Six Weeks to #60: Episode IV

As my 60th Phish show approaches on in Charleston on Friday, 10/15/10, I've decided to take a look back at the five other “milestone” shows I’ve seen over the last 14 years. Some were stellar, others were lacking, but they’re all a part of my history with the band.

Every Friday for the next six weeks, I’ll post an essay/review of shows #10, 20, 30, 40 and 50. This is the fourth entry, from the ill-fated Vegas run in April of 2004.

#40: 4/16/04 Thomas and Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV

As the crown jewel in what’s otherwise a mostly-unlistenable run (like winning the 100-meter dash when your opponents are castoffs from The Biggest Loser), my 40th show wasn’t exactly on par with #10 or #30. It'll definitely give #20 a run for its money as the least impressive of the "milestone" shows that comprise this project.

Some call this three-night stand “The Death of Phish”. It’s a tough argument to disprove, seeing as 37 days after these shows, Trey issued his “We’re done” announcement, ending the all-too-short return from hiatus and effectively breaking up the band (for the time being). The rumors of rampant drug use, overdoses and hospitalizations ran wild this weekend, with everything from “Kuroda’s in rehab” (the lighting director missed his first shows in 15 years) to “Trey’s on coke” (his voice grew weaker and scratchier each night) making their way around the arena, hotels and casinos.

For me, the spring of 2004 whirled by quickly—it was my first two-week spring break from teaching, and I zipped from San Antonio for the Final Four to Puerto Vallarta for vacation to Vegas for Phish. The drive from Los Angeles to Vegas was always one of my favorite parts of the trip; in fact, I never once flew to Sin City in my seven years of living in L.A. From the must-have arm-length burrito at Baja Taco in Victorville, California to the World’s Largest Thermometer in Baker (below), the drive was always worthwhile and memorable. (Even when the CD player in Alex’s Explorer broke we were forced to listen to the entire Weird Al catalog on cassette or the radio on “scan”.)

Seeing as the Continental Club Hotel & Casino was no more, we installed our group at the San Remo, about a mile from UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center. We figured we’d walk to and from the venue nightly, but we forgot that we’d also be seeing moe. at the House of Blues after each Phish show; after trying to wrangle cabs the first night, we wound up driving the next two.

Thursday night’s setlist looks marvelous on paper, but it just didn’t have any guts—a run of “46 Days > Drowned > 2001 > Down with Disease > Free” in the second set should have any Phish fan licking his or her chops, but instead it was sloppy, uninspired and poorly executed. When my friend Liam (who was in town for a conference but couldn’t make the shows) called Thursday night post-show, he expected a glowing report from cloud nine; instead, I expressed my underwhelmed thoughts as I cabbed it to Mandalay Bay to see moe. blow Phish out of the proverbial water. (Pun intended.)

On Friday night Phish was infinitely better. The first set featured a rare first-set "Rock and Roll", a why haven’t they ever done that before? segue from “Back on the Train” to “Possum”; a graceful “Strange Design” (by far my favorite Phish ballad); and a storming “Taste” to close.

The opening of the second set defined the run, featuring the strongest versions of “Gotta Jibboo” and “Twist” that Phish 2.0 performed. The "Twist" is remarkable mostly because it's dark and dirty, mostly owing to the gritty tone that Trey preferred in the post-hiatus years. I’ll even stack this “Twist” against any other version out there, including 4/2/98 (funky, groove-heavy) and 6/14/00 (ambient, spacey). While there’s some discordant wanking about halfway through, by the 17:00 minute mark the jam kicks over into “Disease”-sounding territory, leading to Trey firing off peak after peak in a furious ascenion of notes before settling back down to the “Twist” ending. It just smokes.

Download the “Twist” jam and hear for yourself.

The other notable portion of the second set was the appearance of Fish’s “Sonic Dress”, which was crated by conceptual artist Alyce Santoro and made of old cassette tapes from the drummer’s collection . During “Love You”, he donned a garment similar to his orange-circle muumuu and special tape-head gloves and “played” the dress in lieu of a vacuum solo. It didn’t really sound like much of anything, and some in attendance swore it was all a hoax—they thought Fish was simply playing his washboard underneath the dress.



