The Spectrum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Soundcheck: Funk Jam, Uncle Pen
Set 1: Llama, Foam, Sparkle, Cavern > Reba, The Landlady, Split Open and Melt, Poor Heart > All Things Reconsidered, Bouncing Around the Room > Run Like an Antelope[1]
Set 2: Maze, Glide, The Curtain > Tweezer > Rift, Guelah Papyrus, You Enjoy Myself, Hold Your Head Up > If I Only Had a Brain > Hold Your Head Up, The Squirming Coil > Golgi Apparatus
Encore: Ride Captain Ride > Tweezer Reprise
[1] Simpsons, Random Note, and All Fall Down signals.
Teases:
· All Things Reconsidered tease in Bouncing Around the Room
· All Things Reconsidered tease in Run Like an Antelope
· The Ballad of Davy Crockett tease in You Enjoy Myself
Notes: This show marked the band’s first headlining performance in Canada. All Things Reconsidered was teased by Trey in Bouncing and Antelope. Antelope also contained Simpsons, Random Note, and All Fall Down signals. YEM contained several Davy Crockett teases in the song and was also sung in the vocal jam. Ride Captain Ride was played for the first time since April 14, 1990 (337 shows).
Def the show I’ve enjoyed the most so far out of all the LSD. Llama comes out get gates guns-a-blazing. Trey puts in some quality work in the solo and Fishman is on point during this one. I absolutely love when they play Foam early first set (my all time favorite show opening sequence is Runaway Jim, Foam). Playing songs like Foam and Reba early in the first set shows they’re warmed up and ready to dive into the harder songs from their catalogue. Foam has (pretty much) always been my favorite Phish song. I have no reason to critique it at all and it doesn’t ruin my listening experience but the missed notes always stick out to me. Besides a few early notes by Page they absolutely nail this one. The trey solo is spot on and even though he is low in the mix Gordon is right there with him. Great version! To my surprise, Sparkle had been played almost 100 times at this point. A standard Cavern gives way to Reba and they nail this one too. The Chase portion is spot on and they do a great job with the jam. The rest of the set is great with a nice tight jam in Split and a rocking Antelope, which closes out a stellar first set.
Maze opens up set 2 and picks up right where they left off. Never been a big fan of Glide. The Curtain > Tweezer sequence is the highlights of the show for me. I really enjoyed the jam portion of Tweezer. Geulah is always nice to hear and the YEM that follows has a lot of energy and is played very well. Thought Coil was going to end the second set but they squeeze one more song in, Golgi.
Ride Captain Ride was quite a surprise (I don’t look at the setlists before listening to LSD shows). Page’s lead vocals are great on this one and it sounds like they enjoy playing. Trey even rips a nice solo too. Reprise ends the show and really wraps up a great night of music!
OMG man. Really strong set. Lots of material I love, and rendered really well.
A few general things came to mind about Phish while I listened to this show today. First, it can’t be overstated that these four people are just excellent musicians. I find myself amazed all over again at just how good they are. And in 1992, they were so well-oiled, and so creative … hitting their instruments hard, singing strong … Page and Trey sound like brothers sometimes, their phrasing is so tight on the vocals. Trey, especially, sounds fantastic when he’s got a giant smirk on all night.
I don’t even want to talk about the guitar tone or shredding in that era; it’s an embarrassment, as someone who aspires to play the guitar well, to listen to someone dominate the game that way. Llama and Landlady stood out for me as jaw droppingly good. As I often do, I imagined the thoughts of someone hearing this music for the first time and really discovering it for themselves. I remember specifically thinking that during Landlady. That song is really something, so much going in with every instrument, and harmonically there are some out-of-the-box choices that get me wondering. Where’d they learn this shit. ::quits music::
Maze is really good! It occurred to me at some point that Rift didn’t get released til February '93 or something, so all the Rift material is ‘new’ at that point.
