Untimely Reviews: Phish, Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, CO, 09/04/11

Sunday was a lazy, lazy day, and as you looked around, the strewn bodies roasting in the sun, and sizzling inside E-Z-Bake-Oven tents were evidence of the hard-core raging a lot of folks did Saturday. Sunday was a time to relax, gather yourself, and make the walk for one more show. One final evening of Phish until who knows when.

Things around our campsite were tiredly entertaining, like the eight quarts of lotion Surfer Steve put on his face, or the fact that Dakota Fanning was still alive, or even the story from Ari about the dude at the Bonnaroo Radiohead stage. If you want the details on that one, hit me up in the comments, and I’ll attempt to do that doozy justice. The day seemed to flash past, though, and before long it was time to get your drink on and mozy back toward the hole-punchers.

My stub assistant this time was Ben, who was dressed like the gayest man I’ve ever met. He had on a skirt with some kind of sequined, feathered-sash belt, a tiara, and about 10 other things that had fallen from the gay tree, but -– even though he talked like he preferred men -– he was moving (two weeks from show date) from Crested Butte to Durango because he couldn’t meet any ladies. I told him good luck with that one; he swore the odds in D-town had to be better than in the Butte. Nevertheless, I got Ben a Bud Heavy for his troubles, and he told me to meet him in the far corner Page Side.

Once again, I’d lost my people, and once again, I wouldn’t find them until set break. The show, nonetheless, was stellar.

“Maze” was the opener and it’s another soft-spot track for me but I’m gonna go the jaded-vet/Mike-on-KBCO route on this one: The jam of this tune belongs to Page and in the days of old, it felt like he was given free range to go bananas on the keys in it. He gets after it in this rendition and in most, but the darker, slow-building organ rolls that led into two-to-three-minute lightning-fast solos seem so rare, or diminished, and this is almost always because Trey is getting in his space. In this particular “Maze,” it feels like Page is typically just building steam and Trey comes in with these atrocious, high-pitched chords that just ruin the aura of McConnell.

“Back on the Train” was one of my first favorites on Farmhouse when it came out. Live, though, I think it tends to be a dud. It’s not a bad song and never will be and there’s always the gotta-fill-a-set argument, but I find most versions of “BotT” uninspiring, full of Trey noodles, and with the drumming too much in the foreground. This led into “Rift,” and as the terminology goes, it’s a suitable "type-one jam." Nothing not to love, but I doubt it will ever be an agency for experimentation.

Phish carried the segue into “Bathtub Gin” and it featured some Page insanity at the beginning.

Phish - 9/4/11 "Bathtub Gin" from Phish on Vimeo.

As the song develops there was some nice patience from Trey, and once the whole thing got going it was electric, the perfect example of all four being conscious of what one another was doing.

For a song I’d never previously heard, “That’s the Way That It Goes” was magnificent. I didn’t know anything about Gillian Welch prior than this show, save for seeing her name making the occasional music-venue round. But, if her version is half as good as Phish’s was Sunday night, she’ll be on my iPod sooner rather than later. I thought it was an interesting choice to go with two consecutive rarities, and “Halfway to the Moon” was a wonderfully calm jam. I’m excited to hear it again.

“Gumbo” used to be something I’d long for in setlists, but I think not long after A Live One came out, the novelty of it wore off. I was glad for homeboy camped near us that rocked the Mexican poncho all weekend; it’s all he said he wanted headed in Sunday evening. I’ll always love the amount and the variety of Page on this cut, but I think he could stand to take it up even another notch.

Two things: 1) Remember back when Phish had shelved a ton of songs and people felt starved for tracks like “Destiny Unbound” and “Halley’s Comet”? I know it’s a grass-is-always-greener deal, but I kind of miss those days, the days of passing out flyers at Red Rocks that would attempt to coerce the entire crowd to sing the opening verse to “Destiny.” I still love “Halley’s Comet” but it used to be a bit of a mystery song –- or at least a song a lot of folks were chasing -– and now it’s become, with its more frequent setlist appearance, a few cool verses smashed between bunches of lyrical repetition.

2) Right when "Halley's" started, a kid walked past me with a shirt that said “What is the truth to this everlasting spoof?” on the back, and that put a huge smile on my face (Editor’s Note: Dickie V. voice…Serendipity, baby!). Still dig “Halley’s” at the end of the day.

“Tube” has always been a funny little number to me but it always goes into some kind of dirty stutter-reverb jam, which makes me dig the shit out of it. Can’t get enough of the Mike slap/Page clav/Trey scratch. Phish.net calls Trey’s tease in this version “Charlie Chan,” but it made me think of the old Kung Fu game on Nintendo. As far as “Timber (Jerry)” goes, I don’t dislike it, but it’s never done much for me. A little monotonous.

I was super-stoked for my first “Roses Are Free.” Goose bumps galore. If Ween’s ever heard Phish do this, they’d have to admit that the original is inferior, no? Nothing negative to say, really, about the song, save that the jam didn’t necessary get a chance to build, but it served as a segue as they took it into “Chalkdust Torture,” a tune I could do without for a solid dozen shows. So, I guess I am griping about “Roses” in a sense. I’d take a long version of it any day, but you gotta please everyone, in this case, all the dorks that still get off on putting both arms up and screaming “Can’t I live while I’m young?”

“Rock & Roll” opened set two and I was pumped to catch this. I feel like the development potential is massive, and Page’s vocal work was great. This blended into “Come Together” which was a complete mind scramble. I’m never expecting Beatles covers out of these guys and they always manage to slide one in under the radar. It slipped right into “Twist” which was a fun way to tie two covers into original material, and “Piper” followed. “Piper” usually leaves me feeling blah, like get it over with and stop playing it, but the jam in this version was nice and inventive. I had no idea what Trey was hollering towards the second half of it, but it was groovy, and the thing melted first into a nice space jam, then right into “Harry Hood.”

“Hood” featured the sounds of Mike Gordon having a light-saber war with himself, as well as some of Trey’s most patient work all weekend. Really just lights out. Still pauseless, and into “Roggae,” and I hate to keep dipping into my galactically themed bowl here, but that was cosmic. Great sound spectrum.

More segue: “Ghost.”

A while ago, the great Joe Posnanski put up a poll on his blog, as he is wont to do, and this particular poll asked the question: “Who is the best current rock band in the world?” Before existing as a poll, though, it was a brief blog post that instructed brilliant readers to nominate bands via comment with a brief synopsis of why they should be included. It was one of those situations where, when you see it, you want to act so fast you nearly freeze.

I managed to get to the post, though, and naturally, I nominated Phish with what I deemed a solid description. A few comments popped up -– all told there were 308 comments in 15 hours, which, if you’ve never blogged: that rocks –- and one or two of them supposed that Phish is not really a rock band. These things were supposed for reasons indescribable. So, to anybody that wrote that or feels that, I present to you this “Ghost.”



It of course segued into “Guy Forget.” And when I say “of course,” I’m being facetious. I have no idea what the deal with this tune is, but I do know that to be sandwiched between two “Ghost” segments it must’ve first been dipped in a golden batter of badassery. Back into “Ghost” and “now you all know who the ghost really is…”

“Walls of the Cave” was the second-set closer, and I’m not going to pretend to know the metaphor of this song but I should probably retract my statement from the Friday-night review wherein I claimed that “Seven Below” is the best song from Round Room. I suppose “Walls of the Cave” is, or maybe even “Waves.” “Seven” definitely had the most potential as an authentic Phish jam, but as I said, where it goes beyond about the seven-minute mark is crappy. (Note: “Walls,” during the re-listen, got huge, huge points in my book via sheer coincidence: The wife brought our eight-month-old daughter down to review headquarters and I put my headphones on the baby just for shits and grins. She rocked out some seven minutes of this “Walls” and appeared to absolutely love it.)