After the “musical suit” made its one-and-only onstage appearance, “Waves” melted into the delicate “Lifeboy” (my first), which featured some precise interplay among all the band members. It always amazes me how quiet an arena gets during intimate Phish moments such as this—at most rock shows, there’s always someone blabbing on a cell phone or woo-hooing at the top of his lungs, but the pin-drop hush that fell during “Lifeboy” was truly breathtaking. Perhaps our collective subconscious could feel the end of Phish dawning, and wanted to savor every moment. Perhaps everyone was just high on Vegas. Perhaps everyone was asleep. (All are viable options.)

Standard versions of “The Horse > Silent in the Morning,” “Loving Cup” and “Harry Hood” finished out the night, and as we fled to the parking lot, the car, and the House of Blues, I couldn’t help but be somewhat impressed that even in the midst of a less-than-stellar run of shows, the highlights were still pretty high. In fact, I still listen to the “Twist” quite often; it’s on a playlist of Phish songs to which I run when I’m doing distance.

The next night—the last of Phish’s Vegas shows for the foreseeable future—was a blast, but hit-and-miss musically. My longtime show-going partner Jeff managed to coerce 18,000 or so fans to partake in the “Meatstick” dance at setbreak, prompting Trey to insert “Meatstick” references into most of the songs in the second set. (This was also often referenced as one of the knives in the band’s gut before Trey was busted for drugs in 2006; Jeff took a decent amount of unfair flak for provoking the night’s antics.)

If and when Phish returns to the Thomas & Mack, I’ll do everything in my power to make it. Given the advertised clean-and-sober vibe of the reunion tours, I’d say more Vegas shows are less than likely, but I also believed that the band broke up in August 2004. Until then, I’ll cross my fingers and keep arguing the merits of that “Twist”.


Setlist:

I: Seven Below, Rock and Roll, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Back on the Train > Possum, Strange Design, Gumbo, Brian and Robert, Taste

II: Gotta Jibboo, Twist, Camel Walk, Wilson, Hold Your Head Up > Love You > Hold Your Head Up, Waves > Lifeboy, The Horse >
Silent in the Morning, Loving Cup

E: Harry Hood


Next week: I return to the scene of the crime!

Six Weeks to #60: Episode III

As my 60th Phish show approaches on in Charleston on Friday, 10/15/10, I decided to take a look back at the five other “milestone” shows I’ve seen over the last 14 years. Some were stellar, others were lacking, but they’re all a part of my history with the band.

Every Friday for the next six weeks, I’ll post an essay/review of shows #10, 20, 30, 40 and 50. This is the third entry, the "Moby Dick" show from Deer Creek in the summer of 2000.

#30: 7/11/00 Deer Creek, Noblesville, IN

Trust me, folks: this one is as good as advertised.

The mid-week Deer Creek run in summer 2000 was my first three-night stand at the same venue (I’d also eventually see Vegas ’04, Hampton ’09, Festival 8 and the Greek ’10 runs). Because of the precedent set this night, I’ve always held fast to the belief that the middle night of a three-night stand is the best (also proven by the Vegas, 8 and Greek runs).

Listen to the entire Deer Creek 2000 run.


Five of my closest friends banded together and crowded into a Ford Explorer for what would be our last tour as a group—Phish went on its first hiatus later that year and we graduated from college the following spring—then came jobs, weddings, and children (not necessarily in that order) and most of us couldn’t see as many shows (at least in a row) as we used to.

We started our seven-show mini-tour at our homebase of Starlake, about a half-hour west of Pittsburgh. From there, we stayed in luxury in Lake Geneva after the Alpine show the next night, and thankfully we didn’t need to make another hurried drive to Indiana (as we did a year earlier).

The shift from our own beds and showers in Wisconsin to rustic camping in Indiana was a bit jarring, especially in the July humidity. We “showered” in the bathrooms at Wal-Mart and killed time during the day at the nearby public swimming pool (with a 10-meter board).

Following a very solid Monday night show (with an excellent “Bathtub Gin” and a marvelously spacey “Fee > What’s the Use?”), we hiked through the cornfields that used to surround Deer Creek. (Imagine my surprise when I returned to the venue in 2009 to see it surrounded by strip malls and housing developments!)

