing Around the Room, Loving Cup [1] Phish debut. [2] Restarted. Phish’s first public performance since Coventry on August 15, 2004 started with Fluffhead, a song not played since prior to the first hiatus on September 29, 2000 (70 shows). Also of note, several large, white balloons were hung in a circle around the coliseum, lit up by an additional central lighting rig; the balloons (save for a few casualties) would remain for the entire run. Trey introduced Fish as “Dad” during I Didn’t Know. Train Song was not played since May 23, 2000 (111 shows) and Grind was not played since December 30, 1998 (181 shows). During Bouncing, some of the balloons were dripped into the crowd. This show featured the Phish debut of Backwards Down the Number Line. YEM featured a false start possibly as a nod to the January 3, 2003 restarted version.
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If I recall the dates correctly sometime around then Trey gets arrested and goes to drug court. He gets clean. I assume he is still clean today but what he does is not my business. Rumors start circulating in Fall of 2008 that Phish is getting back together. They play a few songs at their former manager's wedding, someone uploads a shitty cell phone video and the Phish internet goes nuts. Reunion shows announced for Hampton, 3/6/2009. I scalp a ticket for $300. When I arrived at Hampton, someone offers me $1,000 for my ticket. I do not sell.
3/6/2009 I was there, my favorite band. back together, I'm happy and relatively healthy and almost four years sober. There were numerous guesses as to what they would open with. Of all the guesses, I only knew one person on the internet who guessed correctly, and everyone ignored him because it seemed too obvious. And so they open with "Fluffhead" and make history. Fuck me in the ass I'd never felt anything like that before. It's like something in my brain happened, all my shit broke into a million tiny pieces and was put back together into a better and stronger and clearer configuration. I screamed at the top of my lungs a long with everyone else. God it was such a beautiful moment, I can't even type it without getting teary-eyed.
So in a nutshell that was my Coventry experience. Bad drug problem, bad relationship, bad festival, bad grounds, bad music, bad setlist, bad everything. Plenty to blame the band for, but personally much more to blame myself for. But I'm grateful for it. Coventry was my bottom, and as previously noted shaped the live music fan I am today, with all my fastidious planning and logistical obsessions, which is what eventually led me here to you good people when I decided to return to Bonnaroo, in 2012, because of, who else, Phish.
One other note on Hampton. Not my story but overheard in the bathroom that night. The lines for the bathroom were long, and as is inevitable somebody started pleading with others to start peeing in sinks to speed things up (it’s always a guy pleading who isn’t doing it himself). To wit another fan replied “if Trey quit using heroin, we can quit pissing in sinks.”
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PHISH, SATURDAY 06/20/2009 ALPINE VALLEY MUSIC THEATRE East Troy, WI SET 1: Punch You in the Eye, Runaway Jim, Stash, Ya Mar, Bathtub Gin, Kill Devil Falls, Train Song, Farmhouse, Sparkle, Run Like an Antelope[1] SET 2: Waves > Sample in a Jar, Maze, Makisupa Policeman[2], Ghost -> The Lizards, You Enjoy Myself[3] -> NICU > Prince Caspian > Waste, Fire ENCORE: Character Zero [1] Lyrics changed to "Been you to have any Hibachi?" [2] Keyword referenced Trey's probation. [3] No bass & drums or vocal jam. During Antelope, Trey changed the lyrics to “Been you to have any Hibachi?” The lyrics to Makisupa were changed to “Woke up this morning, pissing in jah cup / Woke up this afternoon, called my probation officer.” YEM contained a Gumsuckers March (Percy Grainger) tease from Page, was unfinished, and did not contain a bass and drums segment or a vocal jam.
PHISH, SUNDAY 06/21/2009 ALPINE VALLEY MUSIC THEATRE East Troy, WI SET 1: Brother, Wolfman's Brother, Funky Bitch > Divided Sky, Joy, Back on the Train, Taste, Poor Heart, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday >Avenu Malkenu > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday, Time Turns Elastic SET 2: Crosseyed and Painless -> Down with Disease[1] > Bug > Piper > Wading in the Velvet Sea, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Slave to the Traffic Light ENCORE: Grind, Frankenstein[2] [1] Unfinished. [2] Page on the keytar and Trey on a five-neck guitar. During Brother, each of the band members’ children jumped into a bathtub placed at the side of the stage. Afterwards, Trey introduced them and wished everyone a happy Fathers’ Day. Funky Bitch was played in acknowledgement of a fan who had been holding up a sign requesting the song at this show and the previous one. Crosseyed and Painless included a brief, subtle tease from Page of the Grateful Dead’s Let It Grow. Trey teased Taste near the end of Disease, which was unfinished. Piper contained a brief Can’t You Hear Me Knocking tease. Frankenstein featured Page on the keytar and Trey on a five-neck guitar.
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It’s important to understand how insane getting tickets to Phish shows was Summer of 2009, the first tour after the Hampton reunion. The fanbase was ravenous for shows, and scalpers followed suit, snagging up tons of tickets and marking them up. I considering returning to Bonnaroo this summer just to see Phish, but I didn’t think I was ready to attend Bonnaroo solo, both emotionally/mentally as well as for my sobriety (in hindsight I would have been fine, there is a great recovery community at Roo). The handful of shows in the South were in these tiny venues and it was extremely difficult to get tickets. The easiest show to get tickets for was Alpine Valley, plus two of my good friends and old Phish buddies lived in Madison, so I had a place to crash, which is how i ended up buying plane tickets to Wisconsin.
Backing up a bit a couple months before the show Widespread Panic played The Wharf in Orange Beach, AL, which is about an hour from my house. Myself and a bunch of my sober friends hit up the show. While at the show a friend introduced me to a friend of his, who we’ll call Avon for the purposes of this story. Avon and I hit it off immediately, like scarily immediately, the way that happens when you meet a soulmate. Same sense of humor, similar musical sensibilities but just different enough to challenge each other. Avon is high energy and frenetic, I can be high energy but am also grounded enough to help keep him in check. Avon is the push, I am the pull, if that makes sense. A couple weeks after the show we are talking at a meeting and I tell him I’m going to see Phish at AV with some old high school friends, and he straight up asks if he can come. Big jump from “i met you at a widespread panic concert” to “lets get on a plane together and i’ll crash at your childhood friend’s house in Madison” but it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. Avon became my #1 Phish buddy.
These were my first and only shows at Alpine Valley. It’s a legendary venue, and it is enormous. The lawn is so steep as to be perilous. Before the lot opened we were hanging out on some random country road and a cop pulled up. Despite the fact that we weren’t doing anything illegal, we still got nervous. The cop hops out of his car, asks how were doing, and informs us the lot is open early and we can head in if we want.
The lot is bonkers, we see a guy getting arrested and as the cops drag him in handcuffs he keeps screaming “Somebody get Trey!! Somebody get Trey!!!” as if Trey Anastasio is going to emerge from backstage and use his powers to tell the police officers to let this guy go. This turned into an inside joke that still runs to this day. Somebody get Trey Guy:
The show themselves were fine in retrospect, typical 3.0 whale call Trey, very songy, not very jammy. The lyrical change in Makisupa was hilarious to our group of friends with extensive drug court experience. Of particular note was “The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Avenue Malkenu > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday”, which will become more notable later. The Lizards is always welcome, as is Crosseyed & Painless, and Frankenstein to wrap up the shows was a monster.
After the second show we drove straight to the Milwaukee airport and slept on the floor in their until our flight the next morning at 6am.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 10/30/2009 EMPIRE POLO CLUB Indio, CA SET 1: Party Time, Chalk Dust Torture, The Moma Dance, NICU, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, Stash, I Didn't Know, Poor Heart, Cavern, Beauty of a Broken Heart, Ocelot,Time Turns Elastic SET 2: Punch You in the Eye > Down with Disease[1] -> Prince Caspian > Wolfman's Brother > Piper > Joy, David Bowie, Harry Hood > Golgi Apparatus ENCORE: Character Zero [1] Unfinished. This show was part of the three-show Festival 8. Stash contained an L.A. Woman tease. During I Didn't Know, Trey announced that Henrietta would, for the first time in human history, suck and blow at the same time, in the shape of a figure 8. Disease was unfinished. During Bowie, Trey said, "I'm gonna give you a little hint about the Halloween album now."
PHISH, SATURDAY 10/31/2009 EMPIRE POLO CLUB Indio, CA SET 1: Sample in a Jar, Divided Sky, Lawn Boy, Kill Devil Falls, Bathtub Gin, The Squirming Coil, Runaway Jim > Possum, Run Like an Antelope[1] SET 2: Rocks Off[2] > Rip This Joint[2], Shake Your Hips[2], Casino Boogie[3], Tumbling Dice[4], Sweet Virginia[5], Torn and Frayed[3], Sweet Black Angel[2], Loving Cup[5], Happy[4],Turd on the Run[4], Ventilator Blues[4] -> I Just Want To See His Face[6] > Let It Loose[4], All Down the Line[4], Stop Breaking Down[4], Shine a Light[4], Soul Survivor[4] SET 3: Backwards Down the Number Line > Fluffhead > Ghost, When the Circus Comes, You Enjoy Myself ENCORE: Suzy Greenberg[5] [1] Lyrics changed to "Been you to have any Coil?" [2] Phish debut; Dave Guy on trumpet, David Smith on trombone, and Tony Jarvis on saxophone. [3] Phish debut. [4] Phish debut; Sharon Jones and Saundra Williams on backup vocals, Dave Guy on trumpet, David Smith on trombone, and Tony Jarvis on saxophone. [5] Sharon Jones and Saundra Williams on backup vocals, Dave Guy on trumpet, David Smith on trombone, and Tony Jarvis on saxophone. [6] Phish debut; Sharon Jones and Saundra Williams on backup vocals. This show was part of the three-show Festival 8. Playbills were distributed on-site (beginning at 12:30 p.m., 8 hours in advance) confirming that the second set (the band's "musical costume") would be the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. After Divided Sky, Trey acknowledged the beauty of the venue and announced that Page would now play a love song to the lawn since it was the first time they had played on grass in a long time. Antelope's lyrics were changed to "Been you to have any Coil, man?" (The Coil was an art installation on the venue grounds.) Set 2 began with a video highlighting selections of the 99 classic albums displayed and then systematically eliminated on the phish.com web site leading up to the festival. Selections in the montage included snippets from Michael Jackson's Thriller, T.Rex's Electric Warrior, Metallica's Master of Puppets, Miles Davis's A Tribute to Jack Johnson, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and The Doors (self titled), among others. All of the Exile on Main St songs were Phish debuts, except for Loving Cup and Sweet Virginia. All songs in the second set except for Casino Boogie, Torn and Frayed, and I Just Want To See His Face featured Dave Guy on trumpet, David Smith on trombone, and Tony Jarvis on saxophone. Tumbling Dice, Sweet Virginia, and Loving Cup through Soul Survivor also featured Sharon Jones and Saundra Williams on backup vocals. Trey introduced the horn section after Tumbling Dice and again after the completion of the costume, before saying "We are the Rolling Stones. See you later." Suzy Greenberg was played with Jones, Williams, and the horns. This show featured the first Sweet Virginia since September 26, 1999 (173 shows).