Anyway, the song reminds me of some kind of alien after-human-life revelation or some kind of coded what-Phish-was-all-about explanation for later generations that are maybe too technologically advanced -– “listen to the silent trees” -– to get what we, as live-music lovers used to do in a general sense, and more specifically with regard to seeing the same act time and again. Also, it makes me think of John Locke and the whole final season of “Lost,” but that’s neither here nor there. In essence, this was one heck of a weekend closer, and tour closer for that matter. Probing lyrics, high-energy jam, and the crowd seemed to really dig it, too. One of those moments where you not only have to take your hat off to Phish, but genuinely thank them, too.

In these reviews I’ve spent a fair amount of time mentioning the goings-on in TypeIIcast and they deserve some kudos here, specifically Stephen Olker. He, and other panelists (I think) have criticized set-closer choices, which, upon first hearing that, I found a bit trivial. For the final piece of irony regarding my own opinions, I was absolutely stunned that “Backwards Down the Number Line” was chosen, not only as the show/weekend tour closer, but that it was the only song in the encore.

A one-song, “Backwards” encore to close out what was arguably one of the tightest Phish tours in a decade. Stunned, I tell you. Stunned. And in all honesty, I love the tune. I thought it the perfect lead-off hitter for Joy when Joy came out and I haven’t wavered there. In spite of my criticism of Olker and company though, I think songs have a place in a setlist, and if “Backwards” has one, I’m not certain what it is. I do, however, know that if you’re gonna drop it in an encore, it had better be first in a three-spot.

I mean, they didn’t even do anything special with it. They just mailed it in. Mailed in the one-song encore to close out Summer Tour 2011. And that was it. It’s possible that it was significant to include the one song that has the lyrics “all my friends,” to use the song to talk about aging and spending time together. It’s possible that they were just messing with people, as they’ve done in the past.

All things considered, it was a great three-show run, and a heckuva night and setlist to wrap it, and the only afterthought I had was that it was a long walk back to the campsite, an even longer drive across Kansas the next day, and longest of all was the Tuesday back at work. Like Uncle Jake said, “Tuesday reminded me of one thing: “I’d rather be on Phish tour.”
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Untimely Reviews: Phish, Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, CO, 09/03/11, Part II

With my people still gallivanting around the Front Range and my interviews complete, it was time for some leisure, which I obtained via the company of the following: Lorin, and her pals Lara and Ari (Viking horns), a couple of other Connecticut-ers, Thomas and Adam (a.k.a Surfer Steve) from the University of Arizona (who Lorin adopted for the weekend), Mean Guy, BizarroJeff -- not to be confused with DiscoBiscuit Jeff -- and Dakota Fanning’s doppelganger. It’s ridiculously unfortunate that I did not seize the group-photo opportunity, but what’re you gonna do.

BizarroJeff and I made the nine-foot trek over to their shelter, and there was no shortage of comedic gems offered in the two or three hours hanging with them. For starters, Lorin, Lara, and Ari had shirts made with the Phish logo, and below it, two phrases: “Girls Gone West 2011,” and “Dude, You’re Gettin’ a Dell.” I didn’t get the Dell part, but now I do. Apparently, these dude-you’re-gettin’-a-Dell commercials ran all the time back in the day. I missed out on that, but what I did not miss out on was the approximate 1,376 times the phrase “Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell” was uttered.

If you’re confused, here’re a few examples:

Surfer Steve: “Do you think that guy could possibly be any more fucked up?”

Ari: “Dude, he’s gettin’ a Dell.”

BizzaroJeff: “I can’t really remember the conversation which led you to begin calling me Fake Jeff (which later became BizarroJeff).”

Lorin: “It doesn’t matter, man. We’re all gettin’ Dells.”

Pick your own variation. It happened.

Anyhoo, we sat around and swapped stories, such as the pig-roast benefit turned chicks-with-dicks oddity that Ari got conned into attending or the best-hurricane-party-ever gathering Lorin had (everyone got Dells). Best of all, however, was the sheer presence of Dakota Fanning. Picture Dakota Fanning dressed in ‘90s grunge attire with an inside-out Vans baseball cap, mirror sunglasses, a straggly beard, and the dingiest, scarecrowiest dirty-blond hair you can imagine. Now insert 17 kinds of psychedelic drugs into his system, and if you’re not equal parts entertained by the words coming out of his mouth/concerned for the functioning level of most of his major organs, then there’s something the matter with you.

His presence in the shelter tent kicked off with a scary attempt to walk across the circle of chairs and sit in one; here was not much to be said for Dakota’s coordination on this fine afternoon. Once he was seated, though, he began uttering one-liners while clutching his hat and laughing hysterically. Some of the more token of his statements were:

“Dude, you guys are so crazy. How is it possible that this is all happening?” After this he probably tore his abdomen with a three-minute laugh. There was also:

“Do you guys have any idea how the world made this all work?” And:

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep with the commissioner’s wife that night in St. Louis, but it is how I became the commissioner.” Finally:

“Man the only way you can figure out what’s goin’ on is to hide under cars and jump out as people are coming so you can look into their eyes and see if they’re lookin’ into yours.”

Dakota claimed he’d never seen Phish, and didn’t have tickets to any of the two remaining two nights. He continued to ponder the likelihood of “making it all happen” and I foolishly tried to explain to him that he needed to get to the box office and buy one, but he wasn’t interested.

A collection of substances circulated throughout this shelter, and while initially Dakota was skipped in the rotation, it was ultimately decided to include him when he kept reminding everyone that sometimes people tell him he looks like Gary Sinise. It was then protocol to get a Sinise line out of Dakota every time something was passed to him, which was nothing shy of priceless.

Finally, someone mentioned that their mother had Restless Leg Syndrome, and he probably laughed for two straight minutes about how much that would suck. He then bent his legs at the knees and raised his feet above his waist and flailed his legs about as an interpretation of what RLS looked like. He physically could not keep his arms from flapping, though, and about a five-minute ordeal was made trying to get him to keep them still. Not a dry eye in the house.

Anyway, we had a few more drinks, heard some random songs from Ari’s iPod -– which was attached to this mini, handheld stereo –- and she imitated this girl she saw at a wedding who carried one around above her shoulder, pressed to her ear at a wedding reception while hired music was played for attendees. We were led to believe that that girl had already gotten a Dell.

As show time approached, we separated back into our appropriate troops, and headed towards the venue. Hanging out with that pack, though, on that Phish-weekend Saturday, was one of the best times I’ve had in ages.

More shenanigans at the entry, as the staff had figured out the hole-punch catastrophe from Friday night, and folks with seats were angling to get their floor wristbands. In one of my efforts, my phone flew out of my hand and broke into three pieces on the sidewalk, which always makes for some good, embarrassing times. Device reassembled, I made a beer-inside deal with the dude –- name escapes me -– I stood behind, and voila: wristband. While procuring said beverage, however, I lost my people, and was again solo on the floor for first set.

I made it a point to stop moving forward where the crowd thickened, and stood behind a pair of gents who, at lights, retrieved some of the contents of what appeared to be an entire cigarette pack full of doobies. They were select about sharing, but not shy about it.

I’ve really enjoyed listening to TypeIIcast since they began (Editor's Note: If you haven't checked them out, do so. Now.), but it’s done a weird thing to my head in terms of Phish criticism. I tend to love what gets hated, and get a little too meta overall when setlists are developing. There’s probably not more hate for one particular song than “Possum” right now, largely due to the frequency with which it’s been played this tour, and most of it comes from Stephen Olker. When the first notes of “Possum” rang out I thought of his commentary, and made a fleeting effort to be open about the band’s selection.

Frankly, I thought they crushed it. It’s only been two years since my last “Possum” and based on my commentary from Friday’s show, I should’ve been agitated at getting another one so soon, but this version had great energy, and for my money, was a fine second-night opener.