We parked our posse about halfway up the lawn, just slightly Page-side of center, and with tortillas, balloons and marshmallows soaring back and forth like tracers, Phish trotted out its cover of The Mustangs’ “Ya Mar”, which might be the band’s best opener for a steamy summer show.

After “The Moma Dance” and my first “Uncle Pen” came a rare first-set “Drowned” (the song has been played 33 times since its Halloween ’95 debut; only seven of those have been in first sets) that served as a springboard for one of the most memorable (and admittedly bizarre) musical excursions of Phish’s career. Leaving behind The Who’s song about ten minutes in, the band found itself locked into a tight stop-and-start groove that had the audience exchanging what song is this? glances—it was that familiar.

Now, I don’t know how or why a copy of 12.10.94 (from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium) ever wound up in my tape collection, but there are two songs from that show that I distinctly remember—the short-but-sweet version of “Simple” that made it onto A Live One and the first encore, a striated, less tongue-in-cheek-angsty take on “Chalkdust Torture” during which Trey introduced each member of the crew. It became known as “Chalkdust Torture Reprise” because they’d played "Chalkdust" proper to close the first set of that show in ’94, and it became a running gag among my tour buddies—we’d sneak up on each other and, mimicking Trey, yell “GREENPEACE MIKE!” at the top of our lungs. (At 21 years old, this was hilarious. At 31... yeah, it's still hilarious.)

When the what song is this? looks were being exchanged, I couldn’t help but thinking that we were witnessing the second coming of “Chalkdust Reprise”. Sure enough, the jam came to a halt, kicked in again in a different key, and history was made. “Torture… torture… torture… Chalkdust Torture!” echoed the refrain over the raucous, appreciative cheering of the 24,000 in attendance. It was one of those perfectly Phishy moments—playful yet musically engaging, a callback to bygone days and a winking reminder that the band still had it.

Unsurprisingly, a blazing, straight-ahead “Chalkdust Torture” preceded “Theme From the Bottom” and “Cavern”, leaving us to a setbreak filled with a combination of stupefied “What the hell was that?” and ecstatic “How amazing was that?” The “Chalkdust” antics only whet our appetites for more music and more mayhem, both of which Phish would deliver in spades in the second set.

I will never, ever argue with the combination of “2001” and “Down With Disease” to open a second set. Ever. I would’ve loved to see Phish in the summer of 1993, when nearly every second set opened with “2001” (although in hindsight, I prefer the late ‘90s funkfests to the truncated early four-minute versions). “Disease” is, quite simply, my favorite Phish song, one that I could witness every night and not tire of hearing.

About a half hour into the set (and 13 or so minutes into a fierce “Disease” jam), Trey began teasing Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” (which Phish had played once before, as an encore of the 11.29.97 Worcester show with the historic hour-long “Runaway Jim”); Page caught on first, aping the signature riff on the organ. What sounded like just that—a tease—mellowed into a jam akin to the “Chalkdust Reprise” from the first set before Mike and Fish locked into the “Moby Dick” rhythm, and lo and behold, Phish was playing “Moby Dick” for the second time (but definitely not the last).

After storming through the end of “Disease” after “Moby Dick”, we got a tasteful “Runaway Jim” that flowed smoothly into another “Moby Dick”. What next? “Back on the Train > Moby Dick > Back on the Train” after which Trey jokingly asked, “You guys like ‘Moby Dick’?”

I thought the comedic portion of the show had ended when “Harry Hood” began, but with more “Moby Dick” teases from each band member, it was clear that Phish hadn’t had their fill of this particular gag yet. The “Hood” was absolutely sublime however, and is still one of my favorite versions that I’ve seen. Elsewhere in the lawn someone juggled fire during the customary glowstick war, the band was firing on all cylinders, and I was as ecstatically joyful as I’ve ever been at a show. It was one of those perfect “you had to be there” moments that I dare not try to put into words for fear that the magic of the memory might be tarnished. (Sorry.)

