Land of the Brave and Free

I originally wrote the following article for the Summer 2010 issue of Surrender to the Flow, which as far as I know is still the only Phish lot fanzine out there (and still free on tour!). Many thanks to Christy, the editor at STTF, for giving me permission to reprint this here. The question she posed was simple: describe your favorite Phish jam. Yet as I made clear in the introduction, that’s not the easiest task in the world.

When prompted to give my favorite Phish song, I’ll tell you it’s “Tela” without hesitating. Ask me my favorite show and I’ll likely end up telling you 12/31/95. But my favorite single jam? That’s much harder to pinpoint.

Probably this is because Phish jams are so varied in their style, their mood, and of course their number. Generally speaking, my favorite jams come out of Bathtub Gins, Ghosts, and Bowies, yet I’d just start a laundry list of dates if you asked me to pick one. I almost picked the legendary “Halley’s”->”NICU”->”Slave” from 12/14/95. But ultimately, there’s one jam that I keep returning to, one that I used to permanently keep on my old, small 8GB iPod, one that I turn to when needing something to take me away: the 4/3/98 “Roses Are Free.” As good a contender for my favorite jam as any.

When I sat down to try to figure out exactly what makes it so spectacular, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike so many of my most-beloved jams – the 12/29/94 “Bowie,” the Went “Gin,” the 7/13/03 “Seven Below” – the Island Tour “Roses” doesn’t travel all that far in harmony, rhythm, or melody from the basic chords of the song. The real beauty of this jam lies in how Phish listens to and communicates with each other, how they blend subtle elements of funk, blues, psychedelia, and rock to create something that is, without a doubt, one of the best examples of Phish succeeding as a whole rather than a set of parts.

“Roses” is in Bb major, and the jam begins innocently by vamping on that one chord (timings correspond to the LivePhish track “Nassau Jam”). Gradually, Trey starts adding little riffs featuring the note Db, a member of the Bb minor pentatonic, or “blues” scale. Around 2:00, Trey turns on the wah-wah, still in that Bb minor blues, a funky blues jam rather than the in-your-face porno funk of Fall ’97.

Gradually the texture thins out, Fishman tightens up the beat, Mike brings a more pointed sound to his bass, and Trey begins a muted, staccato riff. Mike’s bass is still blues but with a strong minor feel, he’s actually alternating between major chord arpeggios and minor chord ones. Page starts adding in some electronic, synthesizer noise, one of the hallmarks of the funky ’97 sound that most often reared its head during “Ghost”. At 8:30, it’s dark, minor, eerie quietness. But still bluesy. And still funky. This is what makes it so good – it’s dabbling in all these styles at once.

 

Page starts to add another harmonic key area, a bluesy F chord that will have important implications later, on top of the Bb minor soundworld. And with the start-stop jamming at 11:00, the fun aspect really comes out.

At 11:34, Trey slowly strums a Bb minor ninth chord, essentially adding Page’s earlier F minor chord on top of the already present Bb minor chord. Ninth chords have a jazzy sound to our ears, and with that gesture, Trey brings the jam out of the funk.

 

Yet the basic rhythm and Mike’s bass stay locked into the groove, and so the amalgamation continues: jazzy psychedelia, funk, blues, rock, all at once. Around 13:00 Trey begins soloing in F minor, which feels so natural coming out of the Bb minor harmony, and the melancholy sweeps over. The last minute or so of the following clip is probably my favorite section of this jam.

As this section builds and builds, the rest of the band’s rhythms begin getting more agitated, creating exciting polymeters. Mike oscillates between F and Ab, which are main elements of F minor but which also offer a way out of this darkness. And it’s at this point that Trey performs the jam’s ultimate coup-de-gras: he takes Mike and Page up on their offer and pivots into the blissful world of Ab mixolydian.

This mixolydian scale is like a major scale but with a flat seventh degree, which takes away the feeling of being forced to resolve, of being forced to teleologically complete itself. It just exists there, as if rotating on a pedestal for us to bask in the joyful sound of a major key without having to go anywhere. Not coincidentally, it is the scale Jerry Garcia uses most often to give us his most powerfully soaring jams. Trey’s slowly played descending mixolydian scales around 16:40, in his purest, most un-distorted tone, are the apotheosis of this jam, the god-like light that overloads our cerebral cortexes. For almost five minutes, they milk this for all its worth, before a little noisy space brings them out of this jam and into Piper.

Phish’s musical communication is brilliant in this improvisation, constantly taking cues from one another on stylistic changes, and subtle harmonic shifts. Even in the end, they end up not at all far from where they began a half hour before with the intro to “Roses Are Free,” merely moving a whole step down from the opening Bb major by way of Bb minor and F. There are other jams where Phish communicates well, and sometimes their cues to switch styles, chords, riffs, or rhythms are much more aggressive and intense, creating meaningful but abrupt juxtapositions. This jam is the opposite: its shifts are so fluid, its flow is so steady, and its styles are so linked to one another that you barely notice the changes – you just keep dancing, smiling, freak out a little, and then smile some more. That’s why it’s my favorite jam. Here’s the entire thing for your enjoyment, broken into 2 videos because this thing is just a beast.

 

I know I’m not alone in my love for this jam. It’s perennially cited as an all-time favorite amongst those who love the ’97-’98 sound. What especially makes it so wonderful is that it’s the second set opener in what is one of my favorite single sets of Phish. This is one of those classic 4-song behemoths that showed up frequently from ’97-’99, when the band was so locked in and interested in creative improvisation that they largely eschewed song structures in favor of wild experimentation. The “Piper” that follows leads into one of the darkest and most evil-sounding jams I’ve ever heard Phish play, while the ensuing “Loving Cup” rescues the set from the depths and adds shimmering, joyous brightness to it all. After almost 45 minutes of cerebral cortex-searing psychedelia, the familiar blues rock comes right at the moment you need it to, just on the cusp of total freakout.

And then the “Antelope” that closes this set. My oh my, that “Antelope.” It has the now-infamous “Carini’s gonna get ya” opening, inserted because Pete Carini had recently chased down a fan who ran up onto the stage during the “Loving Cup” peak. Then Trey asks Kuroda to kill the lights for the jam. Then the jam is one of the most ferocious “Antelopes” out there. And then they go for a super-slow reggae section, followed by one of my favorite tricks – the silent jam during the ending where they only play the punctuating last chords of the 4-bar phrase.

I love the arc of this set, encoring with “Carini” after all the Carini-related nonsense during the “Antelope,” and then closing the encore with, of all things, “Tweezer Reprise” despite not having played “Tweezer” at this show! The energy was just too heavy for them to play anything else. But it all starts with the delicate interplay and seamless blend of funk, blues, rock and psychedelia in this monumental “Roses” jam. Push it into third if you know you’re gonna climb that hill.

Breaking the Silence

And a Happy New Year to you too!