“The Moma Dance” had some nice Trey funk/Page clav, and, on the whole, admirable syncopation amongst the four. It segued right into “The Wedge.” I was super-stoked for this number as, at its roots, are some down-home, feel-good vibes that come out of -- at least in this version -- a studio-similar beginning. Phish did an excellent job of building into a mellow-yet-high energy jam in “Wedge” and returned, spot on, to the melodic refrain just a few beats before its end. Loved it.

I had the same feeling I mentioned with “Stealing Time,” that I do for “Ocelot.” It’s a little hokey, but still a very digable song. This segued into “The Divided Sky.” Forget the Eric Wyman hate. This song has its place, and its place was as sandwich meat atop the bread of “Ocelot.” The crowd was rewarded with a great solo, and again going against the grain of my feel for Friday night, I’ve seen “Divided” eight times, but I can’t recall a version I didn’t enjoy.

“Funky Bitch” is never a letdown in my book. Gotta love Mike on vocals in this one as well as the way they undeniably shred it nearly every time out. Page destroyed his early solo, and he was also lights out during Trey’s end-of-jam segment.

Up next was “Axila.” In the relationships-with-songs vein, I feel inclined to mention that Hoist has always had an odd flavor on my palette, as, having really developed relationships with the first four studios by the time it dropped in ’94, it totally through me for a loop; it was definitely not what I expected. This is always a good thing with Phish, and I dig the album, but it still caught me off guard, even though, album-to-album, the previous four were completely different from one another.

“Axila, Part II,” to me, has a place between “Riker’s Mailbox” and “Lifeboy,” and little elsewhere. I’ve never seen it live, and probably wouldn’t be all that moved by it if I did. That said, this was my third “Axila” and I always equate hearing it to giving one’s self the Stranger. It segued into “Llama” with a wicked-high energy right out of the gate. It’s never been one of my favorites, but I was getting into it and then the jam went atonal/stupid-fast for a few, which threatened to mess with me bad. Luckily, it was short-lived.

This was probably a good time for a slow song, and “Fast Enough for You” is one that’s –- along with “Horn” -– always been highly crankable when rocking my copy of Rift. “Wolfman’s Brother” is another one of those Phish-criticism conundrums in that I’ve heard a bunch of them, it’s never been one of my favorite cuts, but it always seems to be solid live. This version was no exception as Mike, Trey, and Page dug deep and early into their disco pockets for a filthy tube of Soul Glo. I mean, I actually heard the high-pitched cavitation of propellers from afar. Trey did some crazy picking after the halfway mark; it sounded like he was running a broken comb across the high end of his fret board, and it all culminated in a fantastic finish. A really solid close to a really solid first set had me amped for second set, and to top it off, I reunited with my people at intermission to finally actually be at the show with them.

Before moving on to set II, though, I have to share a brief story. It's the story about a couple positioned directly to my right throughout set I, a couple by the names of Zach and Danielle. Zach looked like your typical middle-of-the-road male Phishhead. He had the backpack, the baseball cap, the gleam of party time in his eye. Danielle looked like she'd left the house anticipating White Zin and sushi, but instead got a night full of Dick's. The short-and-sweet version was that she looked bitterly unhappy to be there, and I kept trying to ignore her energy. I could do so no longer, though, when I heard them talking in almost-arguing fashion.

"I mean it," Danielle said. "They. Suck."

I decided not to look back at them for a while because this was troubling. She could've meant any number of things, but the most obvious prevented me from ignoring any longer.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Who did you mean when you said that someone sucked?"

"Phish," she said, without hesitation. "They suck."

Now, she kind of smiled for a millisecond when she said this, but I felt like she was serious.

"How many times," I leaned back in, "have you seen Phish?"

"This is actually my first time," she said.

"I was gonna guess that," I said, "but then figured you'd correct me with some larger number."

I went back to successfully ignoring the energy, but couldn't help but look over as Zach made multiple attempts to cuddle-dance with Danielle and smooch her. She returned the efforts with deadpan denials and sidesteps to get out of his backpack-encumbered reach. A few minutes later, Zach tapped me on the shoulder.

"Dude," he said. "My girlfriend thinks you're pissed at her for saying Phish sucks."

"Whatever," I said. "To each her own."

"No," he said. "You don't get it. She doesn't hate Phish. She likes listening to them, but wanted to see what their show was all about. Really, though, she likes listening to (Note: He listed two or three electronica bands, each of which name escapes me. For all I know they were Swimming with Dolphins and Love is Electric.)

Danielle quickly interjected.

" I do not like Love is Electric," she said in my ear, then murmured something at Zach through gritted teeth.

For the next six or seven minutes, she incessantly texted people from her BlackBerry, as though she were making plans, letting them know how the show could not end soon enough. One thing that was cool, though, was that she had this inflatable pig with her, and at one point I told her I wanted to get a picture of her pig at setbreak so I could send it to my wife.

"My wife loves pigs," I said.

"Great then," she said. "We'll get a picture of the pig so you can send it to your wife."

"If you're still here," I said.

"I will be," she said.

This was the perfect indicator that she would not be, but nevertheless, after a while, some dude turned around and began dirty dancing up close on Danielle's nice jeans. She kind of shoved him away and he came back for more. This repeated a couple more times.

"Do you know him?" I was curious.

"Yes," she said. "He's a friend of my boyfriend's."

The friend reappeared for a quick grind on Danielle's clean jeans, and she tilted the pig, which was vertically positioned, its back to her chest, hind side up, fingered its anus and pointed at the friend.

I didn't know if this meant that Danielle wanted her boyfriend's friend to later sodomize the pig, if he'd already done so, if it meant that she was looking forward to some post-concert double penetration, or if she simply thought the friend was an asshole.

Zach and Danielle then stood face to face for five or six minutes, clearly, based on the intermittent flapping of Zach's arms, arguing. I'd finally had enough of them, when Zach put a hand on my shoulder.

"Man," he said, "it's my birthday, and she bought me these tickets last minute, and wanted to make me happy."

"She should've suggested you bring a friend, then," I said.

He shrugged, and when the house lights came on for intermission, Danielle was nowhere to be found.

“Down with Disease” started off the second half of the evening, and starting set two with a “Disease,” even though set one left me feeling high, was a bit curious to me. It seems to be getting a ton of play lately, and, like I said about the previous night’s “Sneakin’,” I didn’t imagine they could do much better –- ever, really –- than the “DwD” --> “What’s the Use?” from last year’s first night at Alpine. And then, not too long into it, they dropped the tempo big time, went into this space groove, and took that right into “Tweezer.”

It’s no secret that this is one of their -– pardon the Phish cliché –- big jam vehicles right now, and I have no problem with that whatsoever. Gone, it seems, are the days where “Tweezer” would go into the atonal abyss and destroy the minds of youth, and here –- hopefully to stay -– are the days where “Tweezer” can channel its inner “ground control to Major Tom” and go deep in the oddity of space.

This “Tweezer” promised to do just that as it featured some fat, bubbly Mike plucks while Page rode a rickety tricycle that had untuned xylophone planks for spokes. Crazy good. It ranked up there with the most beautiful of "Tweezer"s I've ever seen, and near the end, made its way into a dance-with-your-wife kinda groove.

I’m not familiar with TV on the Radio, but the TypeIIcast crew played a portion of a “Golden Age” jam a few episodes back, and it sounded like a mess of psychedelic wind chimes in a tornado. They hyped the shit out of for reasons I could only deem as that it was unique. TotR was in Kansas City a few Friday nights ago, and it seemed like a lot of folks were pumped for that show. I haven’t spoken to anyone about it, but this was another one of those song beginnings where I was plain-faced and limply dancing, a la "Sparks" on Friday night.

Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t not enjoy it; it simply surprised me as the segue spot that began with “Disease” --> “Tweezer.” It did have a good energy about it, though, one that appeared Trey-inspired, and in all honesty, live music doesn’t get better with the Chairman of the Boards laying a bed of bloated-organ riffs. Well, it actually does when it’s followed by a quaint solo from said Chairman, but who’s counting.