I genuinely thought that “Hood” would end the set, but Fishman (introduced by Trey as “fresh from his starring role in Gladiator—Mr. Russell Crowe!) strutted to the front of the stage to sing “Terrapin” and run laps around the stage while the rest of the band vamped on—what else?—“Moby Dick”!

What could they possibly play for an encore that could effectively cap off such a night? Appropriately enough was the peak-laden “First Tube” (being played for only the second time as an encore), which dropped directly into the final “Moby Dick” of the evening before Phish settled back into “Chalkdust Reprise”, during which Trey introduced the crew, then effusively thanked the crowd “for coming to the concert” and encouraged us to “buy the book and see the movie! The Phish! From Vermont!”

Watch every "Moby Dick" tease and the "Chalkdust Reprise" encore:



As the house lights sparked to life, the same how amazing was that? look spread over the countenances of thousands of attendees. There was a palpable buzz in the air; we all knew we’d just witnessed something incredibly special and monumental, a show that would go down in the books as one of the most unique—if not best—that Phish had ever played. Trudging back to the campground, we encountered ear-to-ear grins everywhere we looked; not only were we members of the not-so-secret fraternity of Phishheads, but we’d just been privy to the stuff of legends, and we knew it.

Within the past few years, a soundboard/audience matrix of this show has surfaced, but I honestly haven’t listened to the entire show more than a half-dozen times in the last ten years. I’ll admit that it doesn’t hold up as well on tape as some other “epic” shows, but that’s OK—as much as I’d love a pristine, remastered archival release, I’m content to let the magic remain in the summer of 2000, drifting above cornfields and campgrounds and the mystique of Deer Creek.


Setlist:

I: Ya Mar, The Moma Dance, Uncle Pen, Drowned > Chalkdust Torture Reprise > Chalkdust Torture, Theme from the Bottom, Cavern

II: 2001 > Down With Disease > Moby Dick > Down With Disease, Runaway Jim > Moby Dick, Back On The Train > Moby Dick > Back On The Train, Harry Hood > Moby Dick, Hold Your Head Up > Terrapin > Hold Your Head Up > Moby Dick > Hold Your Head Up, Character Zero

E: First Tube > Moby Dick > Chalkdust Torture Reprise


Next week: Vegas, baby, Vegas.

Six Weeks to #60: Episode II

As my 60th Phish show approaches on in Charleston on Friday, 10/15/10, I decided to take a look back at the five other “milestone” shows I’ve seen over the last 14 years. Some were stellar, others were lacking, but they’re all a part of my history with the band.

Every Friday for the next six weeks, I’ll post an essay/review of shows #10, 20, 30, 40 and 50. This is the second entry, from Summer 1999.

#20: 7/24/99 Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, WI

Anyone who was there will tell you: while on paper this show looks like a steaming pile of (Happy Whip and) Dung, it had a few redeeming moments—not many of them, but it did have them.

After the great deluge that fell during the encores the previous night in Columbus, my two touring companions and I stuffed our soggy clothes in the cooler and began the all-night drive to Wisconsin. Having seen my first and second shows (in 1996 and ’97, respectively) at Alpine, I was extremely excited to return, having missed Phish’s stop there in ’98.


11 years later the details are hazy, but I distinctly remember sitting in dead-stop traffic on the Chicago Skyway sometime that Saturday afternoon, baking in my ’89 Chevy Celebrity. Since the car had no air conditioning, we tried to drive at night to avoid the mid-July Midwest swelter, but for some reason, there we were—windows rolled down, Matt handing out the remaining ice cubes from the cooler, heat rising off the asphalt in waves—it was torture.

I recall making it to Alpine just barely in time, and as we negotiated our way down the sloping lawn toward the pavilion, there were rumors circulating that Phish had been stuck in the same snarling Chicago traffic that had ensnared us hours earlier. Someone in the seats near us claimed that the stage crew soundchecked in place of the band. With such a weird vibe hanging in the air, logic dictated that a completely unbalanced show would follow.

After a well-received “Guyute” opener, Phish unreeled the longest “Fluffhead” ever played, a 33-minute odyssey that featured 15 minutes of jamming after the song’s traditional structure. (Keep in mind that this show was before the band’s first hiatus, when “Fluffhead” still appeared roughly once a week in the summer of ’99.)