Mostly, I didn’t want to go a full year without posting anything on here. But I’ve been inspired by a recent rush of new Twitter followers (thanks @TheBabysMouth!) to get my blogging act together. Coming up soon – a few new posts on what constitutes a “song” in the live Phish experience, some retrospective reviews of my favorite Phish 2012 jams (since the last time I posted, there hadn’t yet BEEN any 2012 shows!), reviews of some classical music concerts, and the long (really long)-awaited sequel(s) to my article on the evolution of the cow funk.

Part of the reason for my extensive  blog silence over the past year (other than that whole dissertation thing, y’know…) is that up until October 2012, I was writing at least once a week for the excellent music website, Consequence of Sound. I’ve included a new link in the menu along the top of the page to all the content I wrote for them – lots of album reviews, a few live reviews, and one really long, pretty awesome summary of Pink Floyd’s albums. The live reviews are classical and rock, the album reviews mostly indie rock stuff, but I’m proud of all of it. I’d still be writing for them if it weren’t for that looming dissertation thing…

Finally, check out this great new site of Phish essays: Please Me Have No Regrets. The dudes over there are doing some cool stuff, it’s now on my blogroll. I’ll be writing some thoughts on their latest essay, about what they call Phish’s “Cubist” era, shortly.

Here’s to a more active Smooth Atonal Sound in 2013! I shouldn’t have took more than I gave. And for a little music, here’s my blog’s namesake tune from 12/28/12, closing the first set in the holiday spirit with a HUGE version including Little Drummer Boy interpolated within:

Memories of Being Free

I wanted to share some thoughts about one of the coolest things on Twitter (if you’re a Phishhead, that is). Tom Marshall, our lovable giant lyricist/singer/Springsteen impersonator, has been releasing demo versions of Phish songs that he wrote with Trey, mostly from the late 90s and 2000s, but a few legitimate oldies in there too, like the original “Silent in the Morning,” and from the way-wayback machine, “I Am Hydrogen.” Browsing through these, I came across this one from December 3, 2011 (yeah, I know, I’m super late on this):

And so here you go, the original “Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan,” written in October 2003.

I absolutely love this version, and would kill to hear it live in the middle of a meaty second set jam sequence. The tempo is obviously the biggest difference from the finished, 2009 Joy version, which transforms the laid back groove into a badass rock song with a killer riff:

Like many Phish songs, this earlier version is basically a three-chord vamp, but what’s especially interesting is that this skeletal version lacks the long dominant pedal during the “gonna dream” lyric before leading back into the song’s signature rock riff. Trey often reserves the two- or three-chord vamp for the jam section of a song (Hood, YEM, Slave, Mike’s, Reba, etc.), but here it’s basically all there is. You can hear him play a quick dominant chord just before “of being free,” but it’s barely audible, nothing like the big build on the finished version.

In this sense, this song becomes more like a jam structure on top of which lyrics and melody have been added, much like the groove-based songs of the late 90s like “Sand” or “Jibboo” and more recently, “Waves,” “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing,” or “Steam.”

The chord progression is i-bVII-i-IV, similar to what theorist Walter Everett calls the “double plagal cadence,” which is I-bVII-IV-I (e.g. the outro to “Hey Jude,” or the verse of “St. Stephen”). As a cascading descent of subdominants, the dominant chord is avoided, creating a very different feel than the big E major chord in the 2009 version of “Stealing Time.” As Nicole Biamonte has pointed out, this type of chord progression, a i-IV or i-bVII-i, lends itself to modal melodies and jamming. In A minor, i-IV is Am-D, and the mode mapped onto that progression would be A-B-C(#)-D-E-F#-G-A, or A dorian (which also accommodates bVII or G). Dorian is basically an older version of the minor scale, and there is definitely a “minor feel” to the soloing the Trey is lightly layering above this progression. But the lowered seventh degree also suggests the mixolydian for jambands (which would activate the parenthetical C# above), because this is mode of choice for Grateful Dead jamming (the “Playing in the Band” jam is basically the same, a D dorian jam with a mixolydian flavor).

At this tempo, with the modal soloing, the song feels more like a jam song, rather than a rock anthem. Much like the nearly contemporaneous “Scents and Subtle Sounds” jam, it’s a gentle rocking back and forth between tonic (but in this case, a minor tonic) and subdominant areas (IV/IV, or bVII, and IV). Yet it’s also a very mellow jam, and sounds much like other songs written in late 2003/early 2004. The watery, phasing guitar timbre is the sound used on “A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing,” which, as Tom reveals, comes from the same session as this “Stealing Time.” It seems Trey was playing around with that sound and wrote these two songs. These two songs share other attributes: they’re both a bit serious and heavy, they both deal with intense feelings of expectation, inevitablity, mortality, and both share a slight desperation.

And this is what makes the original “Stealing Time” so interesting: it was written in October of 2003. Fresh off Phish’s underrated and outstanding summer tour, in which Trey was reportedly NOT partying after the shows (he was quoted as saying that he went directly back to his hotel room every night, did yoga, and avoided “the scene”). Of course, some time between then and the next year, Trey got pretty hard back into drugs, resulting in the calamitous Vegas shows in April 2004 and the Coventry meltdown. “Stealing Time,” it seems, was written during a tumultuous period in Trey’s life, when he was trying to reconcile his own addiction with the knowledge that it was not sustainable for his band.

Of course, I, like many other Phish Heads, have always assumed that “Stealing Time” was another one of Trey’s “recovery songs,” a song composed during his early years of sobriety (2007-2009) when he was using music as a therapeutic tool in dealing with sobriety, recovery, and his demons. This would put “Stealing Time” in the same department as “Let Me Lie,” “Backwards Down the Number Line,” “Twenty Years Later,” and others. It makes sense to think of it in this way: the “faulty plan” is, of course, drug usage, “act as though I’m still a man” might refer to Trey’s responsibilities as father, husband, and primary earner that he jeopardized with his addiction, “shrug demands off of me” might be him leaving those addictive “demands” behind, and “dream of being free” is being free of the guilt, the shame, and the addiction itself. We all know why he’s “got a blank space where my mind should be.” And is there any image more pathetic than the former partier, surrounded by high-end booze and drugs, forced to consume nothing but “a Clif bar, and some cold green tea”?

For me, the song changes a little knowing its lyrics aren’t about Trey being stuck in sobriety, but rather Tom Marshall being stuck in a desk job he hated (the one he worked when he wrote “Walls of the Cave”). Should it matter that the subject matter isn’t Trey’s sobriety, but rather Tom’s unhappiness? Maybe not, but I’m a firm believer in the idea that social and personal context makes a big difference in how we understand a work of art. Why didn’t “Stealing Time” see the light of day until 2009? Why wasn’t it included with the other Undermind songs? I think it’s because Trey perhaps couldn’t relate as fully to the song, being in a different stage of his life.

This might also explain the arrangement, and later re-arrangement. Trey wrote a fairly typical Phish jam under the lyrics. It was, like his addiction, comfortable, safe, and hermetically sealed from the outside world (of typical rock song forms). His vocals were subdued, quiet, and lower in pitch – as we all remember, Trey’s voice took quite a beating during his years of abuse. In the new version, the song gains strength from its powerful rock riff – it’s probably the strongest pure rock song Trey’s written since the comeback, this era’s “Chalkdust” or “Character Zero.” His voice, slightly higher in pitch, is clear and lucidly tells a re-appropriated story. Trey finally gets it – he can relate to the words his friend wrote eight years ago. He understands the same feelings of being terminally stuck, unable to affect your own life, because he was there with addiction.