I’ve talked about relationships with songs a ton, and in this series of reviews, Hoist songs have been a theme, but now it’s time to give The Story of the Ghost a little attention. “Golden Age” went into “Limb by Limb,” which I love. As a matter of fact, there’s probably not a Tom Marshall-penned lyric that I don’t love, and probably not a cut from Ghost that I don’t highly admire either.

This “Limb” featured a heavy-noted-but-gorgeous Trey solo with Fishman thundering away at the kit. I typically don’t have much to say about Fishman but this has always been a strong song for Greezy Fizeek. I’ve also never dug “Kill Devil Falls.” In fact, if I’m listening to Joy, I’m prone to skip it. I was bummed when they opened with it at Toyota Park for my first show in over six years. My sister loves it, though, thinks it reminds her of “old-school Phish,” which is a baffling notion to me. I did, however, love that it got play at the 2020 Winter Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey Games and during the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs (all occasions at Rogers Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia), and the TypeII crew did play a clip of it recently that had some impressive jamming in it, so I tried to be open-minded about it when it began.

That said, some delicious Page tickling opened up a nice “Falls” jam, and when things are firing on all cylinders for these guys, it’s hard to go any direction but heavenly. The solo that Page so succinctly started levitated this jam and propelled it into the night Colorado sky. One of the eight billion reasons I love Phish: They can make you an instant lover out of a song you’ve previously avoided.

Phish.net always lists it as “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” but to me it’s always going to be known by its moniker: “2001.” I could write 5,000 words about the awesomeness that is this jam, what it does for sets regardless of placement, and how I’ve never met a version I didn’t like. Instead, I’ll keep it to two: dancin’ shoes.

I lied. More meatballs from Mike, Trey skankin’ like he’s trying out for a ska band, and Page warming up the rocket boosters really got this one moving in a booty-shake style that segued nicely into “Light.” This track, as the TypeII kids say, is another new jam vehicle for the band. One day it might move me, but a) it’s one of my least favorites from Joy (maybe tied with “Falls”), and b) this version was almost over before it did anything –- Page synthing out -– for me, which is fine, really, as it served as a stepping stone back into “Disease.”

The return to “Dw/D,” however, was here one second, gone the next, but it stayed Hoisty and went into “Julius.” I heard the opening and felt an immediate 50/50 split: one part –- really?; one part –- could be badass. It was the latter. Very dancehall, massive energy, one of those picture-perfect studio-to-live translations of which other musical acts can only dream. Phish, of course, added an even larger momentum push and extended jam to this studioesque rendition.

“Julius” bled into “Cavern,” and I’m not sure any cut from the band’s archive has ever left me so opinionless. I did dig the rubber-band slaps from Mike, though, and it’s usually short-lived, in this case, a segue into “Run Like an Antelope.” “Antelope” is up there with “Split Open and Melt” in terms of always wielding a heavy might-scare-the-shit-out-of-you sword. When I hear it start, there’s a part of me that wants to hide. There’s also a part of me that wonders if they’ll go fun and face melt with it. I thought I’d stick around and find out and the end result was that I must apologize for what is heretofore emitted from my keyboard as I’m still trying to piece together the remnants of my melted eyeballs.

It’s possible that this “Antelope” was the perfect mix of not-too-long (therefore lower end of the potential-danger fulcrum) and spewing-lava intensity. Chris Kuroda (Editor’s Note: Sorry to quote The Social Network here, but…) –- “you better lawyer up” because I’m holding you responsible for these two jars of liquid retina I brought home from Dick’s.

For the encore, it was “Sleeping Monkey” – soft spot; ‘nuff said, and “Tweezer Reprise,” which is always fun, and as a few of my friends who no longer prioritize seeing Phish used to say: “Crescendooooooooooooooooo!”

Amazing night. Two strong, strong sets. Left the venue feeling very happy, already sad that it would end tomorrow.
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Untimely Reviews: Phish, Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, CO 09/03/11, Part I

If you caught my review for night one of Phish at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, CO, you might have guessed that when I woke up Saturday morning, I had a considerable-sized hangover. It was one of those headache-oriented hangovers that let you know an hour before you actually wake and open your eyes that it’s going to be a rough start to the day. I had plans to sleep a little bit of that off, but thanks to DiscoBiscuit Jeff from Philly, who speaks at one volume and one volume only –- loud -- my plan was altered.

At about 7:40 a.m. Mountain, DBJ wandered into our campsite trying to score something, anything, from Uncle Jake. It started off as breakfast -– for which he was offering $5. DBJ was told that our crew needed to eat first, but that if there were any leftovers, then no problem. He was back within moments trying to reassess the situation (Editor’s Note: Uncle Jake was the only one up and out of his tent, and thus far he’d fried a few strips of bacon and begun heating water for coffee.), and basically the same conversation was repeated.

When it was clear that there was still no breakfast for DBJ to have, he asked about having one of our plastic cups. Uncle Jake gave him a cup, thinking (I assume) that this would make him go away for a while. Instead, these were some of his top-volume lines.

“Yeah, bro. My name’s Jeff,” he said (for the second time). “I’m from Philly” (which we already knew) “and the Disco Biscuits are really my thing” (also a repeat). “I’ve seen Phish 89 times but I’ve seen the Biscuits more than a hundred.”

Good job, DBJ.

“But, yeah,” he said. “That’s really awesome what you’re doing, cooking for your people, but for real, bro -– if you had anything to spare, I’d totally throw you some cash.”

Dear DiscoBiscuit Jeff from Philly:

Take said cash, plan ahead, and go to the store.

Signed,
Everyone

He wasn’t done, though.

“So, did you have a good show last night, bro?”

“Yeah, man,” said Uncle Jake. “Real good time.”

“Dude, that was so tight,” said DBJ. “Check this out, bro: Every song they played started with the letter ‘S’.”

Thanks for the news flash, Philly. Now a word from our sponsors.

“Yeah,” said Uncle Jake. “Pretty crazy.”

“Dude, it was more than crazy,” said DBJ. “They played ‘Sparkle,’ and ‘Simple,’ and ‘Sanity.’”

I’d had enough.

“Know what else they played, bro? ‘Silent in the Morning.’” My head throbbed with each hollered syllable.

“Yeah, man,” he said. “Totally.”

DBJ went on talking up his schpeel to Uncle Jake. Loudly. I was contemplating getting out of the tent.

“Know what my favorite song from last night was bro? It was called Shut the Fuck Up.”

This made him mad.

“A better song was You Better Man the Fuck Up, dude,” he said.

“Yeah, bro,” I said. “That’s gonna get you some free breakfast real quick.”

“Aw, dude,” he said. “I was just messin’ with you, but whatever, man. If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t’ve come.”

With that, he was gone. But I was up.

DBJ was back by later, and it was clear -– mostly because one eye was literally looking the other direction -– that he had not yet slept. He was covered in a light coat of dirt, sporting a backwards hat with those obnoxiously fat, always-untied high-top sneakers that Grubby McDorkboxes like him usually rock. Apparently, he’d lost his cup and was in search of another, but he didn’t pause to ask our camp.

Anyway, Uncle Jake, Emily, and the nephews had plans to go into town and see some sites. Originally, they were going to tour around Red Rocks, but it was discovered that Carlos Santana was playing there Saturday evening. With George Lopez. (Note: Really? Does that actually happen?) So, it was determined that venue crews and staff would likely be setting up, so they headed northwest to Boulder and Estes Park instead. Having seen all of those places plenty, I stayed behind.

Once I’d washed the taste of Pabst-brined gerbil out of my mouth, I showered, changed and set out to see who was who on grounds to enjoy this weekend of Phish. It was sort of an aimless wander, but I wanted to get 10 subjects, and once a subject agreed to a quick chat, they had a choice of question sets: a), b), or c).

Taylor and Steve were first. They chose set a).

1) Where are you from? “San Francisco.”

