12-30-97 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

12-30-97 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

1: Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley-> Taste, Water in the Sky, Punch You in the Eye, Stash, Chalk Dust Torture, A Day in the Life

2: AC/DC Bag*-> McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters^, Harpua#-> I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)@-> Harpua-> Izabella-> Harry Hood%-> My Soul, Sleeping Monkey, Guyute$

E: Carini-> Black-Eyed Katy-> Sneakin’Sally Through the Alley-> Frankenstein&

*With “Crosseyed and Painless” jam. ^Unfinished. #Very little Jimmy/Posternutbag comment; instead, Trey’s life-changing experience in the 4th grade (1974, 10 years old): sitting, eating french toast and watching “Lost in Space” (a Saturday morning ritual) Trey realized that Will Robinson and the robot were in the same field as the one behind his school and were sending him telepathic messages, which led to him to collect food and bring it to that field, where he found a pentagram, placed the food and saw his own future, including the band and a figure in white singing (Tom Marshall) though he knew neither. @Proclaimer’s cover (from the “Benny and Joon” soundtrack); Tom Marshall on vocals. %With lights down and a glow stick war, and also unfinished. $Before “Guyute,” Trey explains that they don’t know if they have enough time for one more song, but that there’s one more he wants to play…he said they would not encore. After Guyute, the lights did not go on. Page, Mike, and Fish returned to the stage. Finally, Trey came on and the encore started. &Trey has “Toph” (Chris Kuroda) bring the lights down and re-starts the glow stick war during a delay jam which featured he and Fish in some sort of dance ritual at the front of the stage, Fish on vacuum, and then finally just Mike’s bass and Trey’s guitar loop before finishing Frankenstein.

This Bag is absolutely brilliant. I can’t believe there’s no discussion of this show. I wanna know more about it ! :slight_smile:

Dude this was one of the best shows i have ever seen. I walk in the lights go down and they play Sneakin Sally!!! I could not have been happier as it was always my favorite Phish cover… The 2nd set was fantastic! Bag was sick and well the set list really speaks for itself. THe best part though was the 3rd set. They broke the labor union’s curfew by playing so late so since they were paying for it they played a mini set that totally ripped. Sneakin Sally again! seriously??? It was probably quarter after midnight when it was over so we were calling it a NYE show…
This show was so good that I sold my real NYE ticket and instead celebrated my friend’s birthday with him…

&Trey has “Toph” (Chris Kuroda) bring the lights down and re-starts the glow stick war during a delay jam which featured he and Fish in some sort of dance ritual at the front of the stage, Fish on vacuum, and then finally just Mike’s bass and Trey’s guitar loop before finishing Frankenstein.

I just watched the LivePhish video of this portion of the show (again) and man that Frankenstein is funny. So, during the delay jam before Fishman gets on the vac, he just steps out from behind the kit, goes to the front of the stage, right in front of Trey and starts swaying back and forth, just staring into the crowd. Then Fishman goes out of frame and Trey is wavin’ the 'Doc around and also starts swaying. Then Fishman re enters the frame, continues swaying while Trey is walking around the stage w/ the ‘Doc, wavin’ it around. Camera pans back and shows Fishman heading back to the kit like he’s gonna finish this one up but Trey comes up behind him as he’s heading back and must’ve said something about getting the vac going during the delay jam. So there comes Fishamn w/ the vac and as he’s playing, you can see Trey scuttling back and forth behind him gathering up the glowsticks on stage, then yells ''Toph" and the lights go down. Then the camera pans back again and all you can see is glowsticks coming from the stage as Trey is tossing them back into the crowd. As they finish up Frankenstein, Trey has lost his guitar signal and he’s banging on his pedals trying to get it back but it’s not coming. A roadie comes out and shows him that the ‘Doc is not even plugged in. Too funny! Even after he plugs the guitar in, he doesn’t quite get the signal back until like the very last couple of notes to end the night. If I was there, I’d be laughin’!
This made me think of Hartford '09 w/ the Pong jam and w/ Trey goofin around and Fishman coming up front to ‘dance’ to the jam.

I loved this show! I went with a few of my lifeguarding friends from high school - none of us had never even heard the song Harpua before even though we’d seen Phish a few times by then because most of our parents didn’t have internet in 97 (ha) & the only live Phish CD we had at that point was A Live One.

We were right next to Page in the 300 section of MSG (side stage view). It friggen blew us all away! We were hanging on Trey’s every word while he was going through the udderball story & everyone around us cracked up when Tom Marshall came out and sang 500 Miles. We knew that we were seeing something truly special even though we weren’t totally sure what it was.

This is one of the few shows that I keep in my ipod & listen to on the regular (that Carini is dirty!). I definitely appreciate it way more now than I did back then even though I had an amazing time.

Oh and it took me 13 years to get another Harpua at Alpharetta.

What f%cking planet did Trey beam up to during this Izabella. Fish can’t contain himself.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O351eKdGopU[/youtube]

^ Even though Trey never quite gets the song right… Phish playing Izabella is usually an energy-filled amazing time.