And the song form itself has a long dominant leading back into the ritornello-like riff on the “memories of being free” lyric. By inserting the most classic pop/rock and Western classical gesture back into the song, a big V-i perfect authentic cadence, Trey is showing that he’s unafraid to write what amounts to a typical (albeit very good) rock song. His memories of being free include writing songs that take chances, that aren’t safe. For Phish, a band whose early catalog is anything but typical when it comes to harmony and form, writing something so common might just be the biggest risk Trey could take. He’s “giving us one more chance to see” that he can be the rock star guitar god we want and need him to be, fueled not by substances, but by his own adrenaline, renewed sense of purpose, and some cold green tea.

moe. or less

moe.
1/23/12
Hiro Ballroom, NYC

1 set: Downward Facing Dog->St. Augustine, Haze, Rainshine*, Paper Dragon*, Puebla->Moth
Encore: Chromatic Nightmare, Rebubula*

*with acrobatic dancers in giant fabric swings

Live Review: moe. at New York City’s Hiro Ballroom (1/23).

Come on, moe., you can do better than that. Although they didn’t really have much to prove to anyone. This was basically a feel good, low key event to celebrate all that is moe. before the real work begins on tour this Friday in my former city, Seattle. But it didn’t have to be so vanilla. It was my first time hearing any of the new album’s songs live, but I’ve heard “Puebla” on recordings a bunch, and that song is the real deal. It’s almost always a springboard to bigger and better things. But it just didn’t get there last night. Chuck spent most of his solo exploring the minor blues pentatonic scale. Sure, he’s got killer chops, but it just wasn’t harmonically or melodically exciting. moe. has the ability to do what my favorite jam bands do: to leave song structures and expected harmonic progressions behind and to carve out new territory. Maybe they’re just saving their energy for tour. That’s my hope, at least.

“Rebubula” killed. If they had opened with that song, it might have changed the course of the night…

But enough. Any band, even my favorite ones, are allowed an off night every now and then (I’m looking at you, Phish 6/1/11 and 12/31/11). Just don’t make it a habit.

More importantly: PICTURES! I took a ton of pictures at the show, and only three of them ran with the article on Consequence of Sound (and they didn’t include a gallery). So here are the rest of the pictures that I wanted to include. These are the best from what I got, click on any to view bigger as a slide show. Enjoy!!

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Consequence of Sound is a New York- and Chicago-based, worldly influenced music blog that seeks to cover the music world as it has never has been covered before. Features news, reviews, mp3, and festival outlook.

I Think That This Exact Thing Happened To Me Just Last Year

Happy New Year!!!! 2012 – the first year I’ve decided to pronounce “twenty” rather than “two thousand.” I hope that this year brings about all kinds of good things for all my family, friends, colleagues, and blog readers who don’t already fall into one of those three categories .

Saturday night was fun. Phish New Year’s Eve always is – there’s no such thing as a bad show on December 31. Of course, there are some 12/31s that stand far above others: 1995, 1993, 1999 (even though most of the midnight-to-sunrise set was 1/1/2000). In other years, 12/31 takes a back seat to a blow out one of the other nights of the run: 2003 (when 12/29 was probably the winner), 1997 (12/30), 1998 (12/29, I think, although 12/31 did have that great Mike’s Groove>Ghost 1st set), or 1996 (12/29).

Looking back today, it’s tough to tell what the highlight of this run was. For pure fun, obviously it’s gonna go to 12/31, although much of that had to do with the close friends I had with me and the amazing time we had enjoying Phish, regardless of the actual playing (which was quite good). For jamming, it’s tough because there was no single show that stood out above the rest; rather, there were individual jams that were crowning achievements. Wednesday’s “Rock and Roll,” Thursday’s “Crosseyed” and the entire Mike’s Groove but especially the “Chalkdust”->”Hydrogen,” Friday’s “Piper,” and the NYE “Light”->”Golden Age” are all contenders for jams of the week. If I had to pick one, I’d go with the “Piper,” but the “Light”->”Golden Age” was pretty ridiculous. More on that later. For funk and for energy, it would probably be 12/29. And for song selection, it’s tough to beat 12/28.

That’s all the better, spreading the love across all four nights. However, you do expect a bit more from 12/31, simply because it is New Year’s Eve. With three sets, it’s a chance for Phish to go even further on their quest to blow minds on any given night. Did they accomplish that in 2011? Not exactly. Everything from the 1st set ending “Fluffhead” through the entire New Year’s stunt ending with “Down With Disease” was pure gold, every single note was exactly what was needed, the jams were all somewhere between “great” and “fucking outstanding,” and the song selection was choice, a nice mix of classic Phishiness, new tunes, “big” tunes, fast, slow, funk, rock, etc. Most of the first set, and the second half of the third set, left something to be desired, but to say that they were bad would be absurd. They were perfectly normal Phish performances, which is to say, they were amazing and high energy and good songs, but nothing beyond that.

Ask me what I thought of the show, though, and I wouldn’t say anything other than “absolutely awesome, man,” and mean it completely. And now it’s time for a breakdown.

There were two “safe” opener calls this week: “PYITE” and “AC/DC Bag.” 12/30 saw the former, 12/31 the latter. Still, ”AC/DC Bag” is a very fun start to a show, and everyone was pumped to sing along with “Let’s get this show on the road!” One of the reasons I love MSG is that the energy is just through the roof, quite literally – you can feel it in the actual structure of the building. There are spontaneous moments of energy surges that anyone who’s been to MSG knows well – it’s what happened during the 12/4/09 “First Tube,” and on Friday night this year when Mike dropped the bass bomb midway through the “Piper” jam.

“Wolfman’s Brother” was next, but being this early in the set, we were deprived of a lengthy jam, and instead got a concise jam that peaked nicely. “Scent of a Mule” was a fun time, as always, but I was beginning to get the feeling that, consciously or no, Phish was repeating a lot of the tunes they played last New Year’s Eve. Not that it’s a huge deal, but you’d think they would like to vary up the selection from year to year. “Stealing Time” came next, followed by the Page love of “Lawn Boy.”

The only real jam in the first set came in the form of a slowly building “Jibboo.” This wasn’t a jam that really pushed any boundaries, but it was a nice bit of first set improv. It seemed to start much quieter and more chilled out than you’d expect on 12/31, with Ghost sirens from Trey at the beginning of the jam. Following a very patient trajectory, the “Jibboo” jam found its way to a climactic peak, something that the band was able to do over and over again throughout the night even when far-out exploration was absent from a jam.

