Phish kicked off its summer tour within the steel shell of the DCU Center in not-abandoned Worcester, and while both nights of the crowd's hours-long action of filtering into the street will burn in my memory as being one of the most confused masses of humanity I've ever seen pour into an urban environment (with less bars, even, than I remembered dotting the sidewalk frontage from that New Years Run a few months, or years back). The happy, bubbly crowd; the familiar venue; that we had all progressed down Route 9 together, in the sun and the sudden and brief storms that rolled around the Berkshires-- it was a run too big to fail, as it were. There were glowsticks on the floor of the stage by the stellar "Runaway Jim" set a jiving and fun pace to the first show; if there was weariness, it came, as one might have predicted, in show two, set two.
The first night, first set contained more keyboard work than any of us may have come to expect: while I've wondered at some shows if Page's piano teacher was in the audience (this was the band's 'hometown' gig, closest to Burlington, but also their only New England stop on summer tour), the keyboardist for Phish made his summer debut across what must have been a louder and stronger Hammond B3 (with extreme key-click modifications?), the crunchy/wonky piano-top Clavinet, and something to the left of the uppermost octaves of the baby grand: perhaps it's a rack of electronic space oddities. Upon the Hammond sat Korg's new return to analog tone generation, the MonoPoly. This was used for a very effective second-night "Suzy Greenberg" encore, but little else; the vintage Yamaha beast didn't seem to get much use either, but for the dedicatedly strange introductions to "Story of the Ghost" (a first night highlight), and a few other more tripped-out riffs. During the second set on the second night, Page used both his Rhodes as well as a mystery keyboard, to kick out the Phish interpretation of Deodato's version of Richard Strauss' "Thus Spoke Zarathusa." These were never cumbersome transitions between instruments, but the careful glide between white and black keys, both plastic and ivory. While my friend and I enjoyed the front-firing view of the stage from section 211, on the second night we were, as another friend coined in a text, "Page Side Rage Side," looking down and into the nest of equipment the bespeckled McConnell commanded.
If Page is still seeking ways to improve on his keyboard-solo expressiveness (night two included a near-requisite Rhapsody in Blue tease), Trey has surrendered to the safe and enduring legacy of Eric Clapton: the first night saw the frontman mellow back into skiffle and shuffling patterns, as Page took the spotlight. But when Trey took control, I feared the typical iterations of what makes a 'jam band.' Night one saw less ascension-into-chaos-beyond-the-fretboard dweedling than the second show in Wooster; night two was rife with guitar solos that may never be transcribed, the electrified and crunchy soundtrack of musical meditation for the bobbled-headed masses we were. Night two's "Kill Devil Falls" was notable for its sense of far-out southern rock tunefulness, but within two hours, the "Character Zero" was all but a prediction of itself, or the future, or of Bonnaroo: a building-up high-noted-guitar solo that results in the crowd's monosyllabic grunts and fists waving in the air. I thought of David Gilmour; I thought of the three (or is it five?) discs enclosed in Zappa's opus compilation of live invention, Shut Up and Play Your Guitar. These came to me as I heard a slowed and patient "Julius," a rendition of a phan phavorite that lacked both its clear sidestepping beat as well as much emphasis from the band. "Don't take another step," Mike chanted, in clear and distinct vocal tones, as Trey ripped it up, again and again. Trey's highlights? His cheery and relaxed intro of "Makisupa Policeman," an underestimated 'cool down' number, came as a surprise to us in the concrete aisles, it seemed: the reminder, that the stagefull of instruments are played not by machinations of psychedelic and transformative experience, but real humans, with humor. What makes a good show? Is it when Trey catches every tricky note ensconced within the unique country shuffle that is "Ok Kee Pah"? (He missed at least a handful). Is it when the guitarist is, like his audience, caught in an open-jaw'd trance by the slow and sporadic travels of a massive yellow balloon adored with a happy face, as he noodles along without looking?