After leaving behind “Fluffhead” proper, the jam thrashed around for a bit, then settled into a loopy, Mike Gordon-led groove. As Trey Anastasio began soloing in a higher register, Page McConnell moved to the clavinet and the jam changed gears, from a major-key “Boogie On” jam to a darker, “Sand”-esque sound. Anastasio squiggled on his keyboard, then experimented with some backwards-sounding guitar effects before finding a repeating phrase (copied by Gordon) that pushed the jam to its peak.

The remainder of the set is painfully standard and woefully sloppy, unfortunately foreshadowing an even messier second set. “Fluffhead” slid awkwardly into my first “The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday > Avenu Malkenu > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday” (which I wouldn’t see again for another 30 shows, remarkably back at Alpine) and was followed by “The Wedge” and “Character Zero”, neither of which were remarkable nor memorable.

Highlights of the second set are unfortunately few. What should’ve been a special treat (the quirky “Catapult”, which was part of an erratic-yet-ecstatic third set at Camp Oswego a week earlier) was disastrously sung over top of “Tweezer”. “The Happy Whip and Dung Song”, a portion of a studio jam from The Siket Disc, combined with the ballad “Waste” (which I usually love), dragged the set’s momentum to a sludgy halt. Phish attempted to recover its fire during “Chalkdust Torture”, during which Anastasio attempted ridiculous rock-star backwards somersaults and theatrics (around the 8:00 mark of the video below), but it wasn’t quite enough to savlage an ailing show.



By the encore break, many people were already shuffling towards the exits, preparing for the daring climb up the second-steepest lawn in the United States (I felt like I needed ski poles and crampons to negotiate the mini-lawn at Berkeley's Greek Theater this past August). Thinking about the 250-mile drive to Deer Creek and the mediocre-at-best show we’d just witnessed, my friends and I seriously contemplated bolting; instead, we braced ourselves for what (we hoped) would be a redeeming encore.

The four songs Phish would play as encores that night confirmed why I’ve devoted so many hours and dollars to seeing their shows, buying their albums and merchandise, and generally being a hardcore fan.



Beginning with “Glide” (which was being played about once a year in the late ‘90s) and continuing through “Camel Walk” (played for only the fifth time since its 1997 revival), the super-rare “Alumni Blues” (last played in 1994, with 426 shows since its last appearance... you can hear the appropriate roar of applause during the first 10 seconds of the video above) and “Tweezer Reprise”, the four-pack of encores felt as though the band was saying, “Hey guys, we’re sorry we blew this one. Here are some kick-ass songs that we don’t play very often. Thanks for sticking with us!”

It was an affirmation, pure and simple, and I’m damn glad I stayed. Did the encores make up for what was otherwise a lackluster show? Perhaps. Before sitting down to write this piece, those four songs (and the “Fluffhead” jam) were all I remembered from this night; I haven’t gone back to re-listen since the show. Honestly, I probably won’t listen to it again, but the memories are there.

Oh, and that 250-mile drive to Indiana that we undertook that night? It ended roughly 30 miles from Alpine in Janesville, Wisconsin. Not five minutes after leaving the venue, my brakes cut out and my Celebrity jumped the median; we drove the wrong way on the highway for nearly a mile, then somehow found our way to the Farm & Fleet, where we slept on (not in) the car and got the brakes fixed the following afternoon, just in time for a beat-the-clock race to Deer Creek for what turned out to be the show of the summer (perhaps the entire year), the polar opposite of Alpine’s Jekyll-and-Hyde session.


Setlist:

I: Guyute, Fluffhead > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Avenu Malkenu > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > The Wedge, Character Zero

II: Tweezer > Catapult > Tweezer, The Mango Song, The Happy Whip and Dung Song, Waste, Chalkdust Torture

E: Glide, Camel Walk, Alumni Blues, Tweezer Reprise


Next week: the White Whale (Reprise) in an Indiana cornfield

Six Weeks to #60: Episode I

As my 60th Phish show approaches on Friday, 10/15/10, I decided to take a look back at the five other “milestone” shows I’ve seen over the last 14 years. Some were stellar, others were lacking, but they’re all a part of my history with the band.