2) How many times have you seen Phish? Taylor: “22”; Steve: “50.”

3) What do you do for work? Taylor: “non-profit, children’s mental health”; Steve: “student at Stanford.”

4) Complete this sentence: This best way to spend time when not doing anything Phish is…: joint-effort answer: “other music, i.e. Dark Star, Govt. Mule, the Disco Biscuits” (Editor’s Note: I badly wanted to ask if they knew Jeff from Philly, but did not.), “The Dead.”

5) What’s your favorite thing about the Phish culture? Taylor: “Everyone’s so positive. There’s a sense of togetherness. We’ve been on campgrounds for other festivals where we didn’t even know our neighbors.” Steve: “Other lots are all disjointed. Everyone’s so ‘I need this' and 'you’ve got that' and 'aarrghhh.’”

(Note: Steve was a little wary at first, wanting to know if this interview would “make its way onto the Internet,” which I assured him it would. He was also keen to some Thank You Phish Day that was supposedly taking place that day, where there had been plans of sky writing a message to the band and handing out free doses to the crowd. I didn’t see any of those things, but if I was oblivious, then, Thanks, Phish!)

“Melanie” was second. She went with set c). She also gets extra quotes around her name/locale because she was interested in being cute, and by "cute" I mean giving a a fake name and locale.

1) Where are you from? “’Tampa.’”

2) Name three bands on your iPod or in your CD player not named Phish. “Eric Hutchinson, Tool, Dean Martin.”

3) Do you have an opinion on Bob Dylan? “Love him! Minnesotan! Woohoo!” (Note: This was apparently a shout-out to all her Tampa people from Minnesota.)

4) What do you make of all the Obama criticism? “Ohhhh-bama. That’s what I say.”

5) What’s the most important thing to teach kids? “Have fun.”

Up next was Daniel. He, too, went with c).

1) Where are you from? “New York.”

2) Name three bands on your iPod or in your CD player not named Phish. “Ali Farka Toure, Emancipator, Holy Ghost.”

3) Do you have an opinion on Bob Dylan? “I love Bob Dylan.”

4) What do you make of all of the Obama criticism? “Obama had a tough road to go when he was elected. The criticism is out of control. I mean, he can only do so much. He’s not a miracle worker. I think he’s doin’ alright.”

5) What’s the most important thing to teach kids? “Sustainability.”

Fourth was Chloe. Again, c).

1) Where are you from? “I live in Lakewood, but I’m from Boston.” (Note: I asked her if she was stoked about the Bruins championship win, and she showed me her Boston inner-wrist tattoo.)

2) Name three bands on your iPod or in your CD player not named Phish. “The Grateful Dead, Boards of Canada, Pink Floyd.”

3) Do you have an opinion on Bob Dylan? “Bob Dylan’s a super-poet. He can’t fuckin’ talk anymore. No, I mean, he’s like the first rapper. I just wish he could still sing.”

4) What do you make of all the Obama criticism? “I love Obama. He’s doing what I want for weed, so he’s cool with me. I voted for him because I think he’s a good person. They’re good people. It’s better to have a good person in office than a good politician.

5) What’s the most important thing to teach kids? “To love themselves, to be themselves, to always be true to themselves.”

Lara fell in the five-hole. She chose b).

1) Where are you from? “Denver.”

2) What’s your biggest musical influence outside of Phish? “The Grateful Dead.”

3) What book did you most recently read? “The Help by Kathryn Stockard.”

4) What’s the strangest place you’ve ever had sex? “I don’t know. I’m not very adventurous, I guess. In a tent?”

5) What’s one thing for which you want to be remembered? “Changing the lives of children.” (Note: Yes, Lara’s a teacher.)

In the six spot was Tim. He also chose b).

1) Where are you from? “Chicago.”

2) What’s your biggest musical influence outside of Phish? “The Beastie Boys.”

3) What book did you most recently read? “The Life of Pi by Yann Martel.”

4) What’s the strangest place you’ve ever had sex? “I don’t know. Oh, in a nasty lake.”

5) What’s one thing for which you want to be remembered? “I don’t really care if I’m remembered.”

Lee was batting seventh, made for three consecutive b) picks.

1) Where are you from? “Minneapolis.”

2) What’s your biggest musical influence outside of Phish? “The Beatles.”

3) What book did you most recently read? "Big Sur by Jack Kerouac.”

4) What’s the strangest place you’ve ever had sex? “At a festival.”

5) What’s one thing for which you want to be remembered? “I don’t know...bein’ happy.

Hannah and Christopher were eighth. They went with a).

1) Where are you from? (Editor’s Note: I either forgot to ask them where they’re from or didn’t write it down, but I’m pretty certain they’re from the Denver area. What I do know is that they’re engaged (and if memory serves as of December with plans to wed next September) and will celebrate in Breckenridge.)

2) How many Phish shows have you seen? Christopher: “102”; Hannah: “1.”

3) What do you do for work? Hannah: “marketing sales account manager”; Christopher: “finance.”

4) Complete this sentence: This best way to spend time when not doing anything Phish is…: simultaneous answer: “Furthur!” They then added, “or snowboard or ski or hike 14ers. Live life!”

5) What’s your favorite thing about the Phish culture? Hannah: “my fiancé”; Christopher: “friends.” Hannah added that she also “thought the letter-of-the-alphabet show was cool.”

Up next: Lorin, who went with b).

1) Where are you from? “Connecticut, but I live in New York.”

2) What’s your biggest musical influence outside of Phish? “The Grateful Dead.”

3) What book did you most recently read? “Democracy by Joan Didion.”

4) What’s the strangest place you’ve ever had sex? “My friend’s second-floor porch.”

5) What’s one thing for which you wish to be remembered? “Always being able to stand up for myself.”

Jon and Jessica closed it out, also with b).

1) Where are you from? “Seattle, by way of Orange County.”

2) What’s your biggest musical influence outside of Phish? Jessica: “Pink Floyd”; Jon: “Neko Case.”

3) What book did you most recently read? Jessica: “Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin”; Jon: “Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel.”

4) What’s the strangest place you’ve ever had sex? Mutual response: “The kitchen.”

5) What’s one thing for which you wish to be remembered? Jon: “Being hospitable, generous”; Jessica: “being reliable.”

So this was the little interview experiment, which was a ton of fun, something I'll repeat at future shows given the opportunity. Check back tomorrow for part two of Saturday's review, which will include some more campground shenanigans, and, uh -- oh, yeah -- the show.

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Untimely Reviews: Phish, Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, CO, 09/02/11

For most of the summer, I stressed about whether or not I’d get to catch Phish. In the past, it’s never been a problem; before I was married, I was perfectly capable of mismanaging my finances enough to make Phish shows a priority. Since the great nuptial exchange, I’ve managed to see them each year since their 2009 reunion. In August of that year, the wife gave the go-ahead for a solo trip up to Chicago, and then we went together to Indio, CA for Festival8 that October.

Last year, when we got shut out six ways from Sunday on Telluride tickets, we opted for a trip to Wisconsin to see them at Alpine Valley. The wife was a huge sport then, too, being roughly four months and change pregnant. Our daughter’s been with us for over eight months now, and between two monster student loans, two car payments, and the 12-headed monster known as day-care fees, there just didn’t seem like a way to make any of my second-leg-of-tour options –- Chicago, Denver, or Portland -– work.

The way it did wind up working was for the wife to say that we didn’t really have enough money saved up for our big family vacation next spring, so she suggested we postpone it a year, and that I use some of what was saved to go see Phish, the most inexpensive route being to catch them in Colorado. For that, and many other things, the wife deserves massive, massive kudos. Not only was this a huge financial sacrifice, but it also meant that she would spend Labor Day Weekend on her own, and solely responsible for the baby.

I didn’t immediately reveal a sense of elation, but that’s kind of been how I roll in the last few years; excitement doesn’t really grasp me until the thing at hand is right around the corner. I did feel a bit more amped once the tickets arrived in the mail, and that edge grew even more when Phish finished their three-night run in Chicago. It meant that the Dick’s Sporting Goods Park shows were near, that I’d soon be again in the presence of my favorite act.