PHISH, SUNDAY 11/01/2009 EMPIRE POLO CLUB Indio, CA SET 1: Water in the Sky[1], Back on the Train[1], Brian and Robert[1], Invisible[2], Strange Design[1], Mountains in the Mist[1], The Curtain With[1], Army of One[1], Sleep Again[2], My Sweet One[3], Let Me Lie[1], Bouncing Around the Room[1], Train Song[1], Wilson[1] > McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters[1] ENCORE: Driver[1], Talk[1], Secret Smile[1] SET 2: AC/DC Bag > Rift, Gotta Jibboo, Heavy Things, Reba[4], The Wedge, Guelah Papyrus, Undermind, Sparkle, Split Open and Melt SET 3: Tweezer -> Maze, Free, Sugar Shack, Limb By Limb, Theme From the Bottom > Mike's Song > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Light > Slave to the Traffic Light ENCORE: Grind, Esther, Tweezer Reprise [1] Acoustic. [2] Acoustic; Phish debut. [3] Acoustic. Fish whistled his solo. [4] No whistling. This show was part of the three-show Festival 8. The first set, which started at noon, was billed as Phish's "first full-length acoustic set" (complete with complimentary coffee and Festival 8 themed donuts). The first set featured Trey and Mike on acoustics, Page solely on piano, and a unique stage setup that had Fish stage right with Page on the far left. Before Brian and Robert, Trey encouraged the crowd to sit down due to the "mellow" nature of the set; he added that they had never before played to a crowd that was sitting. Whether the crowd should stand up or sit down became a running joke throughout the set, until Trey confessed during Wilson that he only asked the crowd to sit down at the request of the crew and, in fact, he hates telling people what to do (and also hates sitting down). This show marked the Phish debuts of Invisible and Sleep Again. Fish performed a whistle solo on My Sweet One. The band briefly left the stage after McGrupp, returning to encore with Driver, Talk, and Secret Smile. The second and third sets were played later that evening. Reba lacked the whistling ending. Trey took a moment before Tweeprise to thank those who helped put on the festival.
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The first festival of 3.0 and the first halloween of 3.0 combined. Leading up to the festival Phish teased what album they would be covering at the festival. Among other options one of them was Genesis “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”. I had no intentions of attending the festival, but a week before the fest I read on a message board that Phish had at one point learned all of “Lamb” but never ended up covering it, which convinced me that Lamb would be the halloween album. Genesis is one of my favorite bands and at that point in particular I was really really into Genesis. My then girlfriend (now wife) and I had Halloween plans already, but I sat her down and had the Phish conversation. Which is basically “i love you and want to be with you, i try to be a good boyfriend and a good partner, but sometimes i just have to run off and see Phish”. It sounds silly but it was a serious conversation, me communicating to her that Phish is an extremely important part of my life and if we want to make our relationship work this is a compromise she will have to make. It’s the biggest Phish boyfriend dick move I’ve ever made, but I didn’t have any other choice. Melody didn’t understand Phish, still doesn’t, but she could see it was important to me and I love her for that. So I bought plane tickets and a festival ticket, secured some hotel floor space with a guy I knew from the tables and the next week I was off to Indio.
Of course the album ended up being “Exile on Main Street” but that was fine. It was a wonderful weekend, the only west coast Phish festival to date. Maybe about 30-35,000 fans, very chill, and the Coachella grounds are absolutely beautiful as many here now. The early afternoon acoustic set was an extreme rarity and a delight. At the beginning of the set the crowd was standing up and Trey invited everyone to sit down. He said he didn’t like telling his fans what to do but it was hot and he assured us it would be an extremely chill set, so everyone did sit down and listened to Phish play acoustically, very unique experience.
The highlight was of course the cover set. Exile was joyous and fun and all the things I wanted it to be. The peak moment of the set was an unusual one. “Loving Cup” is a frequently played cover, but it became particularly special during the set. This was at a time when glowsticks were still popular at Phish shows, and during the “beautiful buzz” peak it looked like everyone in the front 100 rows of people threw a glowstick directly in the air, it was an enormous wall of glowsticks and it was so beautiful I actually immediately became teary-eyed.
Flight was 6am on Sunday so I slept on the plane. Was kind of great, I got on the plane in Ontatio and suddenly woke up in Houston. I’ve never slept on a plane that hard before.
Picture of me i think during fluffhead. There were these torches setup about midfield and when the song peak they exploded and a friend snagged a picture:
Before the acoustic set:
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PHISH, FRIDAY 11/20/2009 U.S. BANK ARENA Cincinnati, OH SET 1: Chalk Dust Torture, The Moma Dance > Divided Sky, Alaska, Water in the Sky, Fast Enough for You, Time Turns Elastic, Gotta Jibboo > Fluffhead SET 2: Punch You in the Eye > Tweezer > Light -> Back on the Train -> Possum, Slave to the Traffic Light, You Enjoy Myself ENCORE: Joy, Golgi Apparatus > Tweezer Reprise PHISH, SATURDAY 11/21/2009 U.S. BANK ARENA Cincinnati, OH SET 1: Wilson > NICU, Wolfman's Brother, Ocelot, Torn and Frayed, Strange Design, Ginseng Sullivan, Albuquerque, Split Open and Melt, Dirt, Limb By Limb, Run Like an Antelope SET 2: Rock and Roll > Ghost > If I Could, Backwards Down the Number Line > Prince Caspian, Suzy Greenberg > Also Sprach Zarathustra > The Squirming Coil ENCORE: Sleeping Monkey, Axilla Albuquerque was played for the first time since September 14, 2000 (115 shows).
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Avon and I’s second run of shows, and this trip was when we added a new friend, who we’ll call String. String and I had hit some shows up before but this was his first Phish run. This began a golden era of the three of us hitting shows regularly for a few years, we were a trio that worked extremely well together. I always drove, Avon always rode up front with me, and String always rode in the backseat. Avon and I would generally talk nonstop the entire road trip about a variety of wild ass topics, and String would generally sit in the back quieting reading some thick biography (this trip it was J.P. Morgan). Also String worked at a Marriott so he got this magical employee discount where we’d get these big ass hotel rooms with separate bedrooms, kitchens, etc for like $20/night. The two biggest takeaways from this run:
This was when i really fell in love with and connected with Tweezer Reprise. When the first notes started I closed my eyes and started jumping up and down, and when it “kicked in” i opened my eyes and Trey was jumping on stage in tandem with my jumps. One of the great perceived jedi mind connections with Trey I’ve experienced during shows. Everybody should get an Antelope at their first Phish run. Made String cry, and we were sitting behind a bunch of kids who were at their first shows and lost their minds during it. Was the first time I felt like the older guy/vet at a Phish show
Picture of me after the show:
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PHISH, SATURDAY 12/05/2009 JOHN PAUL JONES ARENA Charlottesville, VA SET 1: AC/DC Bag > Chalk Dust Torture, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, Divided Sky, Ya Mar[1], Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley, The Old Home Place > Cavern > Funky Bitch,David Bowie, The Wedge, Bold As Love SET 2: Tweezer -> Light > Piper -> Free, Sweet Virginia, Harry Hood > Suzy Greenberg > Golgi Apparatus, Run Like an Antelope[1] ENCORE: Loving Cup > Tweezer Reprise [1] Alternate lyrics referencing a naked stage crasher. At the start of Ya Mar, a naked guy jumped onstage and ran around for a bit before being rounded up by security, prompting Trey to observe that "Naked Guy's" antics "took a lot of balls." During Ya Mar, Mike changed the lyrics to "he was a naked pa." Trey sang the verses to Light out of order. The sound for Mike's bass dropped out during Golgi leading Trey to label it the "trio version." During the ensuing Antelope, Mike took a bass solo to make up for the bass everyone missed in Golgi. Antelope also contained several lyric changes referencing the naked stage crasher.
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A few weeks after Cincinnati we drove to Charlottesville. This is the longest drive I’ve made for a single show, took us 14 hours. 2009 was a crazy fever pitch time for Phish, the music wasn’t always great but after being without Phish for so long we were craving it so we did dumb things like drive 14 hours to see a single Phish show.
Brief tangent, the week before this show I was at work talking to one of our internal auditors (i was a bank teller at the time). I was telling her about how I’d just seen Phish a few weeks prior in Cincinnati, and was going to see them again this weekend in Charlottesville. She was somewhat surprised at the distance I’d drive to see a band I’d just seen recently and would see many times before. While we are standing their talking the UPS guy shows up and hands me a package. I said “ah this must be my Phish tickets”, to which the internal auditor said “oh are those the tickets for this weekend?” and I was like “nah these are for another show on new years eve.” Kind of made me feel ridiculous.
Anywho Charlottesville was a particularly happy and joyful trip for myself, Avon, and String. Just great vibes the whole time. We drove up the day before the show, arrived late and night, and went to sleep at the hotel. When we woke up the next morning it was snowing, which for three southerners was really magical. We walked to the venue through the snow which was cool. The show itself was pretty good, the most notable part as mentioned in the show notes above was a butt naked guy got on stage and tried to hug the band members, which sent the band members running around the stage to avoid him but never stopping the song. Eventually security tackled the guy and took him away, but this resulted in Phish changing the lyrics in various songs that night to reference the naked guy. Also right as the Ya Mar/naked guy frenzy was wrapping up Avon said he was going to the bathroom, made it down the stairs of the arena, and they dropped into “Sneakin’ Sally” and he turned around and sprinted right back to our seats (beyond being a great song our group has strong New Orleans/Meters connections so “Sneakin’ Sally” is a favorite).
Drove straight home the next day. I took an online test from the backseat on the way home and got an A. Great trip!