Every Friday for the next six weeks, I’ll post an essay/review of shows #10, 20, 30, 40 and 50. Up first is my tenth show, Halloween ’98.

#10: 10/31/98 Thomas and Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV

1998 was a banner Phish year for me—I attended my first festival (Lemonwheel), Halloween, and New Year’s shows—and what began as a passion suddenly was hurtling towards obsession.

When a friend from college offered me his extra ticket for Halloween I certainly felt the urge, but as Ithaca, New York sits roughly 2400 miles east of Las Vegas, I didn’t really give the idea much serious thought. Two days before the Saturday show, however, a missive from e-savers (remember them?) clicked into my inbox, advertising cheap flights from Syracuse to Vegas. How could I resist?


I arrived at McCarran around 9:00 that Friday and decided against taking a cab (in hindsight, an epic mistake—the second set from 10/30/98 turned out to be a monster, one that I painfully regret missing to this day) in favor of hoofing it to the The Continental Club Hotel & Casino, where my compatriots Jeff and Alex had set up the day prior.

What looked on the map like a brief walk was actually two fairly grueling miles through the gusty desert with a heavy backpack atop my shoulders. I should’ve sped over to the Thomas & Mack for the remainder of the show, but instead I cruised around the Continental (now known as Terrible’s), which felt like one of Cousin Eddie’s ramshackle casinos from Vegas Vacation. Seriously: to call this place a dive would be to insult dives everywhere.


I was briefly pondering seeing the helmet-haired Vegas legend Cook E. Jarr when my friends burst in, raving about what an amazing show they’d just seen—the first “Long Cool Woman” in 15 years, the premiere of Jimmy Smith’s “Back at the Chicken Shack” and an acapella “Freebird” encore. Marvelous. Added bonus: I basically walked right past the venue on my way from the airport without realizing it.

The next day we tooled around the strip in Alex’s Saturn, abusing the P.A. he’d installed in the hood (“Attention hippies: Take a bath”) and engaging in general Vegas-esque mischief. I’d decided to play one slot machine in each casino, and eventually won $20 at the MGM Grand (and subsequently was chased from the premises by security when I wouldn’t show them my ID that confirmed my 19 years of age).

I called home from the next casino to let my parents know where I was. “Syracuse?” my dad guessed. “New York?” Nope, try again. “Guess where your son is?” he shouted to my mother when I revealed my location. For the guy who once hitchhiked from coast to coast, I expected more congratulatory praise for my impulsive Kerouacian adventure.

After waiting in line for a few hours at Thomas & Mack, I was elected to sprint into the arena to save seats for the general admission show. I grabbed the Browadway-style Phishbill that spoiled what I’d hoped would be a surprise costume set and bolted into the lower bowl, Page-side, about halfway between the stage and the soundboard. Saving seats turned out to be a monumental task, and I eventually retired, finding the rest of the group on the opposite side of the arena. (Side note: how did we ever make that work without cell phones?)


The first set was relatively standard for ’98 Phish (meaning it was average-great, but not mind-blowing). Alex’s buddy freaked out during a mid-set “Sneaking Sally Through the Alley”, exasperatedly breathing “ROB-ERT PAL-MER!” as though he’d simultaneously solved Molyneux’s Problem while ending world hunger. Jeff called the smooth transition from “Sneaking Sally” into “Chalkdust Torture”, and I was stoked to hear “Mike’s Song” a few tunes later.

This was my fourth “Mike’s” in ten shows (certainly no complaints there!) but as I’d yet to hear “I am Hydrogen”, I was a bit let down as the band moved into the then-newish “Frankie Says” (although in hindsight the spacey, textural song was an inspired choice for All Hallow’s Eve) and on into the set-closing “Weekapaug Groove”.