One online review summed night one appropriately, and succinctly: it wasn't, as some may have described by now, the greatest night of music ever, but it was a night when "Mike brought his bass." The DCU Center, an oval of beveled concrete, kept Mike's tone from being as discreet as Page's organ (be ready for this decibel-bearing behemoth this summer!), but the bassman was hard at work-- and not only during the crowdpleasing "Boogie On Reggae Woman," but employing his fancy-ass tone-synth a few other times as well. Because we all want to hear the bass truly drop; because we all need to feel the bass push us along, and further on down the train, number line, or your loose lyrical metaphor of choice. Mike was the one that called for "Axilla," which was one of the run's absolute highlights; the funk, hard and fast, reminded me that Metallica and their people will be invading Bader Field in Atlantic City on the weekend following Phish's non-festival three-night run in a few weeks. I'm sure there are other crunchy and good songs ready to roll on tour, and I credit Mike with being the band's musicologist apparent: I'll venture to guess it was Gordo who has kept the band's country-inflected songlist ripe for the choosing, and for this, the band's silver-mopped headbanger, deserves even more praise. The version of "Rocky Top" that closed the first set of summer tour harkened of things to come: of the sweat of Tennessee, the mania of Jones Beach, the epic and hot time that would come at the Jersey shore. This, the band's only indoor gig on this tour, was a sold-out fluke; the dancing one is compelled to do upon hearing such rarefied, intricate, footstomping music requires an open field, or at the very least, to be on the edge of the mob, beneath a temporary tent structure somewhere else, than in the post-hip downtown of Worcester. Short of some persistent knob-twisting across two racks of gear, Mike seemed to enjoy himself immensely; perhaps the simplest prediction for the duration of summer tour is that Gordo will keep all of us moving, one fat chord or phatty download at a time.
There were no drum solos, across either night. One should not assume, however, that Fish's drum teacher/guru wasn't in the audience; his playing, however, cannot help be a factor towards the band's predictability, if there is any to be found. As his snare became lost amid the bombast of organ tones and eternal guitar, I wished I were in the executive/band friend seating area directly behind the two rows of consoles (with eighteen computer monitors aglow through each set); I wished I was the guy who was listening on giant silver headphones to the soundboard mix, live. The amplification of drums is never easy, but the outdoor summer tour will provide Fish many an opportunity to do his country-rock-shuffle thing, and his "Bouncin' Around the Room" and "Maze" intricacies shall be forever digitally memorialized anyway on our hard drives and/or those chips inside our brains.
Other highlights: Trey's brief experiment with a time-delay/loop pedal that sounded like a guitar playing a chord but being stretched, its tones dropped, slowed, and back up again (both he and Mike appear to have gone pedal-shopping). The band's tender "Roses are Free" turned into a respectful and useful space jam, an extended ode to hipster-bretheren Ween (if Gene Ween is truly going to evolve into something like a Barry Manilow-Rod Stewart soft rock crooner, he should pay homage through recording a version of Phish's lovely but relatively meaningless wedding ballad "Wading in the Velvet Sea"). Everybody sang diligently; Page took verses, Mike sang backups and off-kilter harmonies; but for one closing note of one song, there was no acapella. The total highlight of the run? For some, unfortunately, it'd be that the Worcester Police chose to ignore all makeshift nitrous oxide sellers; at least half of the crowd gathered and stumbled before and after the shows, consuming heady, asphyxiating whippets (I found no one else in the street, even, who knew it by the name I had heard years ago, "hippie crack"). For me, the highlight was the final song, "Suzy Greenberg." Who was she? An undergraduate figment, a relic and artifact of our memories, both the collective and individual (again, this was the hometown show). Why, I was asked by a young and wide-eyed central Mass. hippie mamma, why was the Burlington scene so "harsh," at the flood relief show back in the fall? Why? Because some of us on tour, for two nights or twenty, might already have had another two-hundred beneath their belt-- whether heads of hair have turned gray or not. Those of us who have been alive for the band's entire career, and not simply born into the legacy of studio and live releases, were perhaps one in five of those who bopped and blipped over two extraordinary nights in Worcester. "Who was here in '93, for New Years?" bellowed a guy, to all of us wedged into the bathroom, before the first notes echoed. At least half of those who were within earshot had yet to be born. Greatest show of all time? Hardly: if jazz is the answer, the uncomplicated songs that populated both nights' setlists reflect Phish's ability to remain happily unchallenged, and still get everyone to wave their hands in the air anyway (two Rolling Stones covers in night one reflect the simplistic, bouncy tempos they, and we, may never tire of). What Phish still is, and what they will likely remain for the duration of this tour, is to be the greatest jam band experience available, short of staying home and rewinding your father's bootleg cassettes. Night two was physically hotter than night one, a trend that will also likely continue, as these cats will be under the stars for all further dates.