Stress was gnawing at me Thursday as the work day wore on and items on my to-do list were still mostly unchecked, and once most had checks, and I was in bed, I tossed and turned all night. The cause of this was general anxiety about getting up, on the road, and to the venue without feeling rushed, but Adeline woke twice during the night, too, which didn’t help.

I rose, nonetheless, at 3:30, showered, made coffee, and crossed off the remaining two stragglers from the list. I checked my e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter for the final time for a few days, and inspected the already-loaded gear in the car. I woke the wife, who woke the baby, and put her in her car seat, and we were off to Uncle Jake’s, who was driving two of his nephews, and I west.

Things were a little confusing upon our arrival, as there were five people outside, but no Uncle Jake. I knew the two young men were his nephews, but I wasn’t sure if these were the same two nephews I’d met before, nor at which festival I’d met them. I introduced myself to them, and immediately felt embarrassed as they -– Michael and Cameron –- both clearly remembered me. I asked if it had been Wakarusa we’d been at; they were quick to correct me: Festival8.

The wife was anxious to get the baby back home, to get both of them back in bed, but I wasn’t sure what to do as Uncle Jake’s SUV looked like it had roughly six square inches of space for my gear, and I had a lot of gear. On the back was fashioned this trailer-hitch shelf for extra storage. It too was loaded.

Alas, Uncle Jake appeared from what was likely a morning-coffee visit to the throne. We assessed what of mine could be left behind, said goodbye to our respective loved ones, and were off in the darkness. For some reason shotgun was reserved for me, and so I made a valiant effort to stay awake for the duration of the drive, while our two 21-year-olds and one 23-year old slept their way across Kansas. I nodded off once or twice, but only for a few minutes.

Everyone was awake and alert for the entrance into Colorado, and our arrival in the thriving metropolis of Montbello was enough to wake a dead cat, as we struggled to find much of anything resembling a grocery store. We obtained some directions, and visited with a crackhead, before making our way to Safeway and the neighboring liquor store for all of the essentials. In the parking lot of the latter, a middle-aged man pulled up next to our car, saw the fullness of the shelf, our arms full of booze boxes and bags of ice, and, with a puff of his miniature stogey, said, “Are you guys by chance on the road?”

We all chuckled, and he informed us that we appeared to be doin’ it right, but not to forget to sit down on the curb and smoke some weed in the event of a problem (Editor's Note: Thanks, bud.). We got to the venue and got parked, and saw the checkpoint tent through which we would be forced to trudge with gear in tow, every last bit of it to be inspected for potential rules violations. It was hot out, and the parking lot was sand. The four trips to our allotted three squares of soccer field were borderline brutal.

Nevertheless, we had a good group effort to get groceries, alcohol, three tents, and a shelter with seating for five up and operational, which was key for a good start to the weekend, as it would gauge, in my mind, how the harmony would or wouldn’t exist within our camp. It was also key, because as we were driving in the last tent stake, and shaking out the last bag of ice, security came around to announce that they were expecting heavy rains and high winds in the next five-10 minutes.

And based on the wicked lightning forks stabbing the ground around the venue, and the swell of monster gray clouds, this was no joke. I spoke briefly with a friend in Denver, who was hiding under a tree with his wife and son, their bike ride suspended by the same storm.

“It’ll pass over you quickly,” he said, “but yeah, you’re about to get crushed.”

This thing came whipping down upon the soccer field, sending massive shade tents cartwheeling across the field like tumbleweeds. Uncle Jake dove into his mansion of a tent while the rest of us grabbed what rain gear was within arm’s reach, and a leg of our own shelter to literally keep it from being ripped away from our middle square of real estate. Luckily, we’d managed to scarf down a few of the hot dogs and grilled-cheese sandwiches Uncle Jake had made before the sky opened on us.

As expected in a scenario like that, many whooped, hollered, and yelled, encouraging the storm to try and ruin the still-being-christened weekend for them, their own Lieutenant Dan match against God, if you will. Some folks howled with such volume that I began to question their sanity, but knew it to be validated by their even-louder bellows that emerged some 20 minutes later, when the storm subsided, and a vast Colorado blue that ensconced a beaming sun replaced those dark

pillows of that had just assaulted hundreds and hundreds of tents. But, we survived, and by the grace of something, everybody’s stuff stayed dry, even the inside of my fossil of a tent. And toward the venue we went. The line was a complete disaster first night as Dick’s employees feverishly hole punched any and all tickets that was shoved into their personal space, which is what the door attendants were checking to see if your ticket qualified, via hole punch, for a floor wristband. Jackpot.

Set one started with “Sample in a Jar,” which contained nothing noteworthy. I’ve heard that same “Sample” a bunch. (Note: Ed Rooney voice…) “Nine times” to be exact. And three of them were set openers. “Sparkle” followed which is always fun, and with high energy –- except when it’s sloppy -– but it always seems so rushed anymore. This version was crisp and clean, though.

“The Sloth” came third. Still unremarkable. “Sweet Virginia” started, and I felt like now we were talkin’ kidney beans. Solid execution, great placement, and I always like getting Fishman involved early on the vocals. “Suskind Hotel” followed that, and it’s cool to be present for only the second performance of it. There’s a lot of hype going around for both the performance rarity and the Trey-led jam, but it didn’t do a whole lot for me. In fact, the jam reminded me of the Mike Gordon line from Bittersweet Motel:

Trey: “Mike, what’d you think of that set last night?”
Mike: “I thought you played a lot of notes.”
Trey: “You always think that!”

It did, have a crisp finish to it, though.

“Strange Design” is always pretty, but for a so-far-uninspiring first set, it was a rough spot for me and my fading enthusiasm to have a slow song. My phish.net stats listed one track played at 13 shows, two at 10, nine at nine (“Sample” being one), and nine at eight, of which “Stash” is one. This is the price you pay, obviously for seeing a band 30-plus times, but the way the set had thus far unfolded, I was not too thrilled. Regarding the jam: some decent Trey, some of that too-busy Trey.

The lovely bass and groove-infected clav funk that comes with “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley” almost always guarantees a win-win situation. For me, though, night one at Alpine last summer featured a “Sneakin’” that would be tough to top, especially having seen it just two shows ago. All told: decent crunch, fun vocal jam that trickled into some of that thick, spaceman Gordon spunk. Real nice. Might be goin’ somewhere here.

“Sparks,” an instrumental number from The Who’s Tommy followed, and I’ll be honest: I’d never heard the song before, and frankly, have never owned a copy of Tommy, so I stood there blank-faced for its brief duration. “Scent of a Mule”’s another eight-timer for me, but I typically enjoy it if the Trey/Page dual doesn’t feel rushed. It was rushed, though, and moreover, they rushed right to it, but when you’re waist deep in a 14-song first set on night one of three, something’s gotta give. Not a bad version.

I dig “Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan.” It’s got some edge to it, and in a Phish society that bashes content from Joy, I’m –- at least for now –- prone to stick up for it. Nice beginning to the jam, though it quickly threatens – via Trey and Page – to lose me. Decent finish. Never been a big Rolling Stones fan, but I love that “Virginia,” “Shine a Light,” and “Loving Cup” appear to get the most play from the Exile on Main Street album, as they are among the best cuts, in my opinion, from that record, and this version of “Shine” was delightful.

I’ve written previously about how I think the lyric “smooth atonal sound” is a bit of an oxymoron, and while I know there are those in the land of Phish that get off on it, I do not. Some of the most atonal jams I’ve heard have nearly brought me to my knees, made me feel as though my chest was going to split open and gush. “Split Open and Melt” scares the shit out of me every time I hear it live because of the massive potential it has for crushing me. This version went straight to the jam, and I was looking for a railing to white-knuckle, but it wound up being mellow in its intensity, and featured some blistering Chris Kuroda work.