Glide, I don’t know, I like Glide a lot. I wish they wouldn’t do that ‘Divided Sky’ style pause. They always come in shaky on the harmonies when they finally come back. And the pause isn’t actually fun. Despite that some are fooled into thinking it is.
The Curtain is simply fucking goddamn awesome.
Tweezer’s jam was pretty fun … but honestly I was more entertained by the antics of the main song delivery.
The song is full of amazingness, especially when it’s done real well.
I think this Rift was perfect. It was pretty close if not. What a masterpiece of a song, Jeebus. Again, don’t want to talk about it.
Guelah’s weird to me … it struck me as a strange placement, like a bathroom break kinda thing here. I like the track but I have a hangup about the vocals. Why does Mike not sing his chorus part like the record, live? He just holds the note on ‘work’, instead of going up a whole step & down again. This change kinda diminishes the effect of the chorus background vocals IMO, and thereby the whole song – that’s a key element to the chorus. Kinda reminds me of how I miss the Split Open & Melt lady from the Lawn Boy version. Plus: another live DSky style pause before “So maybe I could be a fly” that kinda messes with the delivery of the vocals on reentry. Oh well, it’s otherwise well executed, and the Asse Festival’s pretty hawt.
YEM was smooth … lots and lots of Davy Crockett teases, obvious and less obvious ones. Weird placement in a way on that one too, but maybe it wasn’t in those times. I don’t remember feeling one way or another about this version, except that Trey’s a fucking space alien on the lead guitar in 1992, and you can tell when you listen to sections of this version of YEM.
If I Only Had A Brain is a nice treat; I don’t think I’ve heard more than a couple of those. But it wasn’t that great. I like the vacuum solos generally, but it wasn’t a great fishman spot.
Coil is just such a great song, in general. This version is really really good. Trey nails his part, if you’re into that. I think it’s not a perfect version, but it’s really good. Golgi is awesome. The vocals are hilariously good.
Ride Captain Ride isn’t my tea cup. Tweezer Reprise is though. Fuck yeah.
What a fun first set. Near perfection through out. The Split Open and Melt had an excellent jam, ideas of '93 Melts coming through at points. And the playing around of All Thing Reconsidered throughout Bouncing and Antelope was a lot of fun. Antelope, much like Split Open, much like Reba, had an on point jam that just kept coming at ya.
What I have heard of the second set, they do not stop the onslaught of energy and jamming. Maze gets out of the gate fast, and after a beautiful Curtain the band quickly drops into Tweezer. I absolutely loved this one and it is my favorite part of the show so far. The “Hood/Slave” section (thats what was going through my head) of a melodic quietness followed by a loud thrashing was pulled off perfectly. Can not say enough about this Tweezer. And the segue into Rift was shockingly good.
Guelah is decent. But the You Enjoy Myself is excellent. At first the Davey Crockett teases threw me for a loop. I was pretty sure that was what I was hearing, but I figured I may be crazy and it is just similar to some other song being teased. Good thing the vocal jam proved I wasn’t completely nuts. Excellent YEM all the way around though. Also excellent was the If I Only Had a Brain. Loved Trey staying on guitar. And loved Fishman singing through the vacuum. Squirming Coil and a Golgi to close it out in a fine fashion.
Really nice encore, with a cover that I can’t stand the original, but find it infectiously addicting when Phish plays it. And the always great Tweezer Reprise, even caught me off guard.
Overall most excellent show. The highlight for me is the Tweezer.
This Tweezer is awesome! Starts major immediately, a mesmerizing-I Am Hydrogren-like groove. This is classic Phish contrast. So silly but so musical still.
This recording is really nice, and you can really hear the fucking impressive work Fishman does during Rift especially.
Like Will said, Reba, Antelope, and Melt are on point and raging. Nothing out of the ordinary for this time period, in which everything was delivered with jaw dropping laser beam power.
Also, I immensely enjoyed Foam. Trey’s solo was really creative. Davy Crockett teases in YEM are beautiful
I like the vacuum solos generally, but it wasn’t a great fishman spot.