the first night was definitely a mess, but there really wasn’t any bad moments in the last two shows, just nothing spectacular except jibboo>twist from second night and halley’s>tweezer from third night—yem is pretty sweet too
What were the dates of vegas 97? I don’t know anything about those shows, or show
11-13-97 Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV
1: Chalk Dust Torture, Black-Eyed Katy*, Theme From the Bottom, Train Song, Split Open and Melt, Beauty of My Dreams, My Soul, You Enjoy Myself**, Character Zero
2: Stash, Punch You in the Eye, Prince Caspian, Bouncing Around the Room, Mike’s Song**-> I Am Hydrogen^-> Weekapaug Groove^^
E: Loving Cup
*First time played (original; funky instrumental; related to “The Moma Dance”). **Intro to “Green River” (Credence Clearwater Revival) before “I Am Hydrogen.” ^With “tweaked out” Trey solo stuff at start. ^^Fish started slowing down the beat, then Trey sped them up…to “double time.”
This is a great, but underated and undertraded show. I have not heard it since that night. Does anybody have this one???
I don’t, but I want a copy too.
I agree as well. Vegas is intense and I thought, and still do, it’s a great place to see Phish.
I only saw one Vegas run (2000) but I had a great time. There were some great moments over those two nights (Kid Rock’s appearance notwithstanding) and both shows are never far out of the rotation for me.
However, when you’re up playing blackjack at 6:30 am after being at the show and partying all night because you CAN’T get to sleep and you blame it on the pure oxygen being pumped into the casino…well, that pretty much sums it up.
I absolutely agree with gamecat, three days is plenty in Vegas. The flight back from Vegas to New York for me has always been awful because of how beat up my body was.
I’m sure the last Vegas run had a tremendous influence in Trey’s decision.
This shows is awesome. I don’t have it anymore but I used to listen to it all the time.
Thanks for the support cubbiefan. You definately have a place to crash next time you’re out here.
I’ll follow my mom’s advice here (“If you don’t have something good to say about something, say nothing at all”) and say that Emerson, Lake & Palmer played a great show at the Thomas & Mack in 1992, with the one end walled off by a curtain. Otherwise, Vegas, oy…
At some point, I hope somebody writes a good, thoroughly researched bio of Phish that tells it like it was. Too many of the books on them I’ve read have been pretty uncritical and almost make it seem like they never had any major blow ups or disagreements in 21 years. Anyone that’s ever been in a band will tell how impossible that is. Trey’s admitted in interviews that he could be a tyrant, and I’d like to hear those stories. I want to know how the band dynamics worked and how decisions were made etc.
As for the break up, Phish fans should consider themselves really lucky. I mean, my favorite band Emerson, Lake & Palmer are almost a textbook on how NOT to run a career. They were easily one of the best bands in world from 1970-1974, making great albums and consistently ranking as one of the top 2 or 3 live acts each year. They took their music as far as it could go and toured so much, they were burnt out. They went on a 2 1/2 year hiatus, came back and were nothing like their old self. In fact, Emerson wanted to break up but Lake & Palmer begged him to keep it going. He blackmailed them by saying “We only stay together if we do a tour with an orchestra”. An orchestra in the year of punk! Idiots. They blew through all the money they’d made in 1970-74 to support the orchestra and musically, it sucked too. They had to tour for almost 15 months straight just to recoup the money they’d lost and have some to live on.
They broke up in 1979, and then reformed in 1992 when nothing was happening in their solo careers. Emerson had a nerve disorder in his arm and Palmer had carpal tunnel syndrome and Lake had totally thrashed his voice, so for the most part, they couldn’t play their classic stuff like they used to. They put out two waaaay weak albums and toured until 1998. By the end, Emerson and Lake were barely talking to each other. I saw the second to the last show here in Los Angeles and I was depressed for days after it. They obviously hated playing together and didn’t give a shit anymore; ELP really had become the nostalgia act that Phish were worried about becoming. They should have broken up for good after the Brain Salad Surgery tour in the fall of 1974 and stayed that way.
After Big Cypress might have been a good time for Phish to have broken up.
Well, they didn’t break up…and thank god for that…or else I would have never seen them. Some bands run out of energy and ideas and creativity, but I just don’t see that in phish. Their jamming focus means they never play the same show, and they always can do something different to keep the satisfaction going.
Maybe I can see them running out of energy after the age of 50, but not now…please! not now
read a review after the Vegas 04 shows and the writer said a few of the exact same things Trey said in his letter to us. ie: We don’t want to become caricatures of ourselves or, worse yet, a nostalgia act. I don’t remember who or where I read that, but I remembered seeing those words after Trey’s letter. I bet Trey read that article and it freaked him out and opened up that can of worms…
i’m pretty sure i snagged that 97 vegas show from etree recently…i might try and figure out how to re-seed it for yall, but probably won’t be able to…pm me if you’re still after it.
I was at the first Thomas & Mack Center gig in Nov 97 and it was GREAT! Stash was out of this world.
Here’s a classic flyer for this show:
I love the Bruce Lee… GREAT STUFF!
They really did destroy America that fall, too.
They sure did! They definetely brought the heat and funk.
“No one will be admitted during the last ten minutes due to the incredible ending”
That’s great.
what a fucking awesome poster. I did kinda remember them promoting the tour as Phish Destroys America. That was an extremely fitting motto, especially in hindsight.
I am listening to that show right now (11/13/97)…this is tight baby…First ever Black-Eyed Katy…second song in and they are bringing the funk hard…I don’t know that it destroyed america, but fuck if it didn’t blow some minds.
what a fucking kick ass poster. goddamn that is one fine piece of ass. i would hit it. i have to confess something: i want to be on it.
how was the twist from the second night???
I assume you mean the Vegas 04 run. I’ve read it was really good, like most of the post-hiatus Twist’s.
I talk about that twist all the time. I absolutely love it.
Anyway, back to the topic of this thread. I’ve been thinking about this lately, and I think both the Miami and Vegas runs may have played equal parts in causing Trey to come to his decision in May 2004. Vegas, because it OBVIOUSLY highlighted Trey’s drug problem, and just overall showed how much being the leader of such a large organization was wearing on him.
Miami is so much different than Vegas though. The quality of the shows and the energy of the band was so much better. I saw this run, and it was the best week of my life. Also, band members talked about how the Miami shows were some of their best ever. However, Trey, in an interview that was recently posted here somewhere, talked a lot about how post-hiatus (although I don’t think this is entirely true–they did play a lot of new songs, but they did rely on older tunes to “make” the show), they seemed to be playing the old songs more, and becoming stagnant.
In Miami, they played like four new songs, and most of them were slow tunes (anything but me, Friday).
I think Trey, looking back on this run, may have realized that his band could become a nostalgia act. They had a great time, and put on some great shows, but they relied mostly on older material.
I don’t know if this was just used as another excuse to cover up the real reason for the breakup (the drugs, bigness of it all), or if it really did play a large part in the decision of “ending” it. If that’s the case, when phish does come back, I would expect even less “songy” setlists, and more jamming and new songs. I bet less than half of the songs they play would be from before “Farmhouse”.
Anyway, I’m getting pretty speculative here…I’ll end this rant.