Good call, the Genesis/Squirming Coil connection. In the same way, You Enjoy Myself has always seemed really influenced by Yes.
I think so too, loosely at least. Trey always mentioned those influences in the early days and was blushed/flattered to play for Genesis at the induction. The Squirming Coil, with some imagination and modification, could fit into an early Genesis album ... that’s as far as I’ll go though, no other connections
YEM/YES. Also some Allman’s in Divided Sky, Rush in Mike’s>I am H2, Gershwin in Gin, and Zappa all over...
That Reba set me on the path. I was a Deadhead who though Phish was some acronym for Phil Lesh or some oddity when perusing the Relix classified ads. Then I heard THAT Reba from 3/20/92 while stopping by to talk with some heads I knew. For whatever reason a cassette SBD leaked of that first set and went into circulation almost immediately after that show. I'm guessing it was late spring /early summer of 92 when I heard it. Likely from Brad Sands where most of those things came from at the time. I lived in Michigan at the time and all Phish tapes flowed out of Ann Arbor with Kevin Shapiro (before he worked for the band), and two other gents at the center of it all. Luckily I knew those 2 other gents and would get the goods as quickly as they arrived , well as quickly as I could afford new XLIIs.
I had a buddy in the NYC area that had a really good connection for Phish soundboards back then, I forget if it was direct from the band's camp or one step removed, but he would usually get either first or second gen tapes, and I would then get the next generation (insert Star Trek/Riker's Mailbox joke here). We weren't around each other often enough for me to get anything close to everything he had, but he would pick out some choice selections to make copies of when he had the chance, maybe about 25-30 cassettes over a period of a year or so from '92 until when I moved west in '93. That 3/20/92 was one of his picks...
People like to say they don't live with regrets. Well, I say I do. 3/20/92 was a hometown show that I....didn't go to. And whenever I put this one on that regret comes flooding back big time. A perfect show.
3/20/92 should be at #1! That was an epic show. My first show, so I was there to see that Reba. The energy there was insane!
It's not soundboard. It's just an extremely good audience recording. Paul wasn't letting people get a line off the board that night (he was picky like that). I had a friend that taped the show, and what came through his mics is exactly what all the other versions I've heard sound like. The one thing his has that others don't is a Trey quote. "Help me. I'm melting and I can't solidify".
The copy of 3/20/92 that's available for both sets is a pretty nice audience, so much so that people assume it was a board. The Set 1 cassette SBD only that came into circulation in Spring of 92 is most certainly a board, but it's very rare. If @Crispy Rob had the same tape I did, it starts with Reba, with the end of the opening Wilson fading up into the Reba intro. I think Brad was running his Sony dubbing deck but not allowing the patch to anyone else. This tape came as I mentioned from Kevin and his taping buddies that spring soon after the show. Only those 9 songs from set one. I only have the tape which I absolutely abused, and wouldn't be worth transfering at this point. I know my friend I grabbed it from had it on DAT. Lineage being cSBD>DAT. That dat was never really traded outside of their circle, and I have been able to track down Lamke in decades, and his DAT is likely riddled with diginoise etc at this point.
I think it's the absolute best pre 93 Phish show top to bottom. Machine gun Trey exhibit 1. Only thing that could make it better is if Page had his real piano, alas not for another year.
WOW!! That's a great story, man! I wish I had heard that SBD even if it's just those 9 songs. It's too bad he missed Wilson. That was also an epic version of that song. Long before the audience sang the intro "Wilson". Only the band sang it.
It was a real piano. Just a small piano. It had strings as I was present when one broke and it took forever to change it. It sounded like a cheap upright piano, but that was part of the charm of the way they sounded then. I liked it when he didn't have a Clavinet. Just Hammond and piano.
Yeah Brad's Sony dubbing deck was certainly nothing special. There are azimuth issues where it swirls in and out on most anything that sourced through him. I think he was road dogging it and never cleaned what was a pretty crappy deck to begin with. By fall 94 it had a high pitched whine in it that makes his tapes like the the rare partial 11/12/94 SBD all but unlistenable. But his 3/20/92 tape was my absolute favorite thing until August of 93 happened. There are other SBDs that did leak out from that era of course that luckily weren't from him and sound much better. Had no idea that Page was playing a small piano in 1992. I walked up to the stage and rested my elbows for the opening Golgi at my first gig , but admit I was locked in on trey and was interested to see how much sustain he was playing with. That baby grand he added in early 1993 commences the beautiful 93/94 era which contains my favorite Rebas, Hoods, Foams, SOAMs etc etc. Trey and Page never had better tone IMO. There is a white light/Baroque purity cleanness that get's me. I encourage everyone to listen to the the most recent 8/26/93 Portland Release , particularly the first set of Reba and Hood from for an example of this.
Never 'related' to Phish... but I do have a couple of their CDs, and one live concert CD. Guess I'll give them a listen soon again.
I would have to find it somewhere in my basement to check, but that sounds right about the tape. I am 99% sure it was soundboard (first set only), as all of the tapes I got from my source were boards that he got from someone in the band's camp. I figured all of these probably got into wider circulation, but maybe I'm wrong, as I haven't really kept up with what is out there.
PM me if you find that! It was my first show, and I'd love to hear a soundboard recording of some of it!
I'll let you know if I do find it. I don't have the technology to dub another cassette, and am not sure how to transfer it to digital, but might be able to find someone with that capacity. That's a great first show. I was at Roseland earlier on that tour, but as I've said earlier on the tour, I made a mistake of missing the hometown Providence show on 3/13 in favor of seeing the Dead at Nassau that night. (I have cassette soundboards of Providence from the same source, I assume those are in circulation, but please correct me if I'm wrong.) '92 is one of my favorite years of Phish, they were getting better and better, but still had that high energy, "machine gun" Trey approach, and the venues were still relatively small. I didn't see anything else that Spring, but caught the Port Chester shows in November and the entire New Year's run, as well as an odd show at Boston Garden on a bill with Michael Penn, the Spin Doctors, and Material Issue, put together by a radio station.
Page was playing a "traveling piano" at that point. It was a lot like a Wurlitzer in that the legs screwed into the bottom of it, but the top was longer and had real piano strings inside it. It was definitely a rare instrument. His is the only one I've ever seen to this day!
Saw them at the Syracuse Armory and several other places in '92. At the Syracuse show, I could have reached out and grabbed Trey's foot we were so close to the stage. '92 is my favorite year of Phish live shows. Their musicianship was insane around that time, and they took serious risks with their improvisation. They also still played a lot of Gamehendge and other unreleased songs. The reason I went to that first show on 3/20/92 was due to hearing Junta as a young bass player and just being floored by the compositions. No one else was doing that then.
As I have posted a few times, my first show was four days later and another one that has been released, 6/22/94 Columbus.