12-12-97 Pepsi Arena, Albany, NY
1: Funky Bitch-> Also Sprach Zarathustra-> Camel Walk, Taste, Bouncing Around the Room, Tweezer -> Train Song, Character Zero
2: I Saw It Again*#-> Piper*-> Swept Away-> Steep, Prince Caspian*-> Izabella, Tweezer Reprise
E: Guyute, Run Like An Antelope**
*With long jam not usually a part of the song. #With “Llama” teases. “Llama” teasing continued throughout the set. **With “Buried Alive” teases; lots of stop/start jamming.
This is a great show… strange one but a good one … Great Funky Bitch opener just pumping with energy then an extremely funk 2001 -> My favorite Camel Walk. Nice smooth short Tweezer -> Train Song. I love Train song as a breather. This second set though … opens with THE wildest I Saw it Again ever played. Seriously this produces a wacked out jam comparable to the Brother from Island Tour. Then goes into my favorite Piper which clocks in at 19 min with the long intro and is pure fire then Swept Away > Steep which is always a chill/wierd combo. And then my favorite Caspian as well, with a weird extended jam… pretty cool. Then it segues nicely into Izabella and the rest of the show is pretty much self explanitory. Sick Antelope encore. Definately not up there at the top with some other Fall 97 shows but definately a great, creative, exploratory show that is worth a few listens for sure.
i hadn’t seen phish since august so I was psyched. I was really fucked up on the wrong drugs but I still had a blast! I remember thinking that Isaw it Again >Piper was totally improvised lyrics and all…I was close…I never liked prince caspian until i heard the recording of this show…and the encore was a special treat…
yeeeeeeep…this show is the bee’s knees. I love the Funky Bitch->2001->Camel Walk opening trio. A first set Tweezer is always a treat. This one doesn’t really measure up to some of the other epic 97 Tweezers but it’s not bad.
The second set though is Phish mind-fuckery at its greatest. There’s really not much I can say about it because it’s almost indescribable. I used to sneak out of my window onto the roof and smoke a couple bowls while my mom was sleeping, then sneak back in and put the tape of this second set on my headphones and lay in bed with all the lights off quite often. Good times.
As stated above this Funky Bitch > 2001 > Camel Walk opener is top notch and so funky. Fishman segues into 2001 so smoothly too. I picked up on it pretty quickly and once he dropped into 2001 I realized I was just about to start dancing at my desk. This was one of the Augustus’ Picks from a few years ago. I still have them all on my work pc but this trio is making me stream the rest of the show. Happy 15th!