Here’s a picture of me in the snow outside the hotel:
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PHISH, THURSDAY 12/31/2009 AMERICAN AIRLINES ARENA Miami, FL SET 1: AC/DC Bag > 46 Days, Water in the Sky, Bathtub Gin, Punch You in the Eye > The Moma Dance, Guyute, Swept Away > Steep, Demand > Seven Below, Lawn Boy, Julius SET 2: Rock and Roll > Piper > Simple > Theme From the Bottom, Shine a Light, Ghost -> NO2, Suzy Greenberg SET 3: Party Time > Auld Lang Syne > Down with Disease, Fluffhead, Joy, The Squirming Coil, You Enjoy Myself ENCORE: Blue Moon[1], Loving Cup [1] Phish debut. AC/DC Bag and Ghost contained Auld Lang Syne teases. Swept Away and Steep were played for the first time since July 1, 2000 (145 shows). Demand was played for the first time since November 14, 1996 (392 shows). NO2 was played for the first time since July 13, 1999 (219 shows). Prior to the third set, a pedestal stating 2010 was placed on the front of the stage and a covered structure was placed behind Fish's drumset. During DWD, as the clock turned midnight, hundreds of balloons were released upon the crowd, fireworks went off on each side of the stage, and a disco ball was lowered onto the pedestal. After DWD, Trey opened the ball and Fish climbed inside. Trey and Mike, with some help from stagehands, proceeded to put the ball in a giant cannon aimed towards a giant net hanging from the rafters with an illuminated “X” on it. Page hit the trigger and purportedly "blasted" the ball through, not only the net, but also the roof of the arena. A searchlight appeared to come through the roof and was accompanied by helicopter sounds. With Fish apparently shot out of the venue, Trey asked if anybody knew how to play the drums and ended up finding Sarah, a girl from Pittsburgh. Trey asked how long she had played the drums and what her favorite song was and she responded with six months and Fluffhead respectively. Sarah was surreptitiously replaced by Fish, now wearing a dress identical to Sarah's and a black wig, who played the entire third set and encore, but Sarah came out at the end of the third set and bowed with the band instead of him. Blue Moon was a Phish debut and was performed as an instrumental while Trey thanked the entire crew. After the show, the disco ball was revealed to have "crashed" into a white car that had been parked in front of the American Airlines Arena with a sign on the windshield stating "This car was driven down from Vermont" and "fueled by maple syrup." After being “struck” by the “human cannonball,” the car was emitting smoke and leaking maple syrup and the entire area was cordoned off with police tape.
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This show is notable because it is the first and only time Melody (then girlfriend now wife) saw Phish with me. We were with our family in Disney World, and I encouraged her to drive from Orlando to Miami after the vacation to check out Phish. This was my first time seeing Phish on NYE and my first time in Miami. The show itself was fine musically, some nice bustouts as noted above, and the gag was pretty funny. Melody had a fine time and was a trooper but afterwards said she never wanted to see Phish again. I appreciate her giving it a shot and ceased my Phish proselytizing.
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PHISH, THURSDAY 07/01/2010 TIME WARNER CABLE MUSIC PAVILION AT WALNUT CREEK Raleigh, NC Soundcheck: Killing in the Name Intro, Dog Log, Gone, Brady Bunch theme [unconfirmed and possibly incomplete] SET 1: Llama, Roses Are Free, Kill Devil Falls, Time Loves a Hero, Alaska, Water in the Sky, Runaway Jim > The Moma Dance > Divided Sky, Cavern SET 2: Backwards Down the Number Line > Halley's Comet -> Light > Fluffhead > Have Mercy, Light Up Or Leave Me Alone[1] -> Free > Wading in the Velvet Sea, The Squirming Coil> Suzy Greenberg ENCORE: Boogie On Reggae Woman [1] Unfinished. This show featured the first Time Loves a Hero since December 31, 2002 (127 shows), the first Have Mercy since December 10, 1999 (189 shows), and the first Light Up Or Leave Me Alone since December 30, 1999 (181 shows), which was unfinished and subsequently teased in Suzy.
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Fast forward to summer 2010, and the start of a crazy 4 show run. I couldn’t get off work the day before this show so we ended up leaving Wednesday at 6pm and drove straight to Raleigh, about a 12 hour drive I think? We got to our hotel and took a nap, then got up and headed to the show. Saw a friend of mine in the lot I hadn’t seen since Coventry which was nice. We were on the lawn for this show, Llama opener was great, then right into Roses are Free which got the tears flowing. Light Up Or Leave Me Alone was great to hear in the second set. Great time overall, long journey to get there, but nothing particularly notable about the show.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 07/02/2010 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE - CHARLOTTE Charlotte, NC SET 1: Buried Alive > AC/DC Bag > Vultures, Wolfman's Brother, Back on the Train, The Wedge, Mexican Cousin, Stash, Sparkle > Chalk Dust Torture SET 2: Drowned > 46 Days > Twenty Years Later > The Lizards, Carini > Fuck Your Face > Also Sprach Zarathustra > You Enjoy Myself ENCORE: A Day in the Life This show featured the first Fuck Your Face since April 29, 1987 (1,413 shows). AC/DC Bag contained Buried Alive teases. YEM contained Fuck Your Face and Moving in Stereo (The Cars) teases. The YEM vocal jam included portions of Proud Mary and Get Back interspersed with Dong Work for Yuda (Frank Zappa) and Slow Ride quotes.
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Drove from Raleigh to Charlotte the next morning. This show was stupid awesome, most notable for the biggest bust out in Phish history, “Fuck Your Face”, which hadn’t been played since April 29, 1987 (1,413 shows). It was so rare and obscure that the majority of the crowd didn’t know what the hell was going on until Mike uttered the lyric “this guitar’s gunna fuck your face”. It was like a song most people had heard of, but had never heard. I don’t even know if there was a tape of this song beforehand. Buried Alive opener was great, Vultures was welcome. But really the whole second set run of The Lizards > Carini > Fuck Your Face > 2001 > YEM was incredible. One of the first great song sequences of 3.0, IMO.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 07/03/2010 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA SET 1: Character Zero, Destiny Unbound > Rift, McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters, Bathtub Gin, Mountains in the Mist, NICU > Gumbo > My Sweet One, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, Strange Design, Sanity, Run Like an Antelope SET 2: Rock and Roll > Prince Caspian > Tweezer -> Slave to the Traffic Light, Bouncing Around the Room, Possum, Backwards Down the Number Line > Harry Hood > Loving Cup ENCORE: Sleeping Monkey > Tweezer Reprise Character Zero opened a show for the first time ever. McGrupp was played by request with Trey taking the sign from the crowd and holding it up before starting the song. Trey forgot the second verse to Sanity, asking "What the heck's the second verse here?" Trey teased Super Bad in Tweezer. In a possible foreshadowing of the song's Phish debut the next night, Hood's intro contained brief Killing in the Name teases from Fish.
PHISH, SUNDAY 07/04/2010 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA SET 1: The Star Spangled Banner, Punch You in the Eye > Colonel Forbin's Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird, Camel Walk, Ocelot, Heavy Things > My Friend, My Friend > Lawn Boy, David Bowie, Gotta Jibboo SET 2: Down with Disease[1] > Piper > Ghost > Waste, Julius > Mike's Song > Tela, Harpua > Killing in the Name[2] > Harpua > Weekapaug Groove ENCORE: First Tube [1] Unfinished. [2] Phish debut. Disease was unfinished. Harpua contained a tease of London Bridge Is Falling Down. This show marked the Phish debut of Killing in the Name (Rage Against the Machine).
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From Charlotte we headed to Alpharetta two show run to wrap up our Phish trip. 7/3/10 was fun because it was a Phish show, some good song selection (Destiny Unbound, McGrupp) but is overshadowed by 7/4/10, one of the best shows of early 3.0.
We knew it would be a special show with a Forbins > Mockingbird in set one. Forbins is a personal favorite of mine and rarely played, those opening notes really got my blood pumping. But nobody expected what was to come in the second set.
Mike’s Song > Tela was nuts enough, but after a brief pause, itself unusual during a Mike’s Groove, the opening “oompa” acapella notes from that rarest of Phish songs, “Harpua”, echoed throughout the amphitheater. Good Lord that venue went fucking apeshit. For those who don’t know, Harpua is a very funky and silly song, which typically includes a narration from Trey, followed by a random cover, before going back into Harpua. The gist of the narration from Trey in this Harpua was basically that all history books are wrong, and what Phish has really been doing all these years is to try and tell you about the true history of America through their music. In that vein, one of the characters from Harpua was angry and put on a song to get pumped up to, which per Trey is “a song from the only other band besides Phish that won’t bullshit you.” Could not believe my fucking ears when they started playing Killing In The Name Of. Good Lord that venue went fucking apeshit. I didn’t know how to process my energy during the song and ended up throwing my back out, it hurt for weeks afterwards. Back into Harpua, Weekapaug to wrap up the Mike’s Groove, and a one and done First Tube to send us home. So concluded one of my fondest Phish runs.
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PRINCE, WEDNESDAY 12/29/2010 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN New York, NY SET 1: The Beautiful Ones, Let’s Go Crazy, Delirious, 1999, Little Red Corvette, Uptown, Raspberry Beret, Cream, Cool, Let’s Work, U Got the Look, The Question of U, The One, Purple Rain ENCORE: Kiss, She’s Always in My Hair, If I Was Your Girlfriend (with Janelle Monae) ENCORE 2: Condition of the Heart, Do Me Baby, I Wanna Be Your Lover, How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore, Sometimes It Snows in April ENCORE 3: Jungle Love (with Cyndi Lauper) ----
We flew up a day early before the Phish New Year’s Eve run began to see Prince. My first time at MSG, my first and only time seeing Prince. As you can see from the setlist, it was incredible. “The Beautiful Ones” was one of the more stunning and surprising openers I’ve heard in my life. It was the in the round “artist formerly known as Prince” stage symbol setup, lights go down, and suddenly Prince is just sitting at his piano on one end of the stage playing the song. So subtle and so powerful. Then of course the whole stage exploded for “Let’s Go Crazy”. Whole show was incredible.
