6 years ago tonight Phish played one of my favorite shows ever. Roughly midway through their final Japanese trek, the band were on fire throughout this summer mini-tour. The first set, like the best post-96 first sets, has a bit of everything: new songs, old songs, great jams, a great segue, and lots of fun. Starting with a typical and typically great Carini, the band manages to work in one of their most laid back and mellow Cities ever before a genius transition jam from Gumbo into Llama. This is my favorite part of the set: the Gumbo jam starts off like a lot of '00 space: Trey loops and the barest sketch of a groove smoothered in ambience. Soon Page really lays on the keyboards for a minute or two, inspiring Mike to begin a rollicking bass groove that itself inspires a truly unique jam that straddles the line between Talking Heads-ish funk groove and Llama’s fiery blasts. After cooling down with a rare Fee (with unfortunate/funny feedback on Trey’s mic during the opening line and a Fishman “Asian” woodblock signal) and then-new Heavy Things, the band shows how a mature and wise unit could rock a Split Open and Melt, with patiently intense and intensely patient work from all involved–Trey milks his lines for all they’re worth. The set ends on a truly spaced out note, Trey warming up his effects pedals for the journey to come while advising us to intermit and “take nourishment, both spiritual, liquid, and solid…as we will, whilst we intermit.”
The second set is where this show becomes a true classic instead of a simple great show. Those of us blessed with Live Phish 04 know what I’m talking about in resounding clarity. It’s the perfect mix of '00 era Phish, chasing rootsy rock with deep space exploration. Begin with the best Back on the Train ever (I’ve heard the 2/28/03 version, and frankly this one trumps it). This one is all type I soloing, to be sure, but it’s the best kind of type I soloing in which every member appears to be trading ideas and hooking up for brilliant couplets while Fishman powers the steam train toward the launch pad. Beginning on Earth with Twist, the song slowly coils its way into the stratosphere like a leaf falling in reverse. Hanging there for a bit as Phish brings the spaceship to bear, they end the song in a wave of Trey noise loops and Fishman cymbal crashes before the band pick up on the idea: warp speed. Sounding like a lost cousin to the Ghost intros of the era, the jam (with a capital J) quickly becomes an interstellar roller coaster, with a driving rhythm beamed from Earth courtesy of Mike and Fishman while Trey and Page paint the starscape outside the windows. We hit a blackhole and Trey’s bouncy guitar directs us through a winding corridor of the fourth dimension before we’re back on Earth, grooving to a slow but wonderfully surprising Walk Away. The black hole that had spit us out on Earth swallows us again, warping Trey’s guitar into Dali-esque abstractions. This next stretch of jamming is indescribable–like the universe itself were folding and unfolding on the strands of Trey’s feedback laced strings, Mike’s Grand Canyon deep basslines, Page’s spare piano nebula clusters, and Fishman’s exploding astral drumming. Soon we are spit back out again only to find ourselves at the dawn of time, witnessing the birth of the universe and then dancing our asses off to celebrate the bouncing baby we’ll all be born from with Mike’s liquid funk groove bass.
After all that innerspace/outerspace intensity, what better way to cool off than to recall how it feels to fall asleep, have a great idea, and then wake up only to forget it?? (And how often do ya hear audience requests go acknowledged and fulfilled anyway?? 12/14/95, right?!) Chase that enchanted cocktail with a beautiful-if-a-bit-predictable Squirming Coil in full bloom under Page’s radiant outro soloing and you’ve got yourself a must hear show.
6/14/00, Drum Logos, Fukuoka, Japan
Set I
Carini, The Curtain, Cities*, Gumbo -> Llama, Fee, Heavy Things, Split Open and Melt (1:05)
Set II
Back on the Train, Twist -> Jam** -> Walk Away -> Jam -> 2001 (1:10)
E: Sleep#, Squirming Coil
*With alternate lyric “it’s only the noodles.” **Sounds like “Ghost” at first, but then turns into heavier jam. #Per audience request.
