04-17-92 Warfield Theater

Phish Live Shows
#1

Friday, 04/17/1992 Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA

Set 1: Runaway Jim, Foam, Sparkle, Stash, I Didn’t Know, Cavern, Reba, Maze, Bouncing Around the Room, The Landlady > David Bowie[1] -> Catapult[2] -> David Bowie

Set 2: Brother, You Enjoy Myself, Fluffhead, The Squirming Coil, Tweezer, Uncle Pen, Cold as Ice > Cracklin’ Rosie > Cold as Ice, Tweezer Reprise

Encore: Golgi Apparatus

[1] All Fall Down, Random Laugh, Simpsons, and Oom Pa Pa signals.
[2] Debut.

Notes: Bowie included All Fall Down, Random Laugh, Simpsons, and Oom Pa Pa signals, as well as the debut performance of Catapult interwoven with Bowie’s closing segment. The curtain rose at the start of the second set to reveal Steve McConnell sitting in a large bathtub on stage. As the band played Brother, band friends and crew members danced across the stage and jumped into the tub with him. Widespread Panic opened.

#2

First off, the sound quality of this show is amazing. It opens up with a highly used and always effective Runaway Jim, Foam combo. I wish they kept this opening combo around more often past the mid-90s. Stash just rips from front to back. Trey is on fire during the solos and Page is doing a great job keeping up with him. Reba, man where to begin. This Reba is played to perfection and the jam segment is one of the best I’ve heard from the early 90s. Trey is really hitting his notes but Fishman may be the man of the song. Maze picks up right where the Reba jam left off. Mike comes out a blazing in the jam segment. As flawless as everything else was, the real treat comes at the end of the first set. Most people who had a tape of 1992-07-25 (with Santana) were familiar with this David Bowie > Catapult > David Bowie as it was a filler on side B. After an extended intro, which features a lot of secret language, this Bowie has the band firing on all cylinders. Trey takes charge halfway through the jam and seems to be playing all 4 instruments as everyone is on the same page throughout. As Bowie is winding down Trey gives the guitar a quick breather and starts singing the first verse of Catapult then rips the Bowie ending. Everyone else joins in at the second verse and this goes back and forth intertwining with the Bowie ending until all four verses of Catapult have been sung. Once complete, they build up the last Bowie outro riff and close out the set.

Second set starts off with Page’s Brother in a bathtub. Now it’s time for business. They kick into a very meaty set with another flawless song. YEM gets funky as hell and is really where Mike shines. He starts laying it down early then just owns the final jam segment before the vocal jam. Each time Fishman seems like he hits the last symbol, Mike decides to keep pouring it on. What other technical song can they play next? Well, Fluffhead of course. Yet another classic nailed. Page is definitely the man in charge on this one. The mix is so good for the Page/Trey chase segment I had to replay it a second time. Squirming Coil might be the first time I heard Trey not nail the technical portion of the song. By no means am I being picky, just pointing out how unconscious they were during all the constructed portions of the songs. Page’s outro solo is short but well played. Being in the middle of the set it seemed like he was anxious to start up the next tune instead of playing an extended solo. Trey joins in for some of the solo and noodles around in pace with Page. The intro build up by Fishman is nice and they get into this Tweezer with authority. Pretty standard Tweezer for the early 90s. The band and crowd seem to be having fun during the Cold as Ice > Cracklin’ Rosie > Cold as Ice segment. Reprise closes out the second set with emphasis. All in all this is a very well played show and probably one of the better ones of 92.

#3

This is one of the first shows I acquired when I started getting into these guys and it is still one of my favorites. I think it was because of the bowie>catapult>bowie. Everything booztravlr says is absolutely correct, especially the quality of the recording. Highly recommend.