There are three ways a Phish show can be spectacular - there can be interesting jams and otherwise unique versions of songs, there can be rare songs played, and there can be funny band/fan interaction. Tonight had all three, which makes it really special.

Rare songs, I think we all know what those are. Two debuts - including "Gone" which I was really hoping for - and then the return of the much lamented "Tela." Fan interaction? Well there was the subtle game playing of breaking the 240 record that was going on for those who were in the know, and then there was the more obvious fact that they blerping brought a fan on stage to play the vacuum. And then they gave him it! Throw in a really nice "Sand" jam, an amazing "GBOTT," and the "Run Like a Reggae Woman," and you have the unique versions criteria met.

I don't think there's any way this show won't be praised to the heavens. There's a reason for that though. The easiest way of knowing a show was great was to ask people after the show what they thought. A good show would have people saying mostly positive things, but a great show, one of THOSE nights? Well when you ask someone what they thought about those, they just laugh or can't be coherent or bitch about something just as a joke. Walking out of the AAA, that was the reaction....

...and tonight is New Years' Eve. I can't imagine they'll top last night, but I can't wait to see them try!

Spotted on Nick Jr today. Someone has a Phish head working in the animation department...

Burritos and Phish, forever linked…

http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/138110

(all listed chronologically vs. ranked order within category)

The Fatty Toro:

6/7/09 - The Camden Sand - If not the first HOSE of 3.0, certainly a high-powered sprinkler. To many of us, an indication of what we had been waiting for loved of 1.0 and 2.0 phish.

6/7/09 - Tweezer - Less exploratory and more melodic and soaring, lovely stuff. Hrm, maybe Camden should be higher in my show rankings??

7/31/09 - Drowned -> Crosseyed - The segue on paper and as performed would likely land this piece here as Fatty Toro, but the playing around it confirms. Must hear.

7/31/09 - Tweezer - A clear exception to the timing/length rule. This Tweezer clocks in at just over 12min, but has mind bending and melodic playing—auditory gymnastics.

8/2/09 - Boogie On - Are we back at Alpine? Not quite, but an elite version; great playing, Twist-eqsue jamming.

8/7/09 - Sally - Amidst a relatively sloppy set-1 Sally goes bezerk after the VJ, unexpected hosing.

8/7/09 - Light - The band hits on all cylinders as they continue to showcase the new song as a second set hitter. Put this one in the wookipedia as the definition of “jamming so good it sounds composed” - the calypso / cooing jam.

8/7/09 - Gin - Yep, this Gorge1 is the real deal. Slinking all over and boomerang.

8/8/09 - Rock and Roll - This one’s better than a’right…

8/16/09 - #Line - Exploratory, some like, some don’t… but you have to admire the process. Segue into 20 Yrs.

11/28/09 - The Albany Seven Beghost - I’m sure you’ve heard all about this one…

Part Two next - The Chu Toro

So I was just listening to “Gone” off of Party Time and I was trying to think of what the lyrically darkest Phish songs are. These are the ones that come to mind.

“Esther” - it might be just a little too goofy to qualify, but it’s a woman who accepts a random gift and finds her life spiraling downhill rapidly the second she takes it.

“Free” - only if you accept that this is a song about drowning your wife and then proclaiming your freedom.

“Dirt” - almost definitely about someone killing themselves, leaving behind a despondent person futilely shouting their name into the wind and wondering if they could have done more.

Read more...

I love the formulation in this essay as somebody who follows Phish and politics avidly. Hope you all like it as well.

Once there was a guy called ‘The Timer.’ He stood in the front row at every show. He had a clipboard and a stopwatch. He was a brilliant math researcher, getting his Ph.D. at someplace like MIT. Whenever we started to play, he would start his stopwatch. His idea of quality was length. Whenever the jam wasn’t long enough, he would shake his head disapprovingly. So we had to ask him to not stand in the front row anymore. I have since heard that he is still timing everything, but just from the back of the hall.

Where do you put your keys, driver's license, and other personal effects?

I'm not trying to encourage this kind of behavior. I'm just wondering about logistics.

Finally listened, after many years, to the three tracks recorded by Richard Wright (the Phish buddy, not the Pink Floyd keyboardist) in the late ’80s under the name Nancy Taube (the lesbian-trapped-in-an-acidhead’s-body, not the board member at Vermonters For A Sustainable Population). Phish have covered two of his songs, “I Didn’t Know” and “Halley’s Comet,” since the mid-‘80s. For some reason, it’d just never occurred to me to check out the originals, even though the Mockingbird Foundation blessedly (as it turns out) coaxed them out of Wright a few years ago, ‘cause they’re really cool. Based on this music alone, one could make a fair case for Richard Wright to be the true genius of the Phish scene, a psych-pop outsider from some DIY sub-scene in deepest Vermont.