The first night, first set contained more keyboard work than any of us may have come to expect: while I've wondered at some shows if Page's piano teacher was in the audience (this was the band's 'hometown' gig, closest to Burlington, but also their only New England stop on summer tour), the keyboardist for Phish made his summer debut across what must have been a louder and stronger Hammond B3 (with extreme key-click modifications?), the crunchy/wonky piano-top Clavinet, and something to the left of the uppermost octaves of the baby grand: perhaps it's a rack of electronic space oddities. Upon the Hammond sat Korg's new return to analog tone generation, the MonoPoly. This was used for a very effective second-night "Suzy Greenberg" encore, but little else; the vintage Yamaha beast didn't seem to get much use either, but for the dedicatedly strange introductions to "Story of the Ghost" (a first night highlight), and a few other more tripped-out riffs. During the second set on the second night, Page used both his Rhodes as well as a mystery keyboard, to kick out the Phish interpretation of Deodato's version of Richard Strauss' "Thus Spoke Zarathusa." These were never cumbersome transitions between instruments, but the careful glide between white and black keys, both plastic and ivory. While my friend and I enjoyed the front-firing view of the stage from section 211, on the second night we were, as another friend coined in a text, "Page Side Rage Side," looking down and into the nest of equipment the bespeckled McConnell commanded.
If Page is still seeking ways to improve on his keyboard-solo expressiveness (night two included a near-requisite Rhapsody in Blue tease), Trey has surrendered to the safe and enduring legacy of Eric Clapton: the first night saw the frontman mellow back into skiffle and shuffling patterns, as Page took the spotlight. But when Trey took control, I feared the typical iterations of what makes a 'jam band.' Night one saw less ascension-into-chaos-beyond-the-fretboard dweedling than the second show in Wooster; night two was rife with guitar solos that may never be transcribed, the electrified and crunchy soundtrack of musical meditation for the bobbled-headed masses we were. Night two's "Kill Devil Falls" was notable for its sense of far-out southern rock tunefulness, but within two hours, the "Character Zero" was all but a prediction of itself, or the future, or of Bonnaroo: a building-up high-noted-guitar solo that results in the crowd's monosyllabic grunts and fists waving in the air. I thought of David Gilmour; I thought of the three (or is it five?) discs enclosed in Zappa's opus compilation of live invention, Shut Up and Play Your Guitar. These came to me as I heard a slowed and patient "Julius," a rendition of a phan phavorite that lacked both its clear sidestepping beat as well as much emphasis from the band. "Don't take another step," Mike chanted, in clear and distinct vocal tones, as Trey ripped it up, again and again. Trey's highlights? His cheery and relaxed intro of "Makisupa Policeman," an underestimated 'cool down' number, came as a surprise to us in the concrete aisles, it seemed: the reminder, that the stagefull of instruments are played not by machinations of psychedelic and transformative experience, but real humans, with humor. What makes a good show? Is it when Trey catches every tricky note ensconced within the unique country shuffle that is "Ok Kee Pah"? (He missed at least a handful). Is it when the guitarist is, like his audience, caught in an open-jaw'd trance by the slow and sporadic travels of a massive yellow balloon adored with a happy face, as he noodles along without looking?