Picture of the stage setup from our seats:
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PHISH, THURSDAY 12/30/2010 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN New York, NY SET 1: Cities, Chalk Dust Torture, Gumbo > Quinn the Eskimo, Halley's Comet > Camel Walk[1], Maze, Driver, Bathtub Gin, Fat Man in the Bathtub, Timber (Jerry The Mule) > Golgi Apparatus, Character Zero SET 2: Tweezer > Light > Theme From the Bottom -> My Friend, My Friend[2] > Axilla, Fluffhead, Boogie On Reggae Woman -> Also Sprach Zarathustra > Suzy Greenberg ENCORE: Run Like an Antelope > Tweezer Reprise [1] P.A. cut out. [2] No "Myfe" ending. This show was webcast via LivePhish. The PA cut out during Camel Walk. My Friend did not contain the "Myfe" ending.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 12/31/2010 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN New York, NY SET 1: Punch You in the Eye > AC/DC Bag > The Moma Dance > Scent of a Mule, Burn That Bridge[1], Weigh > Ocelot, Beauty of My Dreams, Gone, Rock and Roll SET 2: Wilson > 46 Days, Sand, NICU > Down with Disease[2] > Ghost, You Enjoy Myself -> Manteca -> You Enjoy Myself SET 3: Meatstick[3], Auld Lang Syne[4], After Midnight, Backwards Down the Number Line > Piper > Free, Waste > Slave to the Traffic Light, Grind ENCORE: First Tube [1] Phish debut. [2] Unfinished. [3] Portions pre-recorded; Lyrics sung in multiple languages. [4] Sung with Meatstick singers while Trey played guitar. This show was webcast via LivePhish. This show featured the Phish debut of Burn That Bridge. Ocelot, NICU and First Tube contained Auld Lang Syne teases. Beauty of My Dreams was played for the first time since July 22, 2003 (133 shows). Disease was unfinished. Manteca was played for the first time since October 30, 1998 (301 shows) and the ensuing YEM vocal jam contained Manteca quotes. Before midnight, several groups of multiethnic dancers appeared on stage and sang the Meatstick lyrics in their respective languages. The band joined the dancers and then stealthily disappeared from the stage, only to reappear at the other side of the arena in the giant hotdog from past NYE shows ('94 and '99). As a result, portions of the Meatstick were pre-recorded. Auld Lang Syne was sung with the Meatstick singers while Trey played guitar. Appropriately, the post-show music was Captain Beefheart's Tropical Hot Dog Night.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 01/01/2011 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN New York, NY SET 1: My Soul, Tube > Runaway Jim > Foam, Guelah Papyrus > Divided Sky, Round Room > Walk Away > Gotta Jibboo > Reba[1], Walls of the Cave SET 2: Crosseyed and Painless > Twist > Simple, Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley > Makisupa Policeman[2] -> David Bowie ENCORE: Fee[3], Frankenstein[4] [1] No whistling. [2] "I went home late last night after doing the New Year's stunt, laid back on my couch and rolled myself a blunt" lyrics. "Kick drum solo." [3] Trey sang verses through megaphone. [4] Page on keytar. This show was webcast via LivePhish. Reba did not have the whistling ending. Round Room was played for the first time since July 13, 2003 (140 shows). Twist contained Manteca quotes from Trey. Makisupa included the lyrics "I went home late last night after doing the New Year's stunt, laid back on my couch and rolled myself a blunt" and also featured a "kick drum solo." Frankenstein featured Page on keytar.
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This whole run was a great trip. I love NYC. Got a good deal on a hotel room a few blocks from MSG, a humble little one room room with basically a bed and a sink (shared bathrooms on each floor). But you could open a window which was great. We were staying in Murray Hill so we mostly ate Indian food, loved finding buffets open at 1am after the show. We hit up the Met which for some reason was an overwhelming experience, we were all walking around teary-eyed. Been to the Met since then but it’s never affected me like that first time. Went to Katz for the first time, was delicious.
The shows were a lot of fun, NYE being the highlight. The NYE gag with Phish riding over the crowd in a giant hotdog was great, and Meatstick was an appropriate midnight song because it was such a silly year for Phish (also one of Avon’s favorite song so it was exciting for us).
Picture of me after the final show of the run:
In classic style we went straight from the venue on 1/1 to catch our flight home.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 06/17/2011 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE - CHARLOTTE Charlotte, NC Soundcheck: Dog Log, Blues Jam SET 1: Mike's Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, Bouncing Around the Room, NICU[1] > Sample in a Jar, Colonel Forbin's Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird, Axilla,Wolfman's Brother, Scent of a Mule, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan SET 2: Backwards Down the Number Line > Rock and Roll > Ghost > Free > Reba[2], Icculus, Hold Your Head Up > Bike > Hold Your Head Up, Chalk Dust Torture, You Enjoy Myself ENCORE: Wilson > Loving Cup [1] "Play it, Leo!" lyric replaced with "Leo's House!" [2] No whistling. In NICU, the lyric "Play it, Leo!" was replaced with "Leo's House!" Scent of a Mule contained a tease of The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) from Page. Trey and Mike wore identical T-shirts in the first set. Trey said he wouldn't give away who was on their shirts, but said during the beginning of Mockingbird that it was "the famous mockingbird!" (The face on the shirt was actually local musician David Mayfield; Trey and Mike had apparently seen him the previous night). The shirts were again referenced during Icculus, with the image showing on the video screens and Trey saying it was written by the man on the screen. The Rock and Roll jam featured a tease from Mike of A Love Supreme. Reba did not contain the whistling ending. Bike was played for the first time since June 18, 2009 (100 shows). During his vacuum solo, Fish teased Somewhere Over the Rainbow. After his solo, Fish forgot the words to Bike, prompting the band to play HYHU. In the soundcheck, Funky Bitch was briefly teased before Dog Log began.
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The start of another big summer run (for us) with the crew. Another silly show, Forbin’s > Mockingbird was fantastic, as was Scent of a Mule, Icculus, and HYHU > Bike > HYHU. Much happiness on this night, we had great pav seats.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 06/18/2011 TIME WARNER CABLE MUSIC PAVILION AT WALNUT CREEK Raleigh, NC Soundcheck: Babylon Baby (Incomplete) SET 1: Cars Trucks Buses, Peaches en Regalia, AC/DC Bag, Guyute, Possum, Halley's Comet > 46 Days, Divided Sky, The Ballad of Curtis Loew, Run Like an Antelope SET 2: Twist > Rift > Prince Caspian > Esther, Been Caught Stealing, Piper > My Friend, My Friend[1] > Kill Devil Falls, Split Open and Melt, Golgi Apparatus, First Tube ENCORE: Good Times Bad Times [1] No "Myfe" ending. This was the first show since November 22, 1992 (846 shows) to open with two instrumental songs. Been Caught Stealing was played for the first time since December 28, 1998 (298 shows). My Friend did not contain the "Myfe" ending.
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Fun show but kind of all over the place. Love a summer show amphitheatre CTB opener though. The part of the setlist that sticks out is “Been Caught Stealing”. Trey sung it through some kind of voice distorter or megaphone or something, the vocals were really loud, too loud, almost piercing.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 06/19/2011 NTELOS PAVILION Portsmouth, VA Soundcheck: Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan SET 1: Harpua[1] > Brother, Down with Disease > Back on the Train, Funky Bitch, Timber (Jerry The Mule), The Wedge, The Moma Dance, Thunder Road[2], Tube, Alaska > David Bowie SET 2: Crosseyed and Painless > Walls of the Cave > Slave to the Traffic Light > Fluffhead > Sand[3] > Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley > Light > Backwards Down the Number Line,Suzy Greenberg ENCORE: Julius [1] With the band's fathers voicing the part of Jimmy's father. [2] Phish debut. [3] Lengthy pause near the end before band finished song. Harpua featured all of the band's fathers voicing the part of Jimmy's father. For the third Father's Day in a row, Brother was performed and featured all of the band's children on stage and subsequent introductions. The theme to Leave it to Beaver was teased by Mike prior to DWD. This show marked the Phish debut of Thunder Road, which was dedicated by Trey to Clarence Clemons (who had passed away a day earlier). Near the end of Sand, there was a lengthy pause before the band finished the song.
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The thing that kind of sucked about this run was we started further south and worked our way up north, so the drive home from VA was super long. But this was a super cool show, fucking Harpua opener with all the band’s members Dads for father’s day. Crazy C&P to open the second set. I think this is the last time I did a super long drive for a Phish show, although I certainly have gotten on planes since then.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 07/01/2011 WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL Watkins Glen, NY SET 1: Possum, Peaches en Regalia > The Moma Dance, Torn and Frayed > NICU > Bathtub Gin, Life on Mars?, My Friend, My Friend, Wolfman's Brother, Roses Are Free > Funky Bitch, Quinn the Eskimo SET 2: Jam > Crosseyed and Painless -> Chalk Dust Torture, Sand > The Wedge, Mike's Song > Simple > Bug > The Horse > Silent in the Morning > Weekapaug Groove, Joy >Character Zero ENCORE: Show of Life This was the first of the three-show SuperBall IX festival. Life on Mars? was played for the first time since February 15, 2003 (175 shows). Simple contained Bug and Third Stone From the Sun teases.
PHISH, SATURDAY 07/02/2011 WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL Watkins Glen, NY SET 1: Tube, Kill Devil Falls > Ocelot, Lawn Boy, Divided Sky, Boogie On Reggae Woman > Camel Walk, Cities > Poor Heart > 46 Days > Susskind Hotel[1], When the Circus Comes,Timber (Jerry The Mule) > Back on the Train > Suzy Greenberg, Monkey Man[1] SET 2: Runaway Jim[2] > McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters, Axilla > Birds of a Feather, Stash, Sample in a Jar, Heavy Things > Horn > It's Ice > The Mango Song > Rift >Scents and Subtle Sounds, Run Like an Antelope SET 3: Golden Age > Prince Caspian > Piper > Tweezer > Julius > Backwards Down the Number Line > Twist > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Harry Hood > Cavern > Golgi Apparatus > A Day in the Life ENCORE: Loving Cup > Tweezer Reprise SET 4: Storage Jam[3] > Sleeping Monkey[3] [1] Phish debut. [2] Introductions of Runaway Jim 5K winners. [3] Page on theremin. This was the second of the three-show SuperBall IX festival. This gig featured the Phish debuts of Susskind Hotel and Monkey Man. Camel Walk contained a Spanish Moon tease from Mike, Piper contained a Tweezer tease from Page, and Tweezer contained Scents and Subtle Sounds teases by Mike. Runaway Jim included introductions and trophy awards for the winners of the Runaway Jim 5K road race held earlier in the day. The first Secret Language since July 3, 2000 (213 shows) was a Simpsons signal after BOAF. Scents was played with the intro for the first time since August 2, 2003 (146 shows). The Storage Jam and Sleeping Monkey featured Page on theremin for the first time since August 11, 1997 (394 shows).