Next came a trio of newer songs, which, to be honest, didn’t feel all that New Year’s Eve-y. “Farmhouse” was a slow down song in a set that didn’t really need more slow tunes, followed by another slower tune in “Pebbles and Marbles,” which of course blew up at the end. Any jam on this was elusive, though. A late set “Ocelot” again had me thinking back to 12/31/10, and again featured a great peaking jam. But then the set really woke up with a closing “Fluffhead” – a perfect choice given the nearly constant stream of “recent” songs (yeah, “Jibboo” still feels a little “new”) that started with “Stealing Time” (except for “Lawn Boy”). An infusion of old school Phishy compositional complexity was exactly what this set needed, even though I was hoping for a “Melt” to follow and close out the set. “Fluffhead” was mostly flub-free, although there were a couple hazy notes here and there, but the energy was through the roof, and Trey’s playing and tone were quite strong and aggressive especially in the “Clod” section following those lyrics. A little “Auld Lang Syne” tease during the closing jam got everyone back into the holiday spirit.

Set I largely felt like a warmup. Other than the “Jibboo,” which was a good version but by no means an improvisational powerhouse, the set was mostly jamless, and probably could have tended more towards rare or older songs that would’ve really gotten people psyched up (no “Lizards,” “Gumbo,” “Mound,” “Curtain,” etc.). Luckily, the “Fluffhead” left everyone feeling pretty jazzed up for set II, and, just as it was with 12/31/10, the second set would be the overwhelming MVP of the night.

The “Party Time” that I thought would be part of the NYE stunt instead initiated a second set that was exactly that: a big ol’ Phishy party. A fun jam gave way to “Light” – one of the few big jam songs left on the roster for the night. As expected, this “Light” would be the improvisational highlight of the show, but in a way that completely blew me away. Once the jam got underway, it seemed to be heading in the typical harmonic direction for 2011 “Light”s, turning to the flat side and going into darker, minor territory. About six minutes in, the song’s structure started to fall apart, as various rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, and timbral aspects disintegrated away.

Page remained playing some “Light”-esque material, but Fishman broke the beat down to its barest essentials, Mike adopted more of a drone, and Trey went with his octave pedal for some psychedelic sounding effects. As Trey gave way to pulsating chords (same effect as in the previous night’s “Piper”), Mike took on the lead role, dancing his notes around the bottom part of the texture. And that’s when the jam turned to noise.

Noise rock and its cousin industrial rock are some of the last frontiers that Phish has yet to explore in their improvisational journeys through the years. Phish Heads like it when things turn weird, but we like our weirdness to still have a strong melodic component. Thinking back to the craziest 1994 and 1995 jams – they usually still had bits of melodic jamming and thematic snippets. Plus, noise is noisy, it’s loud, and it can be violent, not exactly the aesthetic most Phish Heads go for, although that’s probably changing as our other pop music tastes change, too. With more and more modern/indie rock these days heading for noise, ambient, and droning styles, it’s no wonder we’re seeing some of it creep into Phish’s music (since we know that Trey listens to plenty of modern rock, and I assume that Mike’s musical tastes match his new fashion sense).

Trey set up a few repeating loops of sound, some in the lower range of his guitar, others in the stratosphere, while Mike seemed to be emitting a constant low drone of warbling sound, eventually turning to little melodic circles and patterns. Trey, too, got involved in a few ostinato patterns of repeating notes, while Fishman went down to practically nothing. And Page brought out the theremin. That was the kicker – it seemed to inspire the rest of the band to go for the most abstract thing they could. Fishman got a beat back but it was all fills and toms, just a hint of hi-hat holding it all together. In addition to the various loops, Trey was doing his own whale-call imitations of the theremin. Most importantly, it was all LOUD, very loud in fact, so that the dissonances and waves of otherworldly sound were that much more pronounced.

Finally, Trey began playing the riff from “Golden Age” while Fishman starting trying to pull the band up out of the noisy mire and back to a fast jam. It seemed as though Fish didn’t hear Trey, or was trying to move the band in another direction. Trey wanted to start a new song, Fish wanted to resurrect the jam they were already in. Unfortunately, Fish was playing too fast to really incorporate the “Golden Age” riff, and so when Page began joining in on the riff, Fish gave in and stopped playing, waited a few seconds, and then joined in on “Golden Age.” I would’ve liked to have heard what Fish had in mind for the next level of the “Light” jam, but I was just as happy to hear the TV on the Radio cover that has really grown into its own in Phish’s repertoire in 2011.

“Golden Age” was perfect, as it has a truly celebratory feel in its bridge section, which jammed briefly before turning back to the verse riff for a funky outro jam. With Page slaying the clav and Mike getting really creative, Trey merely sat back on his wah-wah strumming, letting the jam coalesce, led by Mike. Just as the jam was getting on the verge of venturing out into the unknown, the band wore it down, and entered into the cool down of “Theme From the Bottom.” I love this song, so I was happy to hear it, although I really wanted five more minutes of “Golden Age” jamming.

I went to get a beer during “Heavy Things,” because after that craziness and given the craziness that would follow, I certainly could afford to miss “Heavy Things.” I kept saying out loud in the beer line “let’s go before they start playing ‘Ghost‘”! Luckily I made it back to my seat just as the “Ghost” jam was starting. Again, an odd choice to repeat a song from 12/31/10 in almost exactly the same spot. While I wasn’t expecting this version to reach the levels of that magical version from exactly one year earlier (and it didn’t), I was hoping that it would provide one of the highlights of the night (it did). The jam quickly started with contrapuntal interplay between Mike and Trey. There would be no quiet funk jam tonight (just like the previous night’s “Sand”), but instead, Trey lept right into passionate rock leads, with Mike surrounding him and Page skipping his electric keyboards entirely, going straight for the baby grand.

Trey started going for louder strummed chords, and eventually began a slow trill which formed the thematic basis for the end of the jam. He kept returning to that slow trill idea, sometimes soloing around it, but also allowing the rest of the band to use it as a jumping off point. The band brought things up to a big peak, with Page finally hitting the Hammond organ for the climax, before bringing it all back down to the main “Ghost” riff. The jam itself was great, although the “Ghost” felt a little truncated because it didn’t have a quiet funk jam immediately following the lyrics. Going with the theme of this run, though, it was all energy, and fantastic type I jamming.

Phish kept the groove going with “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley,” which provided another great funky dance opportunity. A fun vocal jam, as has become de rigueur for this song, began with the band singing the parts they were playing, and eventually turned completely a cappella, before returning to a fun but short final jam. Trey took the closing sounds of Page’s organ and turned it into the opening riff of “46 Days,” a perfect “>” segue. While it was another repeat from 12/31/10, this version provided another one of those MSG moments, when the energy in the room comes to a fever pitch and the band feels it and plays out to it. The excitement and intensity were palpable during this jam, with machine gun Trey licks and wild Fishman playing. The jam peaked early, and then kept going and going and going. I couldn’t help but think of Trey saying how it’s like “all day long I’m cumming!”:

A fun, quick “Suzy Greenberg” closed things out. This was definitely the set, one in which Phish showed that, should they choose to do so, they can take it out as far as they, and we, want them to go. Absent in the first set, and appearing sporadically throughout the first three nights of the run, this second set saw a bunch of great jamming in the “Light->Golden Age” and the “Ghost,” plus that transcendent moment during “46 Days.” A great vibe to carry into set III.

