^ My money is on the Antelope. Especially if it is outta control.
It has been years since Phish has played a show a fun as last night’s. I miss that kind of stuff.
Happy Anniversary for my first Phish show, 21 years ago today:
DARIEN LAKE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Darien Center, NY
Soundcheck: Buffalo Bill, The Old Home Place, Funky Bitch, Crosseyed and Painless
SET 1: Ya Mar, Funky Bitch > Fluffhead, Limb By Limb, Free, Cars Trucks Buses, Tela > Train Song > Billy Breathes, Run Like an Antelope
SET 2: Chalk Dust Torture, Love Me, Sparkle > Harry Hood -> Jam > Colonel Forbin’s Ascent -> Merry Pranksters Jam[1] -> Camel Walk, Taste
ENCORE: Bouncing Around the Room, Rocky Top
[1] Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.
The second set featured a remarkable jam after Harry Hood ended and before Forbin’s began, as well as an appearance by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. The Merry Pranksters Jam contained a Somewhere Over the Rainbow tease from Trey, an If I Only Had a Brain tease, a Spam Song quote, and a Frankenstein jam.
^Hi, Bill!
Sweet show to have as your debut. I’m getting close to my 20-yr anniversary too. I feel old.
I’m just over 18 years from the storm that blew Columbus down…
Just hit my 20th over the weekend (Vernon Downs). That Darien Lake show was supposed to be my first but my cousin got married that weekend and I had to give up my ticket.
Was also at the Columbus one from above. Summer Tour 2000 was a lot of fun. First and only time at Deer Creek and Polaris.
I with I could say the same for this current summer tour. Overall, I’m not impressed. I’ve listened to a lot of songs from every show (up to 10-Aug right now, but I skipped both Camden shows) and there aren’t many standouts, and I’m referring to both songs and shows, that I’d consider coming back to down the road. That first monster Set Your Soul Free was great but other than that nothing has had me eager enough to give a re-listen. The Jim/Antelope that I’m sure people will reference looks way better on paper than in my ears. The Drowned won that set anyways, imo. If I had to vote, Gorge night 3 (22-Jul) has been my favorite so far.
[edit] After I wrote this, I finally got to the YEM from 10-Aug. Definitely one of the better songs I’ve heard from this tour.[/edit]
There are a number of shows that I have loved so far this summer, but the tour as a whole has lacked the consistency that Fall 14, Summer 15, or all of 17 had. Yoni has suggested that they are focusing their attention elsewhere (learning a Halloween album). Fone has suggested that the weather and travel schedule of an aging band and fan base are disrupting the usual shared energy. Both seem plenty plausible.
Prior to Tahoe, I had a goofy little mantra in which I stated that 2017 was an unusual year, and if summer 2018 doesn’t measure up to it, that doesn’t mean it is a bad tour. I stand by this. I have thoroughly enjoyed just about every other show, and I have found bits and pieces that I liked in every show.
From: Re: 08-10 Raleigh, NC
Haha, nailed it!
Weather/travel schedule definitely seem very plausible. Didn’t really think about those factors. Speaking of which, Watkins Glen is being bombarded with so much rain right now it’s reached the ‘State of Emergency’ level. I’m just east of Syracuse and it’s been monsoon-like here all day. Hopefully this passes and doesn’t cause too much damage before people start arriving on Thursday. Wish I could go but I’ll now be 0-3 at festivals there. Someday, dammit.
On a brighter note, night 2 MD has sounded a lot better so far. Just starting Curtain With. Although, I gotta say night 1 MD, set 1 really looks like a rough one on paper. I just skipped the whole show.
I’m just over 18 years from the storm that blew Columbus down…
Was that the one from 7/14 where they stopped for 25 minutes after opening with Sample? I was at that one too. Luckily I was in the pavillion far enough to avoid getting soaked.
I’ve listened to a lot of songs from every show
But not the whole shows…
I with I could say the same for this current summer tour. Overall, I’m not impressed. I’ve listened to a lot of songs from every show (up to 10-Aug right now, but I skipped both Camden shows) and there aren’t many standouts, and I’m referring to both songs and shows
Sometimes I think that I’m just listening to different shows from some people. I don’t get where this comes from. And, no standouts? Georgia night 1 was one of the better shows I’ve heard in years. I give up even trying to figure out the negativity.
^People are judging the tour in the shadow of BD. That’s the simplest explanation I can think of.
^People are judging the tour in the shadow of BD.
I guess that makes sense. But it does seem that if this latest year isn’t somehow better than the last then that means folks are “not impressed.” Just kind of comes off as the standards being impossibly high.
Can’t wait for this weekend either way.
Although, I gotta say night 1 MD, set 1 really looks like a rough one on paper. I just skipped the whole show.
Judging shows on setlist alone? For shame!! 
Let me just say that I’m glad others are enjoying these shows so please don’t misinterpret my comments as being a jaded fan. This is a message board so not everything is going to be praise; critiquing and slandering are two different things. I’m not trying to spread negativity or anything, just commenting on my opinion of what I’ve heard.
With that being said, feel free to give me a run down of your top songs from this tour so I can make sure to listen to them again.
No, mainly because I don’t feel like only listening to Phish for a month straight but also because I have yet to find a song on Big Boat that I enjoy listening to. Plus, some of the older songs are more routine now so unless I haven’t heard it in a while I’m likely skipping over a straight forward Poor Heart, All of these Dreams, Back on the Train, Wedge, etc. I’ve always enjoyed the exploratory side of phish so I lean towards the lengthier songs when choosing what to listen to. The straight forward stuff, Phish isn’t as consistent as they once were. I’ll get my fix from Zappa, Miles Davis or James Brown if I want to hear what a tight practicing band can do on stage. But that’s what’s so great about Phish, to each their own!
