08-10-97 Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN

Phish Live Shows
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#1

08-10-97 Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN

1: Bathtub Gin-> Sparkle, Down With Disease, Dirt, Cars Trucks Buses, Billy Breathes, Split Open and Melt*, Bye Bye Foot, Ginseng Sullivan, Harry Hood

2: Cities**-> Good Times Bad Times-> Rotation Jam#-> Rocko William, David Bowie^

E: Cavern

*With a “Third Stone from the Sun” (Jimi Hendrix) jam. **With “Listen to the Music” (Doobie Brothers) jam. #Page to Theremin (solo), Trey to keyboards, Mike to guitar, Page to bass, Mike joins Trey on keyboards, Trey joins Fish on drums, Mike takes piano solo, Fish to guitar…and into “Rocko William.” ^With a long intro (9 min).

#2

This show is tits!!! Gin opener = greatness. Nice Disease. The next three are a little slow but, hey i love CTB. But MAN does this Melt steal the show. Clocks in around 18 min and absolutely SMOKES. Trey is on fire right from the get go. Then they drop off and space it out quite a bit and this section contains some really really out there interplay between the band, that somewhat remninds me of the 7-29 Antelope earlier this tour. Then seemingly out of nowhere trey brings back the Melt theme at an absurdly fast tempo for this song, and absolutely tears this climax to complete shreds. The Cities in the second set is good, while a little drawn out. Definitely worth an occasional listen though. This bowie is a pretty smokin closer too. Never have been a huge fan of the rotation jam though. Wouldve rathe hear a GTBT -> Jam with member on their instruments. but then again who doesn’t love a good theremin solo? Nice Cavern encore as well. But yeah if you haven’t heard this Melt, HEAR IT NOW!!!

#3

This is one of my favorite shows I attended, but I’ve talked to people that said they thought it was weak. I don’t get that. This show contained a lot of “firsts” for me too. The Gin opener is tight as hell and then they played a nice DWD that was more reminiscent of the earlier versions rather than the current type 2’d DWDs. In other words, it scorched. A few shorter tunes and then the best SOAM I’ve ever seen tied only with the Cypress one. The shit is on fire in this jam, you just have to hear it. A couple other short tunes before Hood closes the set in a beautiful fashion. Not necessarily a ‘noteworthy’ version by any means but just as well executed and a nice finish to a great first set.

This second set I found to be amazing. My first Cities was a fucking champion…I can see how you could feel it was a bit drawn out, but like each and every one of the places it went. And, the turn from Cities to GTBT is just fucking perfect. It pretty much blew my mind when Trey hit those first two chords at the show because they seemed to just come out of nowhere. I am not a fan of rotation jams, except this one. Not because I was at the show, but because Fishman stays on the drums until the last minute to play Rocko William. He lays such an awesome fucking beat during this little jam that I still consider it one of the best things he’s ever played. And all of this craziness comes out of GTBT, which is just awesome. It all seemed so bizarre (in the good way) during the show and I guess I just thought it came off great, not boring, like others seem to think. Who doesn’t love a good Rocko William? I guess probably plenty, but I thought it was a fun tune and glad I saw them play it, not least of all standing in what was still then a giant cornfield (ie children of the corn reference). Bowie always has been and always will be one of my favorite songs ever, and I really love this version. The intro is great and unlike some extended Bowie intros, which I don’t get into, I dig this one. Really cool stuff going on between Trey and Mike during the intro. I feel like they pushed the dissonance to the brink of insanity during the Bowie jam. Truly awesome IMO.

Great show, glad I was there. A special night for me. Plus it was the first time I caught my Dad blazing…you should’ve seen the look on his face after the Melt :laughing: