I was sitting next to a young couple that were really into it, bouncing around in their seats, vaping up a storm, and the woman bumped me a few times, but she was polite about it. This gave me purchase to chair dance however I wanted, and the two seats on the other side of me were empty. Not a lot of movement in the crowd from what I could see. I really appreciated The Horse before SITM. I liked the "Wait" story, and then the story about getting all their stuff stolen on an early CA tour. I was in the BART garage, and by the time the tow truck would get there, I'd be done already. If this had happened on the highway, I would have called the calvary.
I was Row B in the balcony, probably right near you It was a very enjoyable evening. Even some of the songs I dislike (stealing time) were enjoyable in this format. It’s a shame he couldn’t pull of Lizards but that’s really my only complaint. Mores stories would have been welcome too I guess. An interesting jam tacked on to Twist and I thought his voice sounded excellent. Highlight for me was Dog Faced Boy TREY ANASTASIO, SATURDAY 12/08/2018 PARAMOUNT THEATRE Oakland, CA SET 1: Kill Devil Falls[1], Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan[1], Sleep[1], Frost[1], The Inlaw Josie Wales[1], The Connection[2], Winterqueen[1], Water in the Sky[1], Miss You[1], Heavy Things[1], Sand[1] > The Horse[1] > Silent in the Morning[1] > Backwards Down the Number Line[1] > Blaze On[1], Strange Design[1], Till We Meet Again[1], Limb By Limb[1], Twist[1], The Lizards[1], Wilson[1] ENCORE: Waste[1], Driver[1], Dog Faced Boy[1], All of These Dreams[1], More[1] [1] Trey solo acoustic. [2] Trey solo acoustic; first acoustic performance by Trey.
Changing my own tire is as close as I'm ever going to get to heading out into the wilderness with an axe, and living off the land. I was on the left side of the balcony, three seats in from the middle aisle. Dog-Faced Boy was my highlight also. In fact, I said "No way!" when he started to play it, because I was listening to Hoist in the car earlier.
As I think previously noted, IWT. Drove down from Saratoga in my '82 2WD Mazda pickup. Fun show! My 2nd and sporting a Big Ball Jam. Driving back north, not so much. It wasn't a month later we had a blizzard featuring 3' of blowing/drifting snow. Next thing I knew was calling in sick to spend time on the phone to get tix for their dual May '93 shows at The Palace that featured interesting guest appearances, Dick Solberg, the Sun Mountain Fiddler on 5/5 and members of ARU on 5/6, my birthday.
I was there. The only reason I didn't go to 5/5 is because Phish always seemed to hit Albany during law school exam weeks. That was my fourth show.
Dog Faced Boy was a nice surprise. I was down in the orchestra but a bit under the balcony (row PP, for those who frequent the bar often)
Nice. I moved out to the West Coast right after the late April West Hartford show, so didn’t see any of those early May ones. West Hartford was a really fun one, although a larger venue than I was used to at that time.
Powdered donut show, so far very good, really jammed out Very Long Fuse. As a Ween fan, I'm still not totally sold on Phish's cover, and agree with Dean Ween that Phish doesn't really nail the (very Prince) feel of the song that well, but it's still a welcome cover and shows that Phish has good taste. In fact, I discovered Ween through a Doniac Shvice mention of Pure Guava back in '92 or so. I think in the same edition, Fishman gave a shout out to Car Bomb by Negativland (from Escape from Noise, featuring Jerry Garcia (on "mouth sounds and chimes") and Mickey Hart (on "percussion and processed animals") on one track). I bought Escape from Noise and had it for a few years, a good listen ("Christianity is stupid! Communism is good!") that I stupidly traded in to Amoeba because it was worth a pretty penny 8 or 10 years later. But I digress and have wandered far afield.
And finally today....none to go! We have reached the conclusion of 2009 with 12/31/09, Miami, FL So far this run has been loaded with highlights, but none of the 3 previous shows were anywhere near consistent enough to warrant being put on the year's "best shows" list.
Since there is, practically, no such thing as a poor modern Phish show, this list is divided in to 2 parts - 1. Shows totally worth hearing in full and, 2. Highlights of the more inconsistent shows. There are no highlights listed from the shows to be heard in full, only from the ones not on the "best shows of year" part of the list. Also, stars (*****....) indicate a mind-blowing experience. 2009 - Best shows and highlights Shows: HAMPTON RUN 3/6 3/7 3/8 SUMMER LEG #1 6/6 6/7 6/9 6/12 6/18 6/20 SUMMER LEG #2 7/30 7/31 8/1 8/7 8/11 8/13 8/14******* FALL TOUR 11/01 11/20********************* 11/22********************* 11/24 11/27********************* 11/28 11/29********************* 12/03********************* (HOTTEST DWD EVER HEARD) 12/04 (Sloppy in places but energy loaded) 12/05 (Some set 1 inconsistency but MAGIC second set!) NEW YEAR'S RUN 12/31 (3/4 of the show is absolutely mandatory listening) Highlights: SUMMER LEG #1 Tweezer>Light 5/1 Farmhouse 6/2 Mike's>Simple>Wolfman>Weekapaug 6/2 Kill Devil Falls 6/2 Ghost 6/4 Meatstick>Drowned 6/4 Kill Devil Falls 6/5 Reggae Woman 6/5 David Bowie 6/10 Waves>Ocean Sing 6/10 Rock and Roll>Space>Light 6/14 Bathtub Gin 6/14 SET 2 OF 6/21 SUMMER LEG #2 Reggae Woman 8/2 You Enjoy Myself 8/2 David Bowie 8/5 Down With Disease 8/5 Wolfman>Character Zero>Antelope 8/8 YEM>Number Line>Piper 8/8 Rock And Roll 8/8 46 Days 8/15 Crowd Control through Axilla 8/15 Number Line>20 Years Later 8/16 Halley's Comet>Rock and Roll 8/16 FALL TOUR DWD>Free 11/18 Taste 11/18 Waste 11/18 Bug 11/18 David Bowie 11/18 Split Open and Melt 11/21 Rock and Roll>Ghost>If I Could 11/21 11/25 Divided Sky 12/2 Ocelot>Brian and Robert 12/2 Divided Sky 12/2 Tweezer>Joy NEW YEAR'S RUN 12/28 My Soul 12/28 Roggae 12/28 Undermind 12/28 Stash 12/28 Possum (Chill Grateful Dead version) 12/28 Mike's>Light>Hydrogen>Groove 12/28 Alaska 12/28 Number Line 12/28 Contact (super funky!) 12/28 First Tube 12/29 Maze 12/29 Ocelot 12/29 Reba 12/29 Tweezer>Caspian>Jibboo>Wilson>Jibboo>Heavy Things (!!!) 12/30 Corinna 12/30 Tela 12/30 Gone 12/30 Sand 12/30 The Curtain With>Lifeboy (INCREDIBLE!) 12/30 Back On The Train (2000 AMBIENCE!) 12/30 Run Like An Antelope The year started great with the mighty Hampton run, but the first Summer leg was just....let's just say it sounds fine until you hear the rest of the year and realize they were NOT up to snuff yet. Not for lack of effort but for some reason the first summer leg sounds very tired/uninspired in spots, but that's easily looked over when you remember there is a lot of rust to shake off. Good stuff to be found - just gotta dig a bit. Leg 2 was LEAPS AND FRIGGIN BOUNDS ahead of Leg 1. I don't know what they did in the break but these shows are a whole level up and almost every show from this run of dates is full on excellent and worth hearing. Phenomenal. Fall tour - and the guys surprise again by leveling up ANOTHER full step going from "every show is awesome" to "every show is phenomenal!!!". If I had to tell someone what to hear from 2009, I would easily recommend 11/20-12/03 as mandatory listening. If you want 2009, that's probably the stuff to get. Just ridiculous. And then we have New Years. Maybe from having a break for a few weeks, but these shows felt a giant step down from the previous 2 tour legs and, while still loaded with highlights, the only show that escaped major inconsistency (and just barely at that) was 12/31 In a nutshell, 50 shows, 27 of which are worth hearing in full and a load of other highlights throughout. I'd call it a pretty good comeback - all good things take time and the boys in December are totally different than those in March.
Summer leg 2 and Fall tour are both absolutely worth your time, but the run of shows from 11/18 to, id say, 11/29 is the batch of the year fer sure.
Received my Baker's Dozen vinyl box today. Nice package all around. I am a little miffed though that some sides are really short. Side D contains only a 7+ minute "More"; 5 of the 12 sides run less than 12 minutes. WTF?
Starting on the December solo acoustic shows - 12/3 Mesa today. I like that he opened with Turtle in the Clouds (by request).
Yeah, I passed since overall it just didn't seem like a set I'd spin very often. Like A Live One, it seemed like something made for other formats, then shoehorned onto vinyl with no real consideration for the format. I think it would've been cool to have a unique vinyl compilation, with different songs...since a lot of these sides are so short, there would've been plenty of room to add some shorter tunes (by Phish standards) to give every side a consistent running time and provide some better value for money. As it is, I'm just sticking to the streaming version, I guess.
And the journey continues! Onwards we go with 6/11/10, Chicago, IL An absolutely fantastic setlist (for my taste, at least - can't beat a Disease opener!), the show opens with a RIPPING Down With Disease that sees the guys already at energy level Mach 10. It's the kind of energy that makes the hair on your arms stick up and a smile stretch across your face. THIS IS SICK!
6/11/10 Check out this funky-as-hell Wolfman! The song portion seems pretty chill but around 4:50 Mike starts "slappin' da bass" and a funky jam slowly takes off. Trey isn't using distortion and it sounds great for keeping the mood. Mike is friggin' POPPIN' them strings though!!!