PHISH, SUNDAY 07/03/2011 WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL Watkins Glen, NY SET 1: Soul Shakedown Party > AC/DC Bag > The Curtain > Colonel Forbin's Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird > Destiny Unbound > Big Black Furry Creature from Mars, Wilson >Mound, A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing[1], Time Loves a Hero, Reba -> David Bowie SET 2: Big Balls[2] > Down with Disease[1] -> No Quarter > Party Time, Ghost > Gotta Jibboo > Light, Waves > What's the Use? > Meatstick > Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, The Star Spangled Banner ENCORE: First Tube [1] Unfinished. [2] Phish debut This show was the third of the three-show Super Ball IX festival. The Curtain was played for the first time since September 9, 2000 (202 shows). The first Mockingbird narration since September 30, 2000 (188 shows) referenced the previous night's fourth set Storage Jam and explained that all of SBIX was merely a mental projection of a reality that the band created in 1988 on their way to Colorado. Mike teased the theme from The Twilight Zone and the theme from Leave it to Beaver during BBFCFM, Wilson contained a Mind Left Body tease, and Reba contained Dave's Energy Guide teases. A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing and Disease were unfinished. The setbreak featured All-American themed music. This show featured the Phish debut of Big Balls. Before the encore, Trey thanked each of the crew, management and artists who helped make Super Ball IX happen. First Tube was accompanied by and followed by fireworks.
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Phish’s second festival of 3.0. I went to this one solo and camped solo. Camping was a pleasant experience but this was the last time I camped at a festival. I flew here and connected via DC. My connecting flight to Syracuse got cancelled and I had to stay at a hotel in DC for the night. Luckily the festival wasn’t until the next day, but I was super anxious about my flight the next day, also super anxious because somehow my checked bag with all my camping crap in it made it to syracuse even though I didn’t. But I got to syracuse the next day with no issues, my bag was there, got in my rental car and took the 90 minute and quite pretty drive to Watkins Glen.
Highlights of the run included the Storage Jam, an unscheduled late night set where Phish performed a long form hourish long jam inside a storage container. You couldn’t see them, you could only see their shadows reflected on the outside of the container. Speakers were setup everywhere firing in various directions, it was quite confusing. I saw many people stumble up who couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. The next day Trey “explained” the storage jam during a rare Mockingbird narration, something about how we all are living in Phish’s 1988 reality and they control time or something.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 06/10/2012 BONNAROO MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL Manchester, TN SET 1: Down with Disease > Funky Bitch, The Moma Dance > Sample in a Jar, Axilla, The Gambler[1], Possum > Wilson > Tweezer > Free > Backwards Down the Number Line >Cavern SET 2: Golden Age > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Chalk Dust Torture, Carini -> Shafty > Rock and Roll, Alaska > Harry Hood[2] -> Light > Character Zero > Rocky Top ENCORE: Show of Life > Julius > Tweezer Reprise [1] Phish debut, with Kenny Rogers. [2] Unfinished. This show was a live webcast on YouTube. The Gambler (Kenny Rogers) was a Phish debut and featured Kenny Rogers on vocals. Possum featured The Gambler and Streets of Cairo teases. Tweezer contained a Walk This Way tease from Trey and I Am Hydrogen teases from Fish. Shafty was played for the first time since December 30, 2003 (159 shows). Hood was unfinished.
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This was my first Bonnaroo since 2004, and my first Bonnaroo sober. It was a big decision to return, but with Phish and Radiohead playing I felt I had to make it happen. The show itself was fine objectively but subjectively it was a special experience for me. I was at a soberoo meeting earlier that weekend and struck up a conversation with a fellow fan. I asked what song he wanted to hear and he said “Shafty!” which was the most ridiculous song to want to wear live. I know when they busted that out for the first time in 159 shows that kid was somewhere in the field losing his mind.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 08/24/2012 OAK MOUNTAIN AMPHITHEATRE Pelham, AL SET 1: Possum, Cities > Sample in a Jar, Timber (Jerry The Mule) > Back on the Train, Lawn Boy, Down with Disease, Gumbo, Ginseng Sullivan > The Wedge, Julius > Cavern, While My Guitar Gently Weeps SET 2: Rock and Roll -> The Lizards, Halley's Comet > Sand > Twist > Birds of a Feather, Boogie On Reggae Woman > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Waste > Slave to the Traffic Light ENCORE: Good Times Bad Times This show was webcast via LivePhish. Rock and Roll contained Live and Let Die teases from Trey and a Twenty Years Later tease from Mike. Twist contained an Oye Como Va jam.
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Start of a three show run for me, summer tour 2012. The first time Phish played Birmingham in a long time, and strangely my first time at Oak Mountain, I’d somehow managed to never see Panic there during their big run of shows in the early 00’s. We had a big group of friends for this run and it was a great time. Interesting inforoo tidbit, I was sitting next to a guy and we started chatting before the show, somehow determined we were both on inforoo. He didn’t want to tell me his screenname, said all he did on inforoo was troll by saying that Drake should play Bonnaroo so he could watch people get mad.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 08/25/2012 AARON'S AMPHITHEATRE AT LAKEWOOD Atlanta, GA SET 1: Cars Trucks Buses, Wolfman's Brother, Runaway Jim, Ya Mar, Alaska, My Soul > Wilson > Maze, Roses Are Free > Backwards Down the Number Line > Character Zero SET 2: Kill Devil Falls > Golden Age > Free > Light > Wading in the Velvet Sea > Chalk Dust Torture[1] -> What's the Use? > Joy > Run Like an Antelope ENCORE: A Day in the Life [1] Unfinished. Page teased Eleanor Rigby in Maze. Chalk Dust was unfinished.
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Highlight of the show was when Chalkdust went into What’s The Use?, which is one of my favorite Phish songs. Otherwise it was just an OK show. We were on the lawn, just like I was at my first show at this very venue. The Lakewood lawn kind of sucks.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 08/26/2012 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE - CHARLOTTE Charlotte, NC SET 1: AC/DC Bag > The Moma Dance > Heavy Things, Ocelot, Funky Bitch > Bathtub Gin > Fluffhead > Alumni Blues > Letter to Jimmy Page > Alumni Blues, Tube, My Sweet One,David Bowie SET 2: Crosseyed and Painless > McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters > Mike's Song > Bouncing Around the Room, Axilla > Tweezer > Harry Hood > The Horse > Silent in the Morning > Weekapaug Groove, Suzy Greenberg ENCORE: Big Black Furry Creature from Mars > Tweezer Reprise Machine Gun (Jimi Hendrix) was teased by Trey and Fish before and during AC/DC Bag. During Alumni, Fish stated he didn't have a degree and later said he did. After Alumni, Trey said that Fish did have a degree, adding that they met in 1983 at UVM and that Fish held a very interesting record: the lowest grade point average ever recorded at UVM. Fish added "for a non-fraternity student" and both Trey and Fish joked about Fish's GPA (giving low numbers). Trey added that they were both saved by Page at Goddard and that Page earned $100 for recruiting them to Goddard. Trey introduced Tube and My Sweet One as Fish songs, asking the crowd to count the number of times "you" appeared in the song. There was a delay in starting My Sweet One until Page said they had a lot of interesting stories (about Fish), prompting Fish to immediately start the song. Mike's and Suzy contained Crosseyed teases from Trey. Tweezer contained a Cars Trucks Buses tease from Mike. BBFCFM included Trey singing into his microphone that he raised above his head, playing his guitar behind his head and running around the stage and Mike playing his bass on his knees.
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Final show of our little run. This was a bonkers show, complete with a rare Alumni Blues > Letter to Jimmy Page > Alumni Blues, and a high energy Crosseyed & Painless to open the second set. BBFCM in the encore slot was bananas. There was a hurricane bearing down on Mobile as this show started and we considered driving home after the first set. Glad we didn’t. 12 hour drive home the next day to wrap up my 2012 Phish shows.
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PHISH, TUESDAY 07/16/2013 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA Soundcheck: Jam > Sentimental Lady, Frost SET 1: Kill Devil Falls, Mound > Bathtub Gin, Army of One, Rift, Horn > Possum, Pebbles and Marbles, Ocelot > Cavern > Run Like an Antelope SET 2: Rock and Roll -> Heartbreaker[1] -> Makisupa Policeman > Chalk Dust Torture[2] > Wilson > Tweezer -> Silent in the Morning > Birds of a Feather, Joy > Harry Hood >Character Zero ENCORE: A Day in the Life > Tweezer Reprise [1] Incomplete. [2] Unfinished. Possum contained Horn teases. Heartbreaker was incomplete and Chalk Dust was unfinished. Wilson, Tweezer, Hood and Character Zero all contained Heartbreaker teases.
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PHISH, WEDNESDAY 07/17/2013 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA Soundcheck: Energy -> Gimme Some Lovin' Jam SET 1: Runaway Jim > The Moma Dance, Funky Bitch, Divided Sky, Gumbo, Nellie Kane > Frost[1], Alaska, Guyute, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan > Suzy Greenberg SET 2: Punch You in the Eye > Drowned -> Water in the Sky > Energy[2] -> Fluffhead[3] > Piper > Fast Enough for You > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Mike's Song > The Wedge >Weekapaug Groove ENCORE: Quinn the Eskimo [1] Phish debut. [2] Fish on the Marimba Lumina. [3] Unfinished. Mike teased My Favorite Things before Gumbo. This show marked the Phish debut of Frost. The jam in Energy featured Fish on the Marimba Lumina. Fluffhead was unfinished and included a Heartbreaker tease from Trey. Piper contained Energy quotes.