“The Squirming Coil” is a long-time favorite of mine. I can’t recall a version I didn’t like (regardless of set or set placement), and this one was no exception. It closed out the set, and as you may’ve noted, every song started with the letter‘S’, which was all the buzz that night and the next day.

I found it cute.

Intermission is probably a good time to discuss how what’s going on with you largely determines your experience at a show, perhaps to a degree measurable in comparison with what’s going on with the band. I mean, on most nights, this band doesn’t suck, so if you’re in a good space, they’ll probably push you into a great one. I think I was a little off from a wacked-out night of sleep, not really eating a meal to speak of all day, and then pounding 87 beers from the moment the storm let up through most of set two. Because of the mayhem going in, I lost my people, and spent the show getting knocked around and shoved by everyone –- and they’re there every show –- that had to get up front.

I’ve been up close at my share of shows, and it’s great, but not everyone can do it. Actually not very many at all can. It’s called physics. You can only put so many objects in a finite space before that space has to shift. There was something about the general ennui I felt during set one, and via my swift exit/return to/from the concession stand, I was probably 12-15 rows back, Page side, and early, therefore feeling determined to man my small plot of land.

I’d also felt like there was something energy-wise happening with both myself and with the band at the end of set I, something that could carry over and develop into a huge second half. While I was in line, I heard one of the many knuckle-headed gems you hear from Phish fans, and it went something like this:

“Bro, if someone’s givin’ you negative energy at a show, you gotta either turn it into positive, or just walk away.”

Great in theory, I suppose. In practice, not so much.

So there I was, in my spot. House lights go down, crowd rowdies, and whatever the percentage is, people rush. When most had settled, I wound up with a guy behind me that decided he was going to put his folded-up, bagged lawn chair (or umbrella, or whatever it was) directly against my heels, and stand all but touching my back.

I’m sure there is one, maybe two, larger pet peeves in my archive, but I can certainly not think of one right now. When people put their feet on my book rack in grade school, and scraped their soles against its edge, or kicked it repeatedly –- intentionally or not –- it would drive me nuts. Same at manager meetings in restaurants where we’d around a high top and someone’s gotta put their feet on one of my chair’s rungs. Or when I work hockey games for the Central Hockey League, and I have someone standing behind my chair, leaning on it, and noticeably breathing on my head. These things fire me up big time.

I won’t carry on in great detail about this incident, but I let it affect my second set. At first I didn’t do anything because it was weird, and I thought maybe it was an accident. But like I mentioned, people keep flooding the very front, those on the edge get forced back. Eventually, I offered a gentle shove to his item, thinking he’d notice that it was in my space, and move it. Instead, he shoved it right back into my heels.

This literally continued for the entire set, each shove exchange a bit more aggressive. At one point, he was like, “Dude, quit tryin’ to move it back,” to which I wanted to say, Yeah, man. That’s what we’re all trying to do here: not move backwards while people flood the front.

Anyway, the music.

“Sand” was the opener, and it had great energy, some solid cylinder firing. It segued into “Simple,” which you can almost never go wrong with, and on this occasion it featured a patient, full middle section. I suppose it would be appropriate to say that Mike did in fact “drop a meatball” in there, and, more generally speaking, there’s some cool, spaced-out stuff happening amongst the three of them, while Page quietly sounds like the attacking creatures from Galaga.

I was stoked to get a “Steam,” and, given my thoughts on specific-track expectations for shows –- never have them -– I was going against my own grain and feeling like I’d be bummed if we didn’t get one in six sets at Dick’s. There had to be one. It was the only new song, really, of the summer. Typically, with first experiences, you’re just stoked to hear it and be there for the rendition, which I was. I also dug how they came out of the jam.

Still no pauses, and into “Soul Shakedown Party” we go. Who doesn’t like a little Bob Marley dropped on them? Here’s how I generally feel about “Seven Below”: best song on their worst album, but it’s a song that should’ve been faded out on the studio cut because the jam is disjointed. Page, however, began this jam with some nice church organ, and for the most part, it was a solid, skanky, echoing jam.

The stats say I’ve seen “Suzy Greenberg” eight times; I say 18. Either way, it’s a good thing Page keeps carrying this tune out of the mud of mediocrity because, well, it’s real damn mediocre. Still no pauses, and a pretty execution of “Scents and Subtle Sounds” straight into a “Slave to the Traffic Light.”

The stats say I’ve seen “Slave” four times, which, again, feels like an under-representation, but not one I have a beef with, because, like “Squirming,” I’m a sucker for it. I always seem to get one when at an outdoor CO venue, and it reminds me of how happy I am to be seeing Phish, and specifically, seeing them outdoors in CO. Could be my soft spot for the song, but I feel like they crush it every time, too.

This segued into my first “Silent in the Morning,” and I unfortunately got it without “The Horse.” Thanks, ‘S’ set! It should be noted, though, that Mike, just like in the studio version, just dumped delicate popcorn on the crowd with this bass line. Segue into “Sanity,” another first, Trey accenting the ‘s’ sound like a Ssssesssame Sssstreet ssssock puppet ssssnake. At song’s end, he was not even attempting to be discreet about it, but buying time for Page and Fishman to get up front for an acapella version of “Sweet Adeline,” my daughter’s namesake song, the first I’ve heard since her birth.

“Sabotage” for an encore is, by and large, a crowd pleaser, I think. Got ‘em fired up for second night, anyway.

The moment the house lights came up, I turned to the heel shover, and let him know that I wasn’t trying to move back, that his stuff was in my space.

“You have a great night, man,” he said, and turned to walk away.

Tool.

All things (re)considered, it was a fun first night, and regarding my occasional boredom and seen-this-a-bunch commentary, I felt like they covered some serious ground Friday night, meaning they checked 25 songs off of the list, leaving things pretty up in the air for nights two and three. Like I said yesterday, “even the greatest of shows aren't great for everyone, regardless of what transpires on the stage.”
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Untimely Reviews: A Preview to a Review: Remembering Phish in Las Vegas, 1996

Last night I returned home from a trip to Colorado to see Phish for three nights at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City. We left a little after five a.m. Friday morning, and returned home around six in the evening. I’ve assembled some notes and will post reviews of the weekend, but because I heard the phrase “this one time in Vegas” about 14 times this weekend, I recall the last time I bookended a show with nine-hour drives on either side.

The first (and last) time I wrote a review about a Phish show, I was in college, and I did so for the Arts & Entertainment pages of Fort Lewis College’s The Independent. Being that I was the editor of those pages, I didn’t have to plead for a freelance opportunity, or submit a piece and hope for it to be accepted. I went, came back, and in the sentiment of the old college try, put the thing together at the last minute. And it was kind of a disaster. I mean, I was proud to have a nice chunk of my pages represent Phish, but I didn’t take a camera, so I had to pilfer a picture from somewhere, and that was far from the worst of it: I didn’t do a thorough copy-editing job, and being that it was way past deadline when I submitted it for layout, our staff copy editor had already gone home for the evening.

There weren’t glaring typos or misstated facts about the performance, but there were two primary flubs: 1) I did nothing but rain praise on the band, which I’d just done two months prior in an album review when Phish’s Billy Breathes had been released. Here’s where it gets tricky: Every ounce of praise for both their sixth studio album and the show –- Las Vegas, NV, Dec. 6, 1996 –- was deserved. That record ranks near, if not in, the top three of all their non-live recorded material, and that concert –- chock with Elvis impersonators, professional yodelers, and a guest appearance from Primus –- was epic. But, you, in my opinion, can look foolish when heaping gob after incessant gob upon an artist without even a sliver of negative criticism.

