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.
Great stuff. That was probably the most fun I've had at a show. Band was on fire and loving every second of it.
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