Set III began with “Cavern,” a nice energy-pumper and a quick entrance into the third set. After this, the antics began. The sound of a tea kettle going off came over the P.A., and a tea kettle next to Trey started to smoke and steam. Trey mimicked trying to diffuse the steam with a towel, and then grabbed the kettle and moved it over to his signature amp. Then he started to play “Steam.” I was hoping to hear this song, as I think it’s one of the best new tunes the band has written, and I hadn’t heard it live yet. But I wasn’t expecting it would be the NYE stunt. Not only will the song forever be associated with Saturday’s gag, but it was also by far the best version of the song to date, caused in part by the necessity of using it for the NYE stunt, and because it fed off the energy and excitement of the theatrics.

As the signature steam sound and clouds of steam filled the stage, Trey’s amp, the one with the tea kettle on it, starting to float up off the stage! Then I noticed the wires hanging down from the ceiling all around the arena, and a series of red lights were all over the floor, looking similar to the landing guide lights used at airports (and last year when the hot dog landed on stage). So I figured we’d be getting some sort of aerial show for midnight, although I didn’t know exactly what kind. Soon, Mike’s backup bass starting floating up behind him, and then Page’s keytar. All three band member’s components were just floating up and down above them. On the final steam sound, Fishman’s vacuum went up too. The jam began, and I spotted a couple people with STEAM signs in the front row. “Wow, they were lucky,” I thought. But then one of them jumped the rail and started dancing around. From my angle, it looked like she was dancing on the rail, until I realized that she was on a separate platform with its own rail replica. A “security guard” mock wrangled her, but alas, she got up on the rail, which was now raised directly in front of the band, and before long, she too was floating dead-center stage above the band, dancing wildly in mid-air! Everyone was going nuts, it was a lot of fun, and people seemed to be responding well to her energy.

All the while, Trey was crafting a beautiful solo on this “Steam,” gradually building the jam but really taking on the lead role here, as Mike was mostly laying down the groove. Soon, other aerial dancers dressed as fans, many of them with “hippie” attire, hats, etc., started floating all above the various floor sections. They also seemed to be blissed out from their dance moves, and the effect was really cool. The dancers did a great job mimicking the excitement and fervor of a real phan, responding well to the music, which just made all the rest of the phans that much more excited. But really, it was Trey’s playing on this “Steam” that was pushing everyone, the dancers and the audience, to such heights (no pun intended).

“Steam” peaked in a frenzy of notes with a great bit of tension/release jamming, as all dozen or so dancers were now airborne and going apeshit along with the music. Since they had to keep jamming until midnight, they brought it back to several more peaks, each one texturally different from the last, and Fishman pushing the jam faster and harder. When Trey hit the big chord to take them out of the climactic end section, they moved to a more hard rock sound, with wild strumming and just a touch of dissonance, Fishman going even more off, with punctuating chords. Trey soon found his way to a very “Llama”-esque style of strumming, and that’s when the extremely loud countdown began, seemingly from the main aerial dancer girl in front.

“Auld Lang Syne.” Balloons. Champagne, kisses, hugs, general mayhem and love and happiness. Phish New Year’s. There’s absolutely nothing like it. Phish went through “ALS” a few times, actually jamming a little on it at the end. The dancers seemed to disappear, but it was tough to tell from all the balloons.

At this point, it seemed nearly a guarantee that we’d be getting “Down With Disease” after midnight, and Mike’s bass intro shortly followed “Auld Lang Syne.” The song was a bit messy, no doubt because of all the balloons onstage, but the aerial dancers returned, now each of them holding a pair of searchlights, and doing choreographed moves to go along with Kuroda’s lights for “Disease.” They were also being lifted up and dropped much faster than during “Steam,” more of a flying and falling motion than floating. Disease was a lot of high energy fun, especially with the dancers, but one of the best parts was when Trey and Mike were raised about 20 feet off the stage on tiny hydraulic platforms, all while still raging out the “Disease” jam. When they were finally lowered back down, they took advantage of their wireless instruments to run around the stage, a la Fishman during “HYHU,” while still jamming. You can get a better view of the hand-held lights from this video’s angle (“Disease” starts around 14:00):

After all the excitement and silliness had calmed down, the jam headed for a funky denouement, or, as I hoped, the beginning of a big third set jam. It wasn’t exactly to be, though. This spacey, minor blues/funk jam got going pretty well, with Fishman actually getting a little faster and more intense. But then they decided to just abort the thing, winding it down with a big cadence. On the soundboard recording, you can hear someone yell “cheesecake” after the “Disease.” Nice.

This was the moment, the point at which a truly legendary third set could have been made. I was hoping it would be “Reba,” a tune that would have gotten everyone so psyched, and would have jammed really hard, and would have generally defined the feel of the set. Instead, Phish went with three shorter songs that didn’t recapture any of the fantastic energy of the NYE stunt. I love “The Wedge,” it was the first Phish song I heard live. But it meant less time for a big jam. And then we got Alaska’d. I think “Alaska” has it’s place in a Phish show, and that place is mid first set. When a song consistently substitutes for a big jam moment in a show, you begin to stigmatize the song. I think that’s what’s happened to “Alaska.” It’s actually a good song, and it has a fun jam, but it has come in so many late second (and now, third) set moments when all you wanted was a big improv vehicle. We didn’t really need a slow song, but we got “Velvet Sea” anyway, another song that I love but that I didn’t want to hear at that point in the set.

A rocking “First Tube” got the energy going again, but it wasn’t enough to salvage the second part of the set, and no version will ever come close to the feel of the 12/4/09 version, which had some kind of extra-musical power. Swapping last year’s set III closer and encore, the band came back out and played “Slave to the Traffic Light,” a great final tune, but I couldn’t help but wonder why “Melt” and “Reba” were left on the shelf during this run. It was a mostly standard “Slave,” the jam starting with nothing and gradually but methodically working its way to a peak. No big deviations from the norm.

No matter, it was still a fabulous New Year’s Eve. Everything from “Fluffhead” through “Disease” gets an A, and the rest of the show gets a B (which is still above average, as I’m constantly reminding my students!). “AC/DC Bag,” “Mule,” “Ocelot,” “Ghost,” “46 Days,” “Disease,” “First Tube,” and “Slave” were all repeats from last New Year’s Eve, which is mildly curious. With only four shows, you would think they’d want to vary things a bit. As there are nothing but rumors out there for 2012, who knows when the next Phish show will be. Thankfully, we know there will be a next Phish show, and it’s just now becoming clear that, with Trey sober and the band in a very good balance of work/family/side projects, we have many more Phish NYE celebrations ahead of us. As long as the Mayans are wrong…

The Red Red Worm

It was inevitable that one of the nights of this four-night NYE MSG run would feature a jam that makes everyone look around in bewildered wonderment half way through. A jam that defines what we mean by Type II: leaving the song’s structure, rhythmic identity, and harmonic boundaries until the band truly finds themselves composing on the spot, creating improvisatory bliss. We got it last night in the form of a monster, multi-section, transcendent “Piper.” I’m shocked that this didn’t get labeled “New York Jam,” since by around the ten minute mark, there was nothing identifiably “Piper” about the music we were listening to. Pure group improvisation. In other words, THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!

