Im at 30%
phish biography?? sweet, gotta go pick that up, I wonder if its in bookstores?
Keep rewarding that kind of post with attention and responses and he’ll keep making them. It’s as simple as that. 
^very good point…consider my post deleted
I remember that message. It was only up for a few hours… right before summer tour I think. That was the closest insight to mike’s frustration I’ve seen. Also, comparing his stage presence with his solo band compared to that with phish is very different. He seems to be having more laid back fun at his solo shows. Who really cares though as long as the boys are making amazing music.
There was no Chalkdust acoustic at 8, man. And as for Trey on methadone or vyvanse, I highly doubt it. That is what rehab is for…and he is not a leader of a “Drug Cult” .
Just requested mine from the library.
Cannot wait to read this. My best friend just bought it and I had the chance this weekend to skim through it and read a few pages. I love how they broke it down into sections that each reveal interesting stories from each era of Phish… I will be picking this up in the coming week. I am sure I will read the whole thing in one or two days! HAHA!
An interesting blurb I just read stated that you could argue that you could break Phish’s timeline into 2 parts: AC (After Clifford (Ball)) and BC (Before Clifford (Ball)). A demarcation line of sorts, I suppose.
What is everyone’s thoughts on this? Is there a definitive “midway” point or “high” point in Phish’s career where, in theory, it was the top of the mountain then everything else is downhill? Is Big Cypress the top of the mountain? I think he argues that the Clifford Ball, being the first huge Phish festival, was a culmination of everything up to that point. Which is certainly no doubt true.
Just curious what the older fans think, and I’d like some newbie perspective too, of course. And everyone in between. 
Phish peaked in '04.
I am sure it differs from person to person, but all four members have openly said many times that Big Cypress was the culmination of their entire career. That everything was leading up to that moment. There are even points in the IT DVD where they refer to Big Cypress as the height of their career, that everything afterwards just seemed like a bonus.
For me, however I did not get to experience those earlier days of Phish. Of course the music was always instilled in me having a Dead-head for a father, but was not able to understand or travel to see the band until PH. I have managed to cram in 30 shows since 7.17.03! My point being, the top of the mountain for me, had to be the New Years run of 03/04! Everything before those shows was fantastic IMO, and everything afterwards was trick or treat. You never knew what you were going to get, and a lot of it was crap. Now they are climbing the mountain again, leading to some crescendo!! Where that will be for me, I do not know yet, but I will continue to travel with them to find that next peak.
2009 was like a repeat of 1998 in my mind. That’s really fuckin’ good.
^^^Without the obvious 
I’m going to have to disagree here. 2009 was…well 2009. Very little resembled the Phish I loved in the mid-late 90’s, especially 1998. Don’t get me wrong in saying that; I still very much enjoy the band, but there was jamming/energy/cohesiveness left to be desired for me. Now that the “bust out” year is over I am hoping 2009 will be what 90-92 was to the band - a catapult to the next phase of great improvisational Phish music.
I kinda happen to disagree with the Clifford Ball statement. The Ball was purely a test in my eyes where the end result was overwhelmingly in their favor. What I mean by this is that The Ball was the first modern version of its kind. Sure, there had been other music festivals previously that were called “festivals” — Monterey Pop for example or even Woodstock. However, there had never been or at least not to my knowledge a festival completely dominated by one musical act. The Dead didn’t even do it.
So, I think the Ball really was only a test to prove Phish’s staying power and the devotion of their fans. Obviously it was a complete success. So, the promoters did it again and again and again — The Great Went, Lemonwheel, Oswego, Big Cypress, and continuing onto 8. Yes, the Clifford Ball was the first; on the other hand, it was not the culmination of what Phish truly is. It was simply the culmination of what is arguably Phish’s greatest touring years: 1992-1996.
Yes, The Ball was a great time to being catching the boys. However, it was the end of the decade that really was the culmination of what was Phish at its absolutel peak. I might be biased considering I was one of those 75,000 attendees of Big Cypress, but hey, I was at The Went too. By 1999, Phish had put on 5 festivals, conquered Europe and Japan, and were considered one of the greatest touring acts of the 1990’s. If there was ever a high point in Phish’s career, Cypress would indubitably be it.