One online review summed night one appropriately, and succinctly: it wasn't, as some may have described by now, the greatest night of music ever, but it was a night when "Mike brought his bass." The DCU Center, an oval of beveled concrete, kept Mike's tone from being as discreet as Page's organ (be ready for this decibel-bearing behemoth this summer!), but the bassman was hard at work-- and not only during the crowdpleasing "Boogie On Reggae Woman," but employing his fancy-ass tone-synth a few other times as well. Because we all want to hear the bass truly drop; because we all need to feel the bass push us along, and further on down the train, number line, or your loose lyrical metaphor of choice. Mike was the one that called for "Axilla," which was one of the run's absolute highlights; the funk, hard and fast, reminded me that Metallica and their people will be invading Bader Field in Atlantic City on the weekend following Phish's non-festival three-night run in a few weeks. I'm sure there are other crunchy and good songs ready to roll on tour, and I credit Mike with being the band's musicologist apparent: I'll venture to guess it was Gordo who has kept the band's country-inflected songlist ripe for the choosing, and for this, the band's silver-mopped headbanger, deserves even more praise. The version of "Rocky Top" that closed the first set of summer tour harkened of things to come: of the sweat of Tennessee, the mania of Jones Beach, the epic and hot time that would come at the Jersey shore. This, the band's only indoor gig on this tour, was a sold-out fluke; the dancing one is compelled to do upon hearing such rarefied, intricate, footstomping music requires an open field, or at the very least, to be on the edge of the mob, beneath a temporary tent structure somewhere else, than in the post-hip downtown of Worcester. Short of some persistent knob-twisting across two racks of gear, Mike seemed to enjoy himself immensely; perhaps the simplest prediction for the duration of summer tour is that Gordo will keep all of us moving, one fat chord or phatty download at a time.
There were no drum solos, across either night. One should not assume, however, that Fish's drum teacher/guru wasn't in the audience; his playing, however, cannot help be a factor towards the band's predictability, if there is any to be found. As his snare became lost amid the bombast of organ tones and eternal guitar, I wished I were in the executive/band friend seating area directly behind the two rows of consoles (with eighteen computer monitors aglow through each set); I wished I was the guy who was listening on giant silver headphones to the soundboard mix, live. The amplification of drums is never easy, but the outdoor summer tour will provide Fish many an opportunity to do his country-rock-shuffle thing, and his "Bouncin' Around the Room" and "Maze" intricacies shall be forever digitally memorialized anyway on our hard drives and/or those chips inside our brains.
Other highlights: Trey's brief experiment with a time-delay/loop pedal that sounded like a guitar playing a chord but being stretched, its tones dropped, slowed, and back up again (both he and Mike appear to have gone pedal-shopping). The band's tender "Roses are Free" turned into a respectful and useful space jam, an extended ode to hipster-bretheren Ween (if Gene Ween is truly going to evolve into something like a Barry Manilow-Rod Stewart soft rock crooner, he should pay homage through recording a version of Phish's lovely but relatively meaningless wedding ballad "Wading in the Velvet Sea"). Everybody sang diligently; Page took verses, Mike sang backups and off-kilter harmonies; but for one closing note of one song, there was no acapella. The total highlight of the run? For some, unfortunately, it'd be that the Worcester Police chose to ignore all makeshift nitrous oxide sellers; at least half of the crowd gathered and stumbled before and after the shows, consuming heady, asphyxiating whippets (I found no one else in the street, even, who knew it by the name I had heard years ago, "hippie crack"). For me, the highlight was the final song, "Suzy Greenberg." Who was she? An undergraduate figment, a relic and artifact of our memories, both the collective and individual (again, this was the hometown show). Why, I was asked by a young and wide-eyed central Mass. hippie mamma, why was the Burlington scene so "harsh," at the flood relief show back in the fall? Why? Because some of us on tour, for two nights or twenty, might already have had another two-hundred beneath their belt-- whether heads of hair have turned gray or not. Those of us who have been alive for the band's entire career, and not simply born into the legacy of studio and live releases, were perhaps one in five of those who bopped and blipped over two extraordinary nights in Worcester. "Who was here in '93, for New Years?" bellowed a guy, to all of us wedged into the bathroom, before the first notes echoed. At least half of those who were within earshot had yet to be born. Greatest show of all time? Hardly: if jazz is the answer, the uncomplicated songs that populated both nights' setlists reflect Phish's ability to remain happily unchallenged, and still get everyone to wave their hands in the air anyway (two Rolling Stones covers in night one reflect the simplistic, bouncy tempos they, and we, may never tire of). What Phish still is, and what they will likely remain for the duration of this tour, is to be the greatest jam band experience available, short of staying home and rewinding your father's bootleg cassettes. Night two was physically hotter than night one, a trend that will also likely continue, as these cats will be under the stars for all further dates.
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