We leafed through the Phishbill during setbreak, chuckling at the “Roggae” and “Dirt” faux-advertisements. Many fans looked at each other quizzically as they also read, wondering why Phish chose the Velvet Underground’s Loaded over the heavily-rumored (and heavily-favored) Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon. In retrospect, the gesture defined the band at this time—while some of the playfulness that characterized its early years had dissipated, Phish had grown into a group that favored simplicity, and Loaded fit that bill. No horns, no guests, no quirky compositions—just a classic rock record that perfectly reflected the mature, 15-year-old Phish and introduced a number of jam fans to the genius of Lou Reed.

Phish’s rendition of the Velvets’ 1970 album was an instant hit that October night, with the deft and subtle Phishy touch applied to a batch of tried and true Reed compositions. Highlights of the Loaded set included a rousing take on “Sweet Jane” (the only VU song I knew at that point) followed by a nearly 14-minute-long version of “Rock and Roll” that hinted at the song’s enormous potential as a jamming springboard, especially as a frequent second-set opener for Phish 3.0.

The Fishman-led “Lonesome Cowboy Bill” arrived towards the end of the set, venturing from the song proper into a jam reminiscent of the Phish’s own “Possum” before delving into one of the lush, ambient soundscapes that defined Phish in 1998 (and foreshadowed the dark-and-dirty experimentation that followed in Set III).

A poignant, triumphant “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” closed the Loaded set in style, and I long lamented the fact that this song didn’t make it into the regular rotation (although I won’t argue with “Rock and Roll” every third show nowadays). Imagine my surprise and elation last August when “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” materialized at Shoreline, and three more times since then.



The third set? Depends who you ask. Some call it one of the biggest trainwrecks in the band’s storied career, while others call it a piece of sublime exploration. Opening with a half-hour “Wolfman’s Brother”, Phish left the song proper behind quickly, and by ten minutes in were pushing the boundaries hard. At the 20-minute mark, Fishman was playing vacuum over a wall of sound. 25 minutes after the set began, the band was loping through a sparse funk groove, eventually settling on “Piper”, which ran pretty straightforward and melted into “Ghost”.



Here’s where it really gets interesting and where the stories start to conflict. After about eight minutes of a solid “Ghost”, Trey simply put down his guitar and walked offstage. I’ve heard that someone slipped him something backstage; I’ve heard he was simply freaked out by Vegas; I’ve heard he was trying to channel Lou Reed’s obstinate nature. (OK, I made the last one up.) Suffice to say, the faithful were incredibly confused. After such a spirited jaunt through Loaded, seeing the band play a whacked-out space-jam set and end it abruptly didn’t sit well with a lot of heads (myself included).

Confusion and tension reigned in the few minutes before the end of the third set and the encore (would there even be an encore after that?), and when Phish re-took the stage, I could only think of Fishman as the family member who acts a fool when his parents are fighting in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. He rollicked the band through an amusing “Sleeping Monkey” and a downright thunderous and emphatically cathartic “Tweezer Reprise” that closed the show.
I lingered in Vegas for a few extra days (the side effect of the e-saver ticket), running into Phish fans here and there, always inquisitive of their thoughts regarding the end of the Halloween show. Most were just as stupefied as I was, but some were very genuinely concerned that the band was in trouble (it turns out they were, although it would take six years and another Vegas run to bring said trouble to the forefront).

I flew home the following Tuesday, admittedly a bit nervous about the future of Phish. When my roommate Rick picked me up in Syracuse, he handed me a printed setlist from the previous night’s show in Salt Lake City—imagine my joy at discovering that not only was my favorite band alive and well, but had covered Dark Side in its entirety in Utah.

Was I jealous that I missed it? Yeah, a little.

Would I trade it for my Phish-Halloween-Vegas experience, and the introduction of Loaded into my life?

Not a bet worth taking.


Setlist:

I: Axilla I, Punch You in the Eye, Roggae, Birds of a Feather, Sneaking Sally Through the Alley > Chalkdust Torture > Lawn Boy, Mike's Song > Frankie Says > Weekapaug Groove

II: Who Loves the Sun, Sweet Jane, Rock and Roll, Cool it Down, New Age, Head Held High, Lonesome Cowboy Bill > I Found a Reason, Train Round the Bend, Oh! Sweet Nuthin'

III: Wolfman's Brother > Piper > Ghost

E: Sleeping Monkey, Tweezer Reprise


Next week: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in Summer '99