I believe there IS a line of demarcation in Phish’s career: BC (Before Cypress) and AC (After Cypress). Was Big Cypress the top of the Mountain? I think so. Was everything after Big Cypress a slide to their decline and what everyone thought was their demise in 2004. Maybe. Like Trey said in the Charlie Rose interview and like I previously mentioned, Phish were at their absolute peek at the end of 2000. They weren’t exactly sure what the move would be after that morning on the Reservation because they had already conquered so much already! What the hell were they supposed to achieve next?
This is why The Ball statement is baffling to me. After the Ball, Phish could do no wrong. They could practically conquer the world, and, arguably, they did! After Cypress, the band was at a bend in the road. Maybe they should have taken a hiatus then instead of waiting until 2002? Maybe Trey could have gotten his act together? Maybe we would have gotten our beloved boys back a little sooner?
I don’t know. I am just a stupid fan. Tell me to shut the fuck up!
I would agree that the Clifford Ball is the equator or line of demarcation and here’s why.
First , and while I don’t pretend to have ever been in the know and don’t like to contribute to rumor and conjecture, there were a lot of rumblings going on at the time that the band was seriously contemplating breaking up after that summer of '96. Those rumors were substantiated to a degree by the new playing style they emerged with in 1997 and the new philosophies incorporated into the writing of new material post 1996.
I think at the end of that summer they knew they needed to make some changes within the group dynamic in order for all four of them to want to continue as Phish. And they succeeded. I mean ,one only needs to pull one of the many legendary 1997 shows for the proof.
The funk had come to the forefront, and a new more democratic way of playing had come to life. Trey’s methods of composing and charting out each bandmembers assignment before any of them even stepped into the studio had been replaced by the band jamming together in the studio and then writing new material based on those sessions
I think the Clifford Ball was such an incredible experience for the Band that they looked at each other and said “Look at this! This is unbelievable! We gotta sit down and figure out how we keep this going!”
I think theoretically you could probably make arguments for both BC and the CB as being a “dividing line” in Phish’s career.
The fact that it was the first HUGE festival for Phish strengthens the case for the CB, in my opinion. That’s not to say that everything after that was downhill. Of course it wasn’t. In fact, most of my favorite Phish comes after the CB. But as far as significant events and turning points in Phishtory, the CB is clearly a line of demarcation.
My take on the “BC” and “AC” is that the author was making a statement about the fan/band relationship, which lead to some musical changes and extra-curricular activities during shows which had some impact on future approaches to albums.
Prior to the CB, the author makes the argument that the band had a much easier time mingling with the crowd, whether it be before, during, or after shows (one example is the secret language that works well in smaller venues, but doesn’t quite cut it in larger ones with larger crowds), and after the CB the band began dealing with much larger venues and crowd sizes (and he makes the argument that Jerry’s death had something to do with Phish’s swelling fan base, offering that the band might not have gotten so big if the GD still had Jerry). He even remarks on how the band didn’t even believe so many people would show up, and that they were a little worried that they might not be able to connect more personally with such a huge audience.
There’s also the argument that the band began to grow tired of too many jokes in their shows, and wanted to focus on music and changing the way they jammed (ie the blowout rock ‘n’ roll climactic jams replaced by repetitive groove-oriented, group-driven jams) thus attracting some members of the Dead crowd who were used to the laid back, dance-able jams and not the sporadic antics of early to mid 90’s Phish.
With a bigger crowd comes more security, less personal interaction with the crowd, and as a result, the party moving backstage. The author even said that they placed a sign with “The Betty Ford Clinic” on the door of the room that the band and friends would party in, stocked with so much alcohol that a visiting Stuart Copeland remarked on how impressed he was with one of the best backstage parties in rock ‘n’ roll he’d ever seen.
I’m in agreement that Big Cypress was the culmination of their career before their breakup (I’m still unsure, as most of us are, how to take 2009 phish and beyond), but I can definitely see a clear divide as a result in the growth of the band after the Clifford Ball.
On p. 146, it states that at the NYE 1995 show that the first set was highlighted by "jazz keyboardist Eumir Deodato’s disco Remake of Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra (better known as “2001”).”
Ooops.
i agree, fingers crossed