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Just a two night run Summer of 2013 before we went to Dicks over Labor Day. Honestly night one of this show was the first time I remember Phish during 3.0 really destroying a room, all because of an impromptu version of “Heartbreaker” which was teased throughout the rest of night one and once in night two. Everytime Trey went into that riff the crowd went apeshit.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 08/30/2013 DICK'S SPORTING GOODS PARK Commerce City, CO SET 1: Ghost, NICU, Icculus, Heavy Things, Theme From the Bottom > Esther, The Moma Dance > Ocelot, Stash, Lawn Boy, Limb By Limb, Easy To Slip[1] SET 2: Punch You in the Eye > Sand, Say Something > Walls of the Cave > The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Harry Hood[2] -> Silent in the Morning[2] > Twist > Slave to the Traffic Light ENCORE: Oh! Sweet Nuthin' > Meatstick [1] Phish debut. [2] Unfinished. This show was webcast via LivePhish. Prior to Heavy Things, Trey noted that it shared the same chords as Icculus, but had very different lyrics. This show featured the Phish debut of Easy To Slip. Sand included an Also Sprach Zarathustra tease from Fish. Hood and Silent were unfinished. This show featured the first performance of Oh Sweet Nuthin' since August 15, 2010 (120 shows). Continuing a tradition of wordplay at shows performed at Dick's, the first letters of the songs played at this show in reverse order revealed the message "Most Shows Spell Something."
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PHISH, SATURDAY 08/31/2013 DICK'S SPORTING GOODS PARK Commerce City, CO Soundcheck: Party Time SET 1: Buried Alive, AC/DC Bag > Wolfman's Brother, Yarmouth Road, Fee[1] > Halfway to the Moon, The Wedge, Halley's Comet > Bathtub Gin, Bouncing Around the Room, Mound,Gumbo > Run Like an Antelope SET 2: Chalk Dust Torture[2], Light -> 46 Days > Steam -> Free, Joy > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Tweezer > Backwards Down the Number Line ENCORE: On the Road Again[3] > Tweezer Reprise [1] Trey sang verses through megaphone. [2] Unfinished. [3] Phish debut. This show was webcast via LivePhish and featured the Phish debut of On the Road Again. Trey sang the verses of Fee through a megaphone. Bathtub Gin contained DEG teases from Trey. Chalk Dust was unfinished and contained Manteca teases from Trey and Page. Light included teases of 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover from Fish.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 09/01/2013 DICK'S SPORTING GOODS PARK Commerce City, CO Soundcheck: Ginseng Sullivan SET 1: A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing, Kill Devil Falls, Back on the Train > Rift, Meat > It's Ice > Guelah Papyrus, Divided Sky, Funky Bitch, Cavern, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan > David Bowie SET 2: Carini > Birds of a Feather > Golden Age > Prince Caspian > Piper > Boogie On Reggae Woman > Saw It Again, Mike's Song > Legalize It[1] > Weekapaug Groove, Show of Life >Suzy Greenberg ENCORE: Character Zero [1] Phish debut. This show was webcast via LivePhish. Legalize It made its Phish debut at this show.
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Phish since 2011 I think as an annual tradition of doing a run of shows at Dicks over labor day. The year prior was the infamous “Fuck Your Face” show where the first letter of every song played spelled out “Fuck Your Face”, before they closed the second set with “Fuck Your Face”. Obviously I was not at the FYF show but my buddy was. We were texting during the show, it was fun because the Phish Internet knew exactly what was going on as the setlist progressed but not everyone at the show did because you are at the show. We were texting during “Chalkdust Torture” and at the conclusion of the text convo I said “enjoy your ‘Emotional Rescue’” because I assumed that was next to fulfill the “E” obligation. He thought I was magic for a bit.
Anywho this run of shows wasn’t on the level of the 2012 run but it was still a great time. Dicks is such a great venue, mostly GA, friendly security, chill vibes. The show the first night spelled backwards “MOST SHOWS SPELL SOMETHING” which sent sent Phish scholars on the internet researching if in fact most shows spell something (they do not).
Legalize It was dope for obvious reasons, and this was the debut of Phish playing “On The Road Again” which would become a very sentimental moment many years later.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 04/26/2014 NEW ORLEANS FAIRGROUNDS New Orleans, LA SET 1: Kill Devil Falls, The Moma Dance > Rift, Wolfman's Brother, Lawn Boy, Party Time, Ocelot, Funky Bitch, 46 Days, The Line > Character Zero SET 2: Down with Disease[1] > Birds of a Feather > Twist > Sparkle > Free > Light, Sand, Harry Hood > Cavern, Grind ENCORE: Julius [1] Unfinished. This show was part of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and took place at the Acura Stage. Disease was unfinished. Twist contained teases of Birds and Streets of Cairo.
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Not too much to say about this show other than it was fun seeing Phish at Jazzfest. Nothing particularly notable.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 08/01/2014 AMPHITHEATER AT THE WHARF Orange Beach, AL SET 1: Chalk Dust Torture, The Moma Dance, Heavy Things, 555, Rift > 46 Days, Tube, Devotion To a Dream, Wolfman's Brother, The Ballad of Curtis Loew, Free > Character Zero SET 2: Down with Disease[1] > Theme From the Bottom > Tweezer > Prince Caspian > Waiting All Night > Fuego > Slave to the Traffic Light > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Boogie On Reggae Woman -> Run Like an Antelope ENCORE: Bouncing Around the Room > Tweezer Reprise [1] Unfinished. DWD was unfinished. Fuego included a brief Tweezer jam. Antelope contained Munsters theme and Boogie On teases. Fish quoted Setting Sail in Tweezer Reprise
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PHISH, SATURDAY 08/02/2014 OAK MOUNTAIN AMPHITHEATRE Pelham, AL Soundcheck: Sing Monica, Wombat SET 1: AC/DC Bag > Poor Heart, Cities, Kill Devil Falls, Reba > Possum, Sample in a Jar, Funky Bitch > Maze, Ocelot > Sparkle > Cavern, Wingsuit SET 2: Carini > Ghost > Mike's Song > Simple > Joy, Weekapaug Groove > Julius, Sand > Wading in the Velvet Sea, You Enjoy Myself ENCORE: Quinn the Eskimo Ghost contained San-Ho-Zay and Simple teases
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PHISH, SUNDAY 08/03/2014 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA SET 1: My Soul > Bathtub Gin, 555, Pebbles and Marbles, The Line, Vultures, Fast Enough for You, Back on the Train > Taste, Gumbo, Halfway to the Moon, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, Suzy Greenberg SET 2: Chalk Dust Torture[1] -> Scents and Subtle Sounds[2] > Twist > Fuego > The Wedge > Light > Harry Hood > First Tube ENCORE: Fluffhead [1] Unfinished. [2] No intro. This show was webcast for free via LivePhish. Suzy Greenberg contained a quote of Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan by Trey. Trey teased Call to the Post before CDT. Chalk Dust Torture was unfinished. Scents and Subtle Sounds was last played on September 2, 2011 (109 shows) and did not have the intro. Harry Hood featured a duel section in which Trey traded solos with Mike, Fish, and Page in turn.
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Nice little summer run here. Notable that the Orange Beach shows is the closest Phish has played to my home, 45 minute drive. The Sunday Alpharetta closer was a strangely emotional show, it was like the audience wasn't even there and the band were just playing with themselves, but in a good way if that makes sense.
PHISH, THURSDAY 01/01/2015 AMERICAN AIRLINES ARENA Miami, FL SET 1: Tube, Gumbo, David Bowie, Lawn Boy, Undermind, Yarmouth Road, Wingsuit, Poor Heart > Bathtub Gin SET 2: Twist > Piper > Prince Caspian -> Twenty Years Later > Winterqueen, Wading in the Velvet Sea, Run Like an Antelope > Rock and Roll ENCORE: Meatstick This show was webcast via LivePhish.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 01/02/2015 AMERICAN AIRLINES ARENA Miami, FL SET 1: Free, The Moma Dance > Possum, Roggae, Stash, Back on the Train, Sugar Shack, The Line, Ocelot, The Squirming Coil SET 2: Mike's Song > 46 Days > Weekapaug Groove[1], Fuego > Slave to the Traffic Light, Also Sprach Zarathustra > Walls of the Cave ENCORE: Sleeping Monkey > Rocky Top [1] Trey on Marimba Lumina, Mike on guitar. This show was webcast via LivePhish. Weekapaug included a Stash tease from Trey, quotes from The Birds, and featured Trey on Marimba Lumina and Mike on guitar.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 01/03/2015 AMERICAN AIRLINES ARENA Miami, FL SET 1: Maze, AC/DC Bag > Divided Sky, Cavern > Scent of a Mule, Plasma, Devotion To a Dream, Water in the Sky, Split Open and Melt, Character Zero SET 2: Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan > Down with Disease[1] > Light -> Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley > Sand > Harry Hood > Suzy Greenberg ENCORE: Good Times Bad Times [1] Unfinished. This show was webcast via LivePhish. Mule included a Smoke on the Water tease by Trey. DWD contained an Axilla tease from Trey and was unfinished. Hood included a Happy Birthday tease by Trey and an Auld Lang Syne tease from Mike. The Birds was quoted in Suzy.
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I actually skipped the 12/31/15 show to stay in town with my wife, but drove down on the first to catch the last three shows of the run. This is the last time Phish played Miami for NYE, since then it’s always been at MSG. AAA is a great arena, clean with good sound. The absolute highlight of this run for me was the transition from Light -> Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley. I was with my long-time Phish companion Avon and when they went into Sneakin’ Sally with both kind of lost our minds. Total goosebumps, hugging, jumping up and down, that kind of stuff.
Here is me eating something in miami.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 07/31/2015 AARON'S AMPHITHEATRE AT LAKEWOOD Atlanta, GA SET 1: Prince Caspian > No Men In No Man's Land, Ghost, The Wedge, The Moma Dance, How Many People Are You, Rift, Mike's Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove SET 2: Kill Devil Falls[1] > Martian Monster[2] > Twist -> Back on the Train -> Reba[1], Bathtub Gin ENCORE: Farmhouse > Character Zero [1] Unfinished. [2] Trey on clavinet and drums, Mike on drums and guitar, and Fish on bass. KDF was unfinished. During Martian Monster, Trey joined Page on clavinet and Trey and Mike both joined Fish on drums. Fish then played Mike's bass with Trey and Mike still on drums before Mike left to play Trey's guitar. Reba did not contain the whistling ending. Bathtub Gin included the whistling portion from Reba, a Reba tease from Page, a Funkytown tease from Mike, Apostrophe teases, and a Kill Devil Falls quote.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 08/01/2015 AARON'S AMPHITHEATRE AT LAKEWOOD Atlanta, GA Soundcheck: Jam, Scabbard (x4) SET 1: Runaway Jim, Undermind, Nellie Kane, Blaze On, Halfway to the Moon, Ocelot, Heavy Things, Theme From the Bottom > Run Like an Antelope[1] SET 2: Tweezer > Waiting All Night > Backwards Down the Number Line > Carini > Waste > Sand > Tweezer Reprise ENCORE: Rock and Roll [1] Lyric changed to "Mike-O Esquandolas." Trey teased Sing (Joe Raposo) in Ocelot and Happy Birthday in Heavy Things. Antelope's "Marco Esquandolas" lyric was changed to "Mike-O Esquandolas." Tweezer contained Maria and Mercury teases.