You didn’t copy it over but I did say Gorge night 3 was my favorite so far. I’ll give GA night 1 another listen. The jams in Ghost and Carini seemed very similar to me upon my first time through but maybe I was just distracted by work when they were playing.
Baker’s Dozen? If so, I guess that could be part of it but I honestly didn’t think of it that way. I really don’t like trying to compare current Phish to past Phish because I know they’re not going to be the same, and that goes for all bands. I honestly only listen to Phish when they’re on tour. Occasionally, I’ll throw on an lp or an older show but beyond that I don’t like to be stuck in one band/genre all the time as it gets boring. Baker’s Dozen was surely another high point in their career and I’m very sad it happened at a time in my life where I couldn’t attend any of the shows. If I was active in social media I would have taken the heads up about ‘Jam Filled’ and made the trip to nyc for that one.
I think it’s pretty simple, they have more 3.0 songs in the arsenal at this point, three albums worth. The vast majority of the songs they’ve written in this era don’t really fit the original mold of Phish, and so for me it’s easy to look at the setlists alone and say there’s no way that’s as good as Fall 2013 for example. I know I know, they can take any song and jam but they rarely do with most of the new songs, and there is still the actual song part that you have to digest in order to get there no matter what.
That said, I haven’t listen to much of this tour outside of what I attended. A couple of my favorite 3.0 tours are Fall '13 and Summer '15, a lot of people are saying Alpharetta was the best run of this tour and honestly the peaks of those shows might be as good, but they don’t hold a candle to the consistency of '13 and '15 imho.
When they are on tour, they make up about 50% of what I listen to; when they aren’t, it is less than 10%.
Maybe I’m overthinking this, and the real problem is that I am not a big fan of a lot of the Fuego / Big Boat stuff, but I keep thinking about Fone’s shared energy comment from the MPP 1 thread.
If the band actually does feed of the energy of the crowd - which isn’t provable & could just be some bullshit that Phish feeds the fans to make them feel like they are an integral part of the experience, and aren’t just spectators - then it stands to reason that playing some of these new songs actually decreases the quality of the show beyond paper.
When they play certain songs (Breath and Burning, Tide Turns, The Line, Miss You, Wingsuit…most of Mike’s new songs to name a few), the crowd clears out, they start chatting among themselves, and the room’s dynamic shifts. Sometimes they recover the audience’s attention pretty quickly with an old favorite or a fiery jam, but if they string a few of these songs together ( MPP 1, Del Valle) the room stays deflated, and there is less energy being sent to the band. I’ll bring flowcharts next time, but in the meantime it would look something like this:
But it could be as simple as “Phish is old and the weather sucked” or even simpler “I don’t like Fuego / Big Boat.” I would assume it is the latter If I was the only one who felt this tour has been inconsistent.
Phish and I were taking a break in Fall 2013, but I think the best shows of 2018 are comparable to the best shows of summer 2015, but the average shows of 2018, aren’t as good as the average shows of 2015.
I appreciate this conversation!
I think it’s weird how much further from the original template their songcraft has ventured. I mean, I’ve personally been stressing about how different things got after like 1993, … for like the last 25 years!!
But they’ve brought the departure to a new level with the quasi-Christian-rock style writing we’ve seen from Trey since his recovery. 3.0 has songs that make the 2.0 material I used to squawk at entirely okie dokie.
Excellent points about the new stuff. Personally, I think Fuego & Big Boat run hot & cold. They have really strong moments in my view (Fuego, 555, Halfway to the Moon, Waiting All Night, No Men, Miss You, Friends which they don’t even play, Blaze On I guess), and then soooo much of the rest is just, against the grain of all that drew me in to begin with.
Ah shit ended ^that with a preposition.
And ^this last sentence literally ends with preposition, I’m all kinds of fail here.
I’ve got some thoughts on “new” Phish, but I might be too drunk to articulate them right now. It’s definitely different, but I like a lot of it. It might have a lot to do with my general taste in music (I mean look at my username). I’ll try to better explain it in the AM. We’ll see how that goes 
Damn, really wish I was wrong about this on Tuesday. Extremely unfortunate they had to cancel Curveball.
This is really fascinating to me because anytime you play live, you’re getting something from the crowd. Maybe the mentality of the band is “we have an accepting audience and we think they’ll enjoy these tunes if they give them a chance.” I’d rather believe that than Trey is up there only concerning himself with what he wants.
I will say this: I think it’s time for the band to consider bagging the whole “no set list” thing. It was in an interview where Trey or Mike said that often they’ll rehearse a tune backstage and play it at some point during the show, but will also call a tune they haven’t rehearsed and it ends up being sloppy. They performed shows for years with well thought-out set lists and many of those are our favorites. With so many songs, returning to this model would really solidify things again.
Am I the only one that’s just not concerned anymore with “the crowd doesn’t know what is going to happen and neither does the band”? It’s kind of like applying the feeling of “love at first sight” you had when you were 15 to dating as an adult. Serendipitous, sure, but really not effective.
I’m sure it is initially the former, but after playing a song that isn’t well received so many times, it becomes, “We’re gonna play The Line now. Like it or lump it.”
Agreed. I’ve tried a time or two to really get into songs like that live, but when you’re already not feeling it, it’s especially hard to feel it when you see so many people uninterested.
Great discussion.
I’ve never heard as much audience chatter during slow or low energy songs as I have over the past 5-7 years. It’s like people come expecting to hear certain songs, and when they don’t get them, they chatter with their friends. And these are not just the kids in the audience. It’s the old timers, the 35 to 50 crowd mostly.
It’s a shame because how can new songs become great songs if the band gets a “bored feedback” from the audience. I would imagine in their hay day, everyone devoured everything they played.
Nice to be back.