But more on that later.

I had been feeling a big bust-out night, or maybe a deeply psychedelic journey (5-song second set anyone?), but instead, the band delivered another high-energy, solid Phish show that had pretty much everything you could ask for: a few bust-outs, fan favorites, funk, rock, bluegrass, ballads, covers, more odd setlist placement, some excellent jams, and of course, that “Piper” jam that could very well end up being the improvisational highlight of this run (I hope I’m wrong on that last account). More importantly, Trey is playing very aggressively even in his routine soloing. It’s as though he’s playing the same old melodic patterns and thematic ideas that he’s always had in his fingers, but with a renewed ferocity that has been an occasional, rather that constant, presence in the 3.0 era.

Everyone was sniffing out a “PYITE” opener one of these nights, and the excellent crowd-pumper-upper came last night, doing all its usual awesomeness. Then, an extremely odd second-song “Caspian” came out of nowhere (but hey, that’s nothing compared to a second song “YEM”!). It was another bit of unusual placement by putting a tune that normally comes in the second set, and normally at the end of a set or a long jam segment, early in the show. “Caspian” took a bit more oomph than usual, had a little more weight in the set order, as it was a jumping off point rather than a landing pad. After peaking nicely, it fizzled into a really nice bit of spaceyness before Trey started strumming out the opening rhythm of “Backwards Down the Number Line.” I’ve seen too many of these in bad setlist positions recently (PNC 2…), so it was great to hear “Number Line” early in the set, without any chance of foiling a sick second set jam. Plus, the jam raged (as it often does). Again, it’s nice to see Trey attacking his guitar with such drive and determination.

Also, and this really goes for the whole run, but Mike and Page have really been phenomenal not only in their jamming, but in their listening. It seems as though all three melodic instruments are responding to each other’s ideas in a very healthy, organic way, especially Mike and Trey. Normal Trey-led jams are that much more interesting because of how Mike is responding to Trey’s leads, carving his own melodies around the guitar, so that a jam’s build feels more like a group effort rather than a solo with accompaniment.

Traditional bluegrass made its first appearance with “Nellie Kane,” which is not only my absolute favorite Phish bluegrass tune, but one I’ve only heard one time before. I danced my ass off. Trey’s speed and agility seem not to have suffered from four months of not touring. A nice mid-set “Divided Sky” made a welcome appearance, but that was followed by another surprise setlist choice, a meaty mid-set “Sand.” This was perfect, exactly what this set needed after a whole bunch of rock and Phishy compositions. A first set “Sand” casts a nice dark aura over the opening frame, and this was a particularly nasty version. Trey wasted no time getting right into the thick of things, eschewing the quiet muted-string playing that has begun many “Sand” jams of late and moving right into some raging rock-styled jamming. Page followed suit, skipping the normally clav-dominated opening funk and going right to comping on the grand piano. Trey absolutely shredded the end of this jam with Page erupting in chords, following Trey all along. An intense return to the riff marked the close.

The now-rare and totally gnarly “Vultures” made an appearance next, much to my delight. As usual, the tongue-twister lyrics and punctuating rhythm made for a danceably fun time. “Rift” is one of those songs that has a lot of old school flavor and cultural caché within our little community – I feel like when phans hear “Rift” it brings us all back to that early 90s Phish listening mindset. I was loving it, as were many others, dancing as hard as I could during the flawlessly played composed section. I’m sure there are some “Joy” haters out there, since there are probably haters for every slow tune (I can’t stand “Show of Life” or “Anything But Me,” but I love “All of These Dreams” and “Let Me Lie”), but I’m certainly not one of them. I think “Joy” is a really nice song, and its chorus lyrics would be cheesy if it weren’t for the weighty emotionality of the verses. As it stands, it’s a powerful message, and the closing riff and jam feels like pure happiness.

This is my dog, Quinn the Eskimo:

Everybody's gonna jump for joy!

So naturally, you can imagine how psyched I am anytime Phish plays “Quinn the Eskimo.” My wife ran back in from the beer line so that we could rock out in celebration of our doggie together. Yeah we’re crazy dog people.

Set II began with some big, heavy rock, the one-two punch of “Wilson” followed by “Axilla.” “Axilla” seemed a touch botched at the beginning, but no matter. Then, Trey began the quiet strumming of “Piper.”

There are a few things that are on my Phish wish list: jam out “Tube” and “2001,” go back to the 1995 style on “Free,” and slowly build up “Piper.” While it seemed like we were heading for a nice slow build, Trey prematurely began the lyrics section. I think it doesn’t let the song grow enough when the introduction is that short, but whatever. A typical “Piper” jam began to unfold, but it felt like Trey was having difficulty finding a strong line. He kept returning to many of his signature licks, seemingly feeling out the curves of the jam, but not really finding a comfortable spot.

And then all of a sudden, right around the five-minute mark, Trey switched to a minor chord strum, and the entire band heard it and followed him down the rabbit hole.

This was one of the best turn-on-a-dime jam transitions I’ve heard in a long time from Phish. Fishman immediately began pushing a bit harder and easing up on the cymbals, and the band switched over to a two-chord minor vamp with lots of Mike leads over Trey’s strumming. Page moved from the piano to the synthesizer, unleashes long waves of sound punctuated by Hammond organ. All the while, Trey seemed content to comp chords, setting up the rhythm of it all. When Page suddenly started soloing on the synth, Trey switched over to a more electronic sounding guitar tone, and played in counterpoint with Page, occasionally returning to big warbles of sound, while Fishman came as close to a disco beat as you’ll ever hear from him.

The jam took a turn then when Trey found a riff he liked, and the whole band followed, including Fishman who lessened up his relentless groove and began to play more fills. This turned into a more subdued style of drumming, which set up a major-key ambient section wonderfully. Fishman was drumming very quietly, but still very fast, keeping the rhythm pushing while bringing the overall intensity down. Trey carved out some beautiful notes, while Page offered waves of sound reminiscent of the best fall ’97 space jams. Trey did a few siren-like bird calls, and then at one point, Mike unleashed the bass bomb to end all bombs. It shook MSG to the core, and simultaneously melted everyone into the floor. Puddles of brains, everywhere. This jam was absolutely nothing like “Piper” anymore – it was a one-chord major key drone, exploring timbres and layering textures. The guys in front of me turned and asked “is this STILL ’Piper’?,” and they were seasoned vets. Page was playing at least two different kinds of sounds at once, and Trey kept changing his tone and layering sweeps of sound, all while Mike was dancing around circular patterns high up on the neck of his bass, and Fish was keeping the ride cymbal going strong. This is why we keep coming to shows, this is why we make such huge sacrifices in our lives for this band. This is IT.