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To me and many other fans, 2015 was when 3.0 Phish really started somewhat consistently destroying crowds again. Trey had just filled the Jerry slot for the Grateful Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” shows, and many think working with Bob Weir helped him to quell his urge to cut jams short. You can see this reflected in how few songs are in the setlists, particularly in set two of this run. The jam in “Kill Devil Falls” from night one is incredible, 20+ minutes IIRC, but even better is the flawless set II of night 2. A monster Tweezer > a dreamy Waiting All Night, an incredibly joyful “# Line” which miraculously didn’t kill the flow of the set at all (Trey’s energy and enthusiasm during the song was so clear it was impossible to be a hater), into a spacey and completely out of control Carini which just ruined everyone’s brains, a wonderful “Waste” into a sick Sand > a tweezer reprise to wrap things up. On paper it’s a set that could have been killed by a few of the slower songs but they all actually fit in perfectly.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 08/02/2015 TUSCALOOSA AMPHITHEATER Tuscaloosa, AL Soundcheck: My Soul, Jam SET 1: Sample in a Jar, Chalk Dust Torture, Train Song, Devotion To a Dream, Meat, Maze, The Line, Roggae, My Friend, My Friend, 46 Days > Cavern SET 2: Down with Disease[1] > Camel Walk > Seven Below > Fuego > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Harry Hood > Possum ENCORE: A Day in the Life [1] Unfinished. MFMF contained a Very Long Fuse quote. DWD was unfinished.
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After the Atlanta shows we drove down to Tuscaloosa. It was a pretty fun show, fun lot, lots of my Alabama friends running into old friends. Show itself was cool but nothing particularly notable. Afterwards we drove the 4ish hours home through the night which was fun, I remember we listened to Future a lot on the ride home. Suitable dark highway music.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 08/21/2015 WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL Watkins Glen, NY SET 1: Simple > The Dogs > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Avenu Malkenu > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Free, Happy Birthday to You, The Wedge, Mock Song,Roggae > Rift > Bathtub Gin SET 2: Chalk Dust Torture[1] > Ghost -> Rock and Roll > Harry Hood -> Waste > No Men In No Man's Land -> Slave to the Traffic Light ENCORE: Farmhouse, First Tube [1] Unfinished. This show was webcast via LivePhish and was the first show of the Magnaball festival. Bathtub Gin contained a Tequila tease from Page and Time Loves a Hero teases from Mike. TMWSIY and Avenu Malkenu were played for the first time since July 4, 2012 (124 shows). After Free, Trey asked the crowd to sing Happy Birthday to his daughter, Eliza, who briefly joined him onstage as he sang to her. Mock Song was played for the first time since July 12, 2003 (320 shows), and featured a lyric change to "Clifford, Super, Magnaball." CDT contained a What's the Use? tease and was unfinished. Hood contained a CTB tease from Mike.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 08/22/2015 WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL Watkins Glen, NY SET 1: Divided Sky, The Moma Dance > Mound, Army of One, Scabbard > Sample in a Jar, Tube, Halfway to the Moon, Camel Walk, How Many People Are You, When the Circus Comes, Undermind > Run Like an Antelope SET 2: Wolfman's Brother, Halley's Comet > 46 Days -> Backwards Down the Number Line > Tweezer > Prince Caspian SET 3: Meatstick > Blaze On -> Possum > Cities -> Mind Left Body Jam > Cities > Light > 555, Wading in the Velvet Sea > Walls of the Cave ENCORE: Boogie On Reggae Woman > Tweezer Reprise SET 4: Drive-In Jam This show was webcast via LivePhish, was the second show of the Magnaball festival, and marked the first Mind Left Body Jam since November 13, 1998 (473 shows) Caspian included a Tweezer tease.The Fourth Set Drive-In Jam started with the band playing behind the "Drive In Movie" screen that had been created for the festival. Slowly, their silhouettes became visible and the ambient jam veered towards a full on band jam while the screen simultaneously showed fractal like images of close-ups of the band. Eventually, the band was visible.The Drive-In Jam included a Fireworks tease from Mike and a Little Drummer Boy tease from Page.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 08/23/2015 WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL Watkins Glen, NY SET 1: Punch You in the Eye > Buffalo Bill, A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing > Limb By Limb, Waiting All Night > Theme From the Bottom > Maze, The Line, Stash, Reba, I Didn't Know[1], Character Zero SET 2: Martian Monster > Down with Disease[2] -> Scents and Subtle Sounds[3] -> What's the Use? > Dirt > Mike's Song > Fuego > Twist -> Weekapaug Groove[2] -> Martian Monster ENCORE: You Enjoy Myself [1] Trey thanked the crew, production staff and local officials. [2] Unfinished. [3] No intro. This show was webcast via LivePhish and was the third show of the Magnaball festival. Trey teased The Tears of a Clown before Punch You In the Eye. Buffalo Bill was played for the first time since June 22, 2012 (134 shows). Trey thanked the fans, crew, production staff and local officials during I Didn't Know while Fishman "sucked love" on his vacuum. Down with Disease was unfinished. Scents did not have the intro. Immigrant Song was teased in both Twist and Weekapaug Groove. Mainstreet was teased in Weekapaug Groove, which was unfinished. YEM contained a Brick House tease from Mike, Sanity quotes in the vocal jam, and culminated with a quote from The Very Long Fuse and a fireworks display.
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Avon and I went to this one together. It was his first (and so far only) Phish festival. It was a super special weekend. Notable moment in the first day was when three songs in they busted into “TMWSIY > Avenu Malkenu > TMSIY”, a song neither Avon or I had heard since our first shows together at Alpine Valley six years prior. Very emotional friend moment and we had a good hug.
We ended up meeting some guys from Detroit who were Phish newbies and hung out with them all weekend. Awesome group. Musical highlight of the weekend was the Tweezer > Prince Caspian. Tweezer was jamming and when Trey switched into Caspian it took the wind out of everyone’s sails for a bit, but then the Tweezer jam “returned” during Caspian and it was incredible.
The secret set Drive In jam was also awesome.
PHISH, SATURDAY 09/03/2016 DICK'S SPORTING GOODS PARK Commerce City, CO Soundcheck: Dogs Stole Things, My Soul SET 1: Slave to the Traffic Light, Down with Disease, What's the Use? > Maze, Farmhouse, 555, Wolfman's Brother, Divided Sky > Rock and Roll SET 2: Fuego > Sand > Blaze On -> Simple[1] > Twist > Theme From the Bottom > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Harry Hood ENCORE: The Squirming Coil[2] [1] Trey on Marimba Lumina. [2] With closing bass solo. This show was webcast via LivePhish. Simple featured Trey on Marimba Lumina. Squirming Coil ended with Trey, Fish, and finally Page walking off, leaving Mike to take a bass solo to finish the song for the first time in Phish history.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 09/04/2016 DICK'S SPORTING GOODS PARK Commerce City, CO Soundcheck: Dog Log, My Soul SET 1: The Moma Dance > Chalk Dust Torture, Mike's Song > Wingsuit > Weekapaug Groove, Party Time, Bathtub Gin > Split Open and Melt, Tube > Character Zero SET 2: Crosseyed and Painless > Steam -> Piper[1] > Light > The Lizards, First Tube ENCORE: Walls of the Cave [1] Trey on Marimba Lumina, Mike and Page on percussion. This show was webcast via LivePhish. Trey teased San-Ho-Zay during Weekapaug and teased Crosseyed during Steam, Piper, Light, First Tube and Walls of the Cave. Piper featured a Fishman-driven improvisation with Trey on Marimba Lumina and Mike and Page on percussion. Piper, Light, First Tube, and Walls of the Cave also included Crosseyed quotes
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Back to Dicks, two years later. I missed the first show due to a cancelled flight. But these shows, particularly Sunday, were very very special shows. Nothing spelled out, no gimmicks, just straight up killer Phish from beginning to end. Highlight of the show was the second set of night three. I just kind of felt a Crosseyed and Painless opener was coming and that’s what we got. Steam -> a bonkers Piper which somehow ended up in a lengthy percussion/drum solo, psychedelic noise > Light, from whence emerged The Lizards. Goddamn when I heard those first notes I got teary-eyed, looked to my left at a stranger who was also teary-eyed and we hugged through the beginning of the song. Then First Tube to destroy what was left of the venue, and a poignant “Walls of the Cave” to close out one of the finest emotional fan shows I’ve seen.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 10/16/2016 JACKSONVILLE VETERANS MEMORIAL ARENA Jacksonville, FL SET 1: Kill Devil Falls > The Moma Dance > Back on the Train, Undermind, Nellie Kane, Stash, Petrichor, Mike's Song > Bouncing Around the Room, Weekapaug Groove SET 2: Crosseyed and Painless > Steam > Piper > Wingsuit, Sparkle > The Wedge, Wading in the Velvet Sea > Run Like an Antelope ENCORE: The Ballad of Curtis Loew, Character Zero This show was webcast via LivePhish.Crosseyed was teased in Steam, Piper, and Antelope.
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A one off show, we drove the five or so hours to Jacksonville for this Sunday night show. This was a friend of mine’s first show. Over the years I’ve tried to get many many people into Phish, bombarding them with album or show recommendations, giving them long ranting monologues about the importance of Phish, etc. During that time I’ve converted exactly zero people to Phish fandom. Well this friend of mine had expressed interest in seeing Phish some time, this show came up, I asked if he wanted to go. He agreed. I did not recommend anything to him. He did a bit of his own research via youtube, but given the immensity of the Phish canon he said he wanted to go into the show knowing very little about Phish and just let the experience wash over him.
Before the show this new friend and Avon were both vaping. Security didn’t like that and KICKED THEM OUT OF THE SHOW without a warning. They were sitting outside as the show began looking pitiful, some rando fan waltzed up to the show to go in and asked what’s wrong. They shared their story and dude straight up gave them two tickets. They were back in the show by the second song, texted me, and we switched seats to the other side of the arena to avoid the ire of the security guard that kicked them out.
