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!