Trey then started soloing again on top of the entire texture, locking in with Mike’s lines while Page offered big, warm organ chords. As it all seemed to be winding down, Trey went for the classic followup, pairing “Piper” with its longtime companion “Twist.” This “Twist” did not disappoint, as everyone needed something of a breather after such a intense journey. Rather than go for a straight rock or funk jam, Trey and Mike kept things playful on this “Twist,” with a lot of very interesting drum patterns from Fishman that made the jam seem different in some way. A big energy infusion came in the form of “Julius,” with Trey again slaughtering his solo. Another little taste of old-school flavor came in the form of a late set “Golgi.”

At least, I thought it was late set. The opening drum beat of “2001” indicated that they still had some work to do that night, although I was praying that this wouldn’t be one of those quick, throwaway versions. The band didn’t let me down here, jamming out both of the pre-”verse” sections nicely, doing some real funky start/stop jamming after the first “verse.” While it wasn’t quite a 12-minute excursion, at around 7 minutes it was quite the welcome change from some previous “2001″s. “Horse>Silent” slowed things down again, but of course, everyone loves “Silent” during the NYE run. “Just last year,” indeed. Also, when did Page start playing “Horse” on piano instead of Trey on guitar? I’d love to see Trey pick up the acoustic for “Horse” one of these days….

Finally, the “Bowie” that I was sure would come on the 31st showed up, and with a scary weird psychedelic introduction taboot! Trey teased a demented version of the “Silent” riff during the intro, and the band nailed the composed part. This was a relatively standard “Bowie” jam, nothing out of the ordinary but certainly nothing pedestrian, either. Attacked on all fronts, the built the jam of this dark classic up from nothing, with some nifty Trey/Mike interplay at the start and the mode mixture towards the major side that’s been common to many recent versions of “Bowie.”

But that wasn’t all – a nice “Squirming Coil” was sure to be the closer for the set. Sure enough, the band left the stage, focusing the spotlight on the Chairman of the Boards, who gave us a variety of different Coil styles, including one really nice bluesy moment, before winding it all down and showering in our thunderous applause. For the encore, the band went with high energy and fun, starting with “Boogie On Reggae Woman” that featured an extensive Mike solo, and then putting the exclamation point on the show with “Good Times Bad Times.”

On the night before New Year’s Eve, the band offered us a deep space exploration of cosmic proportions. We can only hope we see another monster of a jam tonight, but what will it be? Other than “Reba,” “Melt,” “Light,” and last year’s big winner, “Ghost,” there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot left in the catalog to make some really huge jams. What I hope this means is that we’ll get a few totally absurd jams in unexpected places. A big “Jim” ala 12/31/95, maybe a jammed out “Bag” like 12/30/97, or some other typically short tunes that could turn into monsters like “Gumbo” or “Waves” would be fantastic. “Ocelot” seems a guarantee, and hopefully a “Party Time” opener and just a touch of “Meatstick” in there. Mostly, I’m just excited to be spending another New Year’s Eve at MSG with my wife, my best friends, my favorite band, and 20,000 other new friends. Happy new year everyone! See you on the other side.

Just Your Standard Second-Song YEM

A four-night NYE run has practically become a codified thing unto itself. Each night ends up having its own personality, one of several Phish show “types,” rather than a long, four-show single experience. If you’re familiar with past MSG runs, you know the drill. The first night might be the high-energy rock night (12/28/93), the second night might be the funky night (12/29/03), the third night reserved for rarities and bust-outs (12/30/09), and the 31st itself is, well, it’s always a mixed bag of tricks – some psychedelia, some funk, a lot of high energy and rock, and usually one or two definitive jams that blow it all out of the water (the 12/31/95 Weekapaug, the 12/31/10 Ghost, etc.).

Other than some glowing reviews that seem symptomatic of an “absence makes the heart grow fonder” effect, Wednesday’s opening frame seemed to have been largely a warm-up show (Full disclosure: I wasn’t there, and I haven’t heard it yet). That’s not to say that it didn’t bring the heat in a few places. By all accounts, the “Free” opener caught everyone off-guard and infused some much needed drive into a song that has largely petered out since the late 90s. Following that with a note-perfect rarity in “Glide” and a fiery “Possum,” and it seems that there was certainly some energy in the Garden. Yet most of my friends and family who went felt that Phish wasn’t really letting it all out. A one-show warmup might have been just what the band needed. All the potential jam vehicles – “Stash,” “Gin,” “Tweezer,” “Hood” – were mostly standard versions. Not to say that they were bad, but that they were typical. We all love “Hood,” and there’s really no such thing as a bad “Hood,” but there definitely is such a thing as a spectacular “Hood.” Wednesday’s version wasn’t spectacular (again, it’s all hearsay, don’t shoot the messenger).

So what would Thursday night bring? Would it be the psychedelic excursion of the run? Would it be the funk-fest? Would it be a night of bust-outs and older tunes? Or would it be a dud? The answer was funk, but really, last night’s show was all about pumping up the energy of the garden, and taking us all for an adrenaline fueled ride out into the stratosphere.

Typical opener calls of “Bag,” “PYITE,” “Llama,” and others floated around our section pre-show, so it was a welcome shock to everyone when Phish came out and slayed “The Sloth.” Surprise! The last “Sloth” opener was 2/22/03 Cincinnati, but it’s only been played 5 or 6 times since then anyway. A little rare Gamehendge flavor got the crowd going early – there’s nothing like a bustout to immediately launch everyone into another zone. But what came next was even more unexpected, and even more of an energy jolt. Everyone seemed initially caught off-guard, and then slowly becoming elated, as the opening notes of “YEM” washed over the crowd.

Phish’s most common song in one of the most uncommon slots. Not since the legendary 4/5/98 Island Tour has “You Enjoy Myself” occupied the two-slot in a first set. While I’ve seen two “YEM” openers before (2/26/03 and 7/9/03), this was different. The “YEM” opener is a novelty, a freak occurrence that plays right into the audience’s sweet spot. In both my previous cases, it was used for effect. On 2/26/03, it was a “reward” for the fact that Phish would debut four songs, one from each of the member’s solo projects during hiatus. On 7/9/03, it was a not-so-subtle nod to the last pre-hiatus show at Shoreline, which encored with “YEM.”

But in the two-slot, “YEM” takes on a different character. With the “Sloth” getting things going, “YEM” was just the next song in the set, calculated to surprise and astound and blow the roof off the sucka, but to do it as part of a continuation of what had already been put in motion, rather than as an initiator of that trajectory. It took what we were all feeling after the “Sloth” opener and cranked the intensity up, rather than having to generate its own intensity out of nothing. This subtle ontological difference changed the feel of the show, which constantly felt like it was building on its own mountain of high-octane energy right to the last note of the night, constantly surprising us with setlist moves calculated to infuse another jolt of power into the show.