On paper this was just a regular Phish show, but it was really special to my newbie friend. He got a “Run Like An Antelope” which made me so happy, if everyone could get an Antelope at their first show I would make it so. He was converted to Phish fandom without any effort on my part.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 10/21/2016 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA SET 1: A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing, AC/DC Bag > Back on the Train, Blaze On, Sugar Shack, Things People Do, Birds of a Feather, Mercury, Let's Go, Alaska, More SET 2: Down with Disease[1] > Carini > Winterqueen, Ghost > Possum, Slave to the Traffic Light ENCORE: Loving Cup [1] Trey on Marimba Lumina; unfinished. This show was webcast via Live Phish. Trey teased Sneakin' Sally and No Men In No Man's Land in Back on the Train. The Birds was quoted at the end of BOAF. DWD contained I Dream Of Jeannie theme, Shine, and Manteca teases, featured Trey on Marimba Lumina, and was unfinished. Trey teased Cat Scratch Fever in Ghost and Streets of Cairo in Possum.
PHISH, SATURDAY 10/22/2016 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA Soundcheck: I Always Wanted It This Way (this soundcheck is incomplete) SET 1: Mike's Song > Ass Handed > Weekapaug Groove, Waiting All Night > Sample in a Jar, Bathtub Gin > Rift, Stash, Funky Bitch, Your Pet Cat > Character Zero SET 2: Run Like an Antelope, Fuego > Runaway Jim, No Quarter > Simple > 46 Days -> Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley -> 46 Days ENCORE: Makisupa Policeman > First Tube This show was webcast via Live Phish. Simple contained Saw It Again teases from Fish.
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Two show run to wrap up our Phish Fall plans. Good group for this show, including a sponsee of mine going to his first sober show. Night one was cool, really killer second set, but the best part of the run was the run to close night two set two. No Quarter is always awesome, as is Simple, but then Trey went into 46 Days, and I swear I think they played it for less than two minutes before he slipped into the riff for “Sneakin’ Sally” and they were just like “screw it” and went into the full song before going back into a monster 46 days to close the set. Makisupa in the encore slot was unexpected and delightful, “First Tube” to beat the arena to death for the close.
PHISH, FRIDAY 08/04/2017 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN New York, NY SET 1: See That My Grave Is Kept Clean[1], Punch You in the Eye > Party Time, Big Black Furry Creature from Mars, Dinner and a Movie, Ocelot, Poor Heart, Winterqueen, Bold As Love > First Tube SET 2: Dem Bones, No Men In No Man's Land > Everything In Its Right Place[1], What's the Use? > Scents and Subtle Sounds[2] > Prince Caspian > Fluffhead ENCORE: Frankenstein[3] [1] Phish debut. [2] No intro. [3] Page on keytar. This show was night eleven of Phish's Baker's Dozen run at Madison Square Garden and had a lemon donut theme. Donuts with a lemon poppy seed glaze were given to fans arriving at the venue. This show featured the Phish debuts of See That My Grave Is Kept Clean and Everything In Its Right Place. Mike teased The Brady Bunch Theme in BBFCFM. Dinner and a Movie was last played on July 21, 2013 (164 shows). Scents did not have the intro. Everything In Its Right Place was quoted in What's the Use?, Scents, Caspian, Fluffhead, and before and during Frankenstein. No Men In No Man's Land was quoted in Scents. Frankenstein featured Page on keytar. This show was webcast via Live Phish.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 08/05/2017 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN New York, NY SET 1: Soul Shakedown Party, Uncle Pen, The Sloth, Gotta Jibboo, Fuck Your Face, Sunshine of Your Feeling[1], Frost > Scent of a Mule, Fire, Alaska > Plasma SET 2: Ghost > Petrichor > Light > The Lizards, The Horse > Silent in the Morning > Quinn the Eskimo > Rocky Top ENCORE: Joy [1] Debut. This show was night twelve of Phish's Baker's Dozen run at Madison Square Garden and had a Boston Cream donut theme. Donuts with a dark chocolate glaze and vanilla cream icing were given to fans arriving at the venue. This show featured the debut of a medley of Cream and Boston songs, called Sunshine of Your Feeling. It consisted of teases and quotes of Sunshine of Your Love, More Than a Feeling, Tales of Brave Ulysses, and the Long Time portion of Boston's Foreplay/Long Time. The Long Time section of the medley contained White Room quotes as well as Sunshine of Your Love and More Than a Feeling teases. Sunshine of Your Love was also teased in Mule, Plasma, and Quinn. Trey teased Jean Pierre in Alaska. Frost was last played on July 17, 2013 (168 shows). This show was webcast via Live Phish.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 08/06/2017 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN New York, NY SET 1: Dogs Stole Things, Rift, Ha Ha Ha, Camel Walk, Crazy Sometimes > Saw It Again > Sanity > Bouncing Around the Room, Most Events Aren't Planned[1], Bug, I Been Around,Izabella SET 2: Simple[2] > Rise/Come Together > Starman, You Enjoy Myself, Loving Cup ENCORE: On the Road Again > Lawn Boy Reprise > Tweezer Reprise [1] Phish debut. [2] With Page on theremin. This show was the thirteenth and final night of Phish's Baker's Dozen run at Madison Square Garden. Donuts with a pink glaze and rainbow sprinkles were given to fans arriving at the venue. Sanity included quotes of Everything In Its Right Place, Saw it Again, and Very Long Fuse. This show featured the Phish debut of Most Events Aren't Planned. I Been Around was last performed July 27, 2014 (119 shows). Izabella was last performed July 31, 1998 (574 shows). Simple contained Izabella teases and featured Page on theremin. YEM contained an Izabella tease and The Lizards, White Winter Hymnal, and Everything In Its Right Place quotes in the vocal jam. Prior to the encore, a banner commemorating the Baker's Dozen run was raised to the ceiling of Madison Square Garden. On The Road Again was last performed August 31, 2013 (155 shows). Mike and Fish performed the beginning of Weekapaug before Tweezer Reprise. This show was webcast via Live Phish.
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I don’t know what I can write about the Baker’s Dozen that has already been written before. Summer 2017 Phish played 13 shows at MSG without repeating a single song. Each night was themed around a different donut flavor, and they handed out donuts at the beginning of every show. We chose the last three shows of the run, but honestly you could have gone to any show of this run and had an incredible experience, there isn’t a single bad show out of all 13. Got my first ever “The Sloth” on night two, which was the last song I was really chasing. Other highlights included a rare and flawless “Izabella”, a tearful “On The Road Again” to encore in the final night, and the most ripping roaring Tweezer Reprise I’ve ever seen live.
Me with the famous spicy chicken sandwich.
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PHISH, FRIDAY 08/03/2018 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA SET 1: First Tube, No Men In No Man's Land, Ghost, All of These Dreams > Back on the Train, Free > Martian Monster, Tube > 555, Walls of the Cave SET 2: Tweezer > Blaze On > Prince Caspian > Carini > Simple > Winterqueen > Harry Hood ENCORE: More This show was webcast via Live Phish. Trey teased No Men In No Man's Land in Back on the Train. Carini contained Chest Fever teases.
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PHISH, SATURDAY 08/04/2018 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA SET 1: Bouncing Around the Room, Chalk Dust Torture, Fuck Your Face, Wolfman's Brother, Things People Do, Lengthwise -> Maze, Waiting All Night, Divided Sky, Character Zero SET 2: Crosseyed and Painless > Soul Planet > A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing -> Piper > Possum > Slave to the Traffic Light ENCORE: The Squirming Coil This show was webcast via Live Phish. The Birds was teased in Chalk Dust. Trey teased L.A. Woman in Character Zero.
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PHISH, SUNDAY 08/05/2018 VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE AT ENCORE PARK Alpharetta, GA SET 1: You Sexy Thing, Tweezer Reprise > What's the Use? > Petrichor > Most Events Aren't Planned, Vultures, Reba[1], Sand SET 2: Taste > Golden Age > Twist > Waves > Fuego > The Mango Song > Bathtub Gin > You Sexy Thing Reprise ENCORE: Fee[2], Also Sprach Zarathustra [1] No whistling. [2] Trey on megaphone. This show was webcast via Live Phish. Reba did not contain the whistling ending and featured You Sexy Thing quotes from Fish. Trey teased What's The Use? and You Sexy Thing in Taste. Golden Age contained Reba whistling and teasing. Fee featured Trey on megaphone. Trey forgot some of the lyrics of Fee and told the crowd after the song, "We'd like to end the show now with something we remember all the words to." He then began 2001, encouraging the fans to help them out. 2001 contained You Sexy Thing, Tweezer Reprise, Petrichor, and Rhapsody in Blue teases.
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Kind of crazy that almost twenty years into my time with this band that I could have one of my favorite runs ever, but these three shows in Alpharetta Summer 2018 is some of the most fun I’ve had at Phish show. The last night in particular was so much fun, so carefree and chill. “You Sexy Thing” opened the show and it would be referenced and teased multiple times throughout the sets. Also a random Tweeprise in the second slot, right into a personal favorite, “What’s the Use?”, and I was almost completely exhausted just a few minutes into the show. 2001 is another personal favorite and I was excited to close the show with it.
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know you realize that life goes fast - It's hard to make the good things last-you realize the sun doesn't go down - It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round
5.5/four tet, daphni b2b floating points, avalon emerson 5.12/neil young 5.19/mannequin pussy 5.21/serpentwithfeet 5.25/hozier 6.12-16/bonnaroo 6.28/goose 6.29/goose 9.17/the national + the war on drugs 9.23/sigur ros 9.27-29/making time 10.17/air
postjack
Which Ditch Bridge Troll Wannabe God-King of the Cone
Joined: September 2011
Posts: 27,893
Member is Online
Great job, postjack. Do you actively take notes during or shortly after seeing Phish, or did you gather those details from the internet?
Ah shit I should have given credit. The setlists and show notes are from Phish.net. then below the show notes on each show or run are my personal thoughts or story around the show.
edit: added a note to the OP giving credit to phish.net for setlists and technical show notes.
added to OP under magnaball. this was probably already posted in the other thread. this is a just video to watch if you want to get an idea of what exactly a phish "jam" can sound like. great pro shot where you can really see what all the members are doing. as noted in the OP when the band left a fantastic "tweezer" jam to go into caspian everyone couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed, but then they returned right back into the structure of the tweezer jam during caspian and took it even deeper.
EDIT: just got through relistening, this jam is also a great example of a peak. goddamn at the end it feels so effortless.
