4.29.1990 Video: Subliminal Surgery Footage (!?)

Phish Live Shows
#1

I was watching this lovely bit of footage of the band playing at a small ski lodge, enjoying some wonderful early Phish when something mildly disturbing and very suprising popped up on screen.

At two instances I can tell, once during the second vocal section of Possum and once during the second vocal section of Fluffhead, the image suddenly cuts to what appears to be abdominal surgery taking place on a human. It then cuts back to the show within a second.

What is this? Does anyone know how this got there? Did the ski lodge put it in the promo video themselves? Did a bootlegger along the way put it in there? It’s not the kind of thing Phish themselves would put there…

#2

or maybe they would, trey did steal a hand from his college

#3

Popped up on the TV screen that you were watching it on?

Or was there a screen somewhere on stage that displayed this image?

#4

I have heard this elsewhere before…

I have this on DVD, and have never seen it on my copy. So it must have been put in somewhere along the line.

#5

From what I’ve heard, you can’t actually see the surgery unless you slow it way down and pause at the right time. Otherwise you just see a tiny flash of static on screen.

#6

Well, some cases are like that. However, the shot duing the last verse of Fluffhead lasts long enough for you to realize you are looking at gloved hands holding intestines coming out of an abdomen.

I’m actually starting to wonder if this is intentional at all. At a few moments when it happens, it only fills half of the screen and is almost obscured by VHS “noise”. For instance, Page’s organ is still visible during the clips (and he’s not the one being operated on). The white lines that show up are also indicative of an overused VHS tape and imminent bleedthrough. I’m almost wondering if somewhere between the original promo VHS and this transfer someone copied it over one of those in-the-surgery-room documentaries on TLC, but his tape deck some unstable heads.

It’s ironic that of all the bands this could happen to, it happens to the one with the most dedicated and responsible bootlegging fanbases. I’m pretty sure this is sourced form promo VHSes given out by that ski lodge, so I hope one day someone will find an original instead of a first-gen copy over a used tape (regardless of what’s on it).

#7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4tFX51imvQ

around the 9:38 mark. gross.

#8

I see a foot…maybe an elbow…ooh was that a vagina?

#9

there’s a hoof

god i love goodfellas

eh henry want the hoof?

#10

I’ll take the wing.

Now go get yer fuckin shine box!

#11

that part is great, he stabs him in the neck with a pen, that’s gangster, i like how spider is micahel imperilazair or however he spells that name of his, he is christopher from sopranos

#12

^ watch the movie Jungle Fever. Not only is it spike’s best but half the cast of Goodfella’s is in it! Including Michael Imperioli.