There’s nothing like the “YEM” build so early in the show, rather than when you’ve already been letting it all out for the past 3 hours. Trey added to the excitement by switching his normal pre-”Boy” scream to an “OH MY GOD!!!” scream, saying what many of the fans were thinking about a second song “YEM.” Page asserted his presence early on, absolutely slaying the tramps jam even harder than usual. Trey seemed quite patient as he built up the jam, which had as much to do with Mike’s nimble-fingered playing in the higher bass registers as it did Trey’s fretwork. Big Red concentrating on the muted string repetitive playing at first, creating some tight funky counterpoint with Mike. Throughout, Trey found himself repeating short phrases, either verbatim or in sequence, allowing the rest of the band to push the jam while he remained melodically static. Of course, this finally culminated with Trey breaking out, going on fast runs all over the guitar, bending big high notes, and finally some manic strumming. This “YEM” jam was definitely of the funky variety rather than the big rock ‘n’ roll type, with a crazily fun bass and drums section.

The second musical theme of the night emerged from the “YEM” – 12/29/11 would be all about the FUNK. A trio of gooey funk tunes followed, beginning with a completely average, but still fun and funky, “Back On The Train,” then followed by a jam-less “Moma.” “Funky Bitch” ended up being the best part of this section of the show, with a dominating Page organ solo after the second verse, and then a blistering guitar solo with Trey strumming like a madman in his highest range. Trey let Page’s solo shine, comping with a few extended 9th and 11th chords (foreshadowing the upcoming “Maze”), but mostly just playing a few punctuating chords to accompany Page’s wild playing. It was one of the more memorable versions of “Funky Bitch” I’ve heard. Trey’s solo was emblematic of the night: take the already high energy and kick it into the next level.

Setlist-wise, they did just that with a mid-set “Maze.” Although this was a relatively typical “Maze” – meaning that it did exactly what “Maze” always does, owns your face – it continued to push the energy in the room. A return to the slow funk in a fun “Roses Are Free” kept everyone dancing, as did the follow-up “Halley’s Comet.” “Halley’s” didn’t exactly jam out, but continuing with the theme of pushing the energy and building the anticipation, the band kept the song going, moving deftly through the circle of fifths way further than they usually go. Typically, “Halley’s” features two or three modulations along the circle of fifths, which gives the impression of continuous harmonic arrival, but last night’s version went through seven or eight modulations. And then it fell into “Antelope.” A fun, frenzied finish to this “Antelope” wasn’t exactly notable, but with the electricity in the room and the complete lack of a slow song in the set, this was a fiery end to a funky, powerful set.

Set II began where set I left off, with a “Crosseyed and Painless” that provided not only funk, but again, big waves of energy as this has become a clear fan-favorite, no matter how often it gets played. A solid jam followed, going through many of the typical stages of a set II opener in 2011: fast, relatively patient build to an ecstatic release, followed by a descent into darkness and space. The watery Fender Rhodes and globular bass notes had me, and many others, thinking “No Quarter,” which would have been perfect in its normal follow-up spot to the second set opener. Instead, out of the murkiness, Trey went with his old standard, the riff to end all riffs, “Simple.” Another big energy surge, another beautiful “Simple” jam, with that lovable shit-eating grin plastered over Trey’s face.

Like many 3.0 “Simple”s, this version was highlighted by a blissful and quiet guitar solo that gradually turned more and more to intricate interplay between Anastasio and Gordon. Following its normal course, this soon disintegrated into some spacey counterpoint that bled into the first ballad of the night, but what a call: “Lifeboy.” This was a nice treat for everyone, as it was clear that folks wanted a breather, but still something that they’d enjoy immensely. That’s definitely “Lifeboy,” a rarity with poignant lyrics and a beautiful, slow and gentle build.

The ugly pig then made a mid-set appearance, as the triplet strumming of “Guyute” came into focus. A typically raging version followed, with one or two small flubs, but this was a great setlist move, effectively splitting up the first segment of the set, Crosseyed>Simple>Lifeboy, with the second major segment of the set, a fantastically atypical Mike’s Groove that featured one of the better “Weekapaugs” in recent history.

“Mike’s Song” was a good choice at this point in the set, and although it didn’t do much and Trey wasted no time getting right into it, he really pushed the tension to the boiling point before releasing it with the big “jamband” VI-bVII-i cadence at the end. Sticking with the normal modus operandi of 3.0 “Mike’s,” the band went into the transitional composed section, but rather than falling into “Hydrogen,” Trey could be heard strumming something fast. What is that, wait, is it really “Chalkdust!?!” Yep. Mike’s->Chalkdust. How’s that fit for you?

What came next was truly a magically Phishy moment. “Chalkdust” began going strongly toward the mixolydian, indicating perhaps a deep second set improvisational journey into psychedelic waters. But instead they soon brought it back to a normal “Chalkdust” jam that erupted in fine fashion, but not with the closing riff. Instead of the closing riff, Trey played a very recognizable guitar line, which I thought was Allman Brothers at first (it sounded like “Jessica” or the jam riff of “Ramblin Man”). But then it became clear: Trey was playing “Hydrogen.” In a moment of pure absurdity, Phish segued flawlessly from a raging “Chalkdust” into “Hydrogen.” As Fishman made the switch over to the gentle triple meter, he played it rather aggressively at first, to help facilitate the transition, before the whole band managed to bring it down enough to fall into the lilt of “Hydrogen.” Some people might think this was an abrupt segue, a ripcord, but I disagree: this was a brilliant move on Trey’s part and the rest of the band picked up on it perfectly.

Following this, a slow-as-molasses “Weekapaug Groove” closed out the segment. Noticably funkier and slower than a typical “Weekapaug,” this version continued the funktacular feel of the first set and the “Crosseyed.” It began with some vintage fall ’97 wah-wah strumming, before some great moments of muted string patterns from Trey and percussive clav playing from Page. There were a few distinct jam sections in this “Weekapaug,” first focusing on a minimal funky section, then moving to a slow, very patient build on a clean tone from Trey, and culminating with a full-on ragefest of strumming. It was definitely one of the longer and more patient ‘Paugs in recent memory.

At this point, the energy was rockin so hard and they could have played anything. Phish went with a slow ballad, not a bad call here, except that it was my least favorite song right now, “Show of Life.” Honestly, I have no use for this song. I’m happy that Trey has rekindled his songwriting relationship with the Dude of Life, but at what cost people, at what cost? Ugh. While at the urinal, I joked that they’d probably follow this wreck of a tune with “Character Zero.” Which they promptly did. But this was a great re-mounting of the energy lost from the “Blow of Life,” and the “Loving Cup” encore, as ubiquitous a closing choice as anything these days, was just as welcome.

I don’t know if all the parts of this show will hold up on recording, but definitely the “Funky Bitch,” the “YEM,” and most of the second set are keepers, especially the “Weekapaug” and the absurdly fine Chalkdust->Hydrogen. What night will the 30th be? Will it be the psychedelia night (please please please) or will it be bust-outs? We’re certain to get a big ol’ “Reba” and “Bowie” one of these nights, but I’m banking on some unexpected surprises tonight. Maybe a “Gumbo,” a “McGrupp,” and I’d really LOVE some 2.0 highlights: a fat “Waves,” a “Scents,” or a “Walls.” Regardless, with a lot of big guns out of the way (“Hood,” “YEM,” “Tweezer,” “Antelope,” “Mike’s”), and a lot to be saved for Saturday’s 3-set blowout, tonight should provide a lot of interesting setlist choices. Here’s hoping.