Not that big of a deal. What was, was 2) me not fact checking. Primus had recently switched drummers (again), and I was not keen to the band’s lineup. What I did was include drummer number two’s name –- Tim Alexander -– in my original draft of the story. Dave, one of the fellows with whom I attended the show, happened to be the A&E Editor I’d replaced, and at the time, he was a pretty good friend of mine (Editor’s Note: That friendship has encountered a few difficulties in the 15 years since, namely his current 11-year prison sentence, but we’ll file that tidbit in the some-other-time folder.).

Anyway, he mentioned that Brian Mantia had replaced Alexander at the kit, and as I was wont to do with information received from Dave, I decided I needed to verify it. In the interim, I changed Alexander’s name to Pat McGroin, and slapped parentheses around it, assuming that that would stick out enough to signal my eye for a need to edit. My organizational skills were a touch in the lacking department back then, though, and, well, that’s how it went to press.

In hindsight, though, it was fitting that the piece was a bit of a disaster because most everything about the trip was, too.

At the time, I was about 16 months into my stay in Durango, and had just moved into my fourth residence. The first was the master bedroom of a wood-burning-stove-heated house about 20 minutes north of town. The girlfriend with whom I’d moved to Durango –- we both had been accepted to FLC as transfer students -– had a rough go of things. She got a job delivering pizzas for Little Caesar’s and I got a job as a line cook at this dingy sort of Applebee’s-of-the-Southwest kind of chain. My starting wage was $5 an hour and I closed five nights a week.

It took me less than two weeks to move from salad to Mexi’ to the fryer, and before long I’d be working sandwich/grill back, and finally grill, which meant I was running the kitchen and making a bit more money. But for that winter, I was on fry for a while because that station had a heavy demand that most college-town kids simply couldn’t handle. Our room at home had no shower in its bathroom, and so five nights a week, several beers after my shift, I’d drive out to our place, and get in the tub, constantly trying to push the grease pockets away from my skin as I bathed.

My girlfriend and I were both taking 15-plus hours, which meant nine a.m. starts, which meant early departures. In short, we never saw each other, and when we did have free time, I –- being four years her junior -- was too immature to recognize the importance of spending it with her. By semester’s end of ’95, we’d agreed to move out on our own, which was a shame, because Amelia was one of the sweetest human beings I’d ever met.

I moved in with a few buddies I’d met up on the Front Range performing one of my other glorious bits of employment -– housekeeping -– and was with them for less than two months; dogs were not allowed in this condominium unit, and my lack of responsibility in the poop-scooping department got my operation discovered, my dog and I booted. A few friends from the restaurant invited me to move in with them, which I hastened to accept. This was a two-bedroom unit with a tiny kitchen and bathroom, in which seven people (and one other dog) slept. Only one of which was a girl, and she’d long since given up cleaning anything, given that she lived with half a dozen slobs.

She became an immediate fan of mine when I moved in and promptly scoured the bathroom. I didn’t have any actual real estate in the home, so I placed my twin mattress, my box spring, and my pickup truck full of possessions in the shed across the sidewalk. It had no heat or running water, which made for a cozy Colorado winter, but with a decent North Face sleeping bag, a stack of blankets, my dog, and a gas-powered space heater, I survived. The building, I should mention, was partitioned and very wide, and there were four guys and another dog living in the other half of it.

As the weather warmed, and some roommate shuffling occurred, I was able to move to a bed in the corner of the living room, but as summer’s end drew near, the California landlords surprised us with a visit, informed us that they were going to remodel the home and remove the partition, to then re-rent it as a single unit. This may or may not’ve been true; they (Note: And by “they” I mean she.) was aghast that somebody had spent the winter in the shed – my bed was now occupied by someone else, and was stricken with a paranoia of someone dying on her property. Either way, we were told to go.

That summer had seen the primary couple of the home split, two guys leave, and a pair of sisters from Grosse Point, MI move in. One was a server at our restaurant, the other waited tables down the block. For about a week, I had the luxury of sleeping with the younger one, but quickly found out I was but a link in her boy chain. One night in the middle of that delightful stretch, after over-serving myself at our restaurant, the sister with whom I was sharing sheets was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, and her elder sibling and I were on the couch watching TV.

I think my confidence level must’ve been pretty high at the time, because I bum rushed her with a big, long kiss, thinking in that cosmically dark cavern of a brain, that this would only have one result: some kinky sister-sandwich action. She obliged in the lip lock for five or six seconds, and towards the end of the moment, she’d even raised her hands to my head and run them through my hair. She made a quick transition, though, and used them to push my face away from hers, saying, “Dude. No. What the fuck? My sister’s in the bathroom right there.” My response was less than good.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” I’m not positive, but I think there was a semi-sinister grin on my face as I nodded to complement those three words, but she leapt from the couch and zipped into her room, slamming the door behind her, just after offering a few more: “Whatever, man. That’s fucking gross.”

Needless to say, I did not attempt anything like that ever again.

The Grosse Point sisters, however, did agree to sign a year lease with myself and the guy from the primary couple, so the four of us and our three dogs moved into a place about 15 minutes west of town. It was an absolute train wreck of a situation, as said dude immediately began to stay with in-town friends, as did the sisters. Admittedly, it was a wicked Durango winter in terms of snow fall -– one storm left parts of our neighborhood chest deep -– and the drive from town was entirely uphill. The girls literally never even unpacked.

But we were there for about four months, and I was working full time, going to school full time, and doing a three-day-a-week internship at a school 30 minutes from town, starting at nine a.m. My attendance at this internship was spotty at best, and I probably reeked of Guinness on most occasions in which I was present. What’s worse is that the La Plata Electric Association had begun installing -– per individual home owner request -- these thermostat-keypad devices that controlled the home’s power. This meant that one had to drive to LPEA, submit a payment, and have a card activated. One would then drive home, swipe the card in the device, and boom –- power.

When the amount in your account dropped below $20, it would beep incessantly and if you didn’t swipe again –- obviously with new money -– by the time it hit zero, then boom –- no power. As in, no heat, no light, no nothing. As the only quote/unquote regular resident of the home, I was seldom there, given my schedule. But I slept there every night, and upon arrival, had to deal with all three dogs having been cooped up all day and on some nights, I’d toss and turn through the beeping. On others, I’d shiver, longing for my scarcely heated shed.

Somewhere along the line, a girl named April started waiting tables at our restaurant, and she took a liking to me, which typically never happened. I mean, I had plenty of stints with girls, but seldom, if ever, did a girl aggressively pursue me, and April made it clear from the very beginning that she wanted to hang out after work all the time. It didn’t matter that I stank -– I was running the kitchen by this time –- and that I always wanted to do the same boring thing with the same folks every night after work. She wanted to be there.

Among a couple of other minute details, this clued me in early that April had a little bit of baggage. Not a big deal. We all do. Hers was just a touch more on her sleeve than most in my circle, but she was in to me, and there’re a few deals about April that you should know: First, she was very intelligent, and second, she was very attractive. Third, she wore her hair very short, which I hated then, and still hate now, but fourth, she had this fragrance about her that very few women have had, but it’s one that, while the most intricate details about it have escaped me over the years, the bulk of it has not.

We talked about it on several occasions, and even laughed about it more than once, and I’m pretty certain it was her perfume. Some girls have that freshly shampooed smell about them at all times and it can be dangerously intoxicating. Every once in a while, you’ll meet a girl who just has a natural scent to her that stays with you for a bit after spending time with her. And even rarer: the girl that, no matter where she is or what she’s doing, she’s staying perfumed when you’re not looking.

This was April. I’d give her a ride home, and bam –- April smell in my truck for five days. She’d come over and spend the night and my sheets would smell of April until I washed them, and sometimes even for a while after.

One final detail about April: her boobs. She had -– and probably still has –- the greatest breastesses I’ve ever had the pleasure of befriending. They were quite large, healthy, real, proportionate to her body, and capped with some gorgeous nipples. One more final detail about April: I knew her boobs so well then, and still know them well now because boobs were where the game ended with April.

No matter how significant the bonding of an evening, no matter how many drinks we’d had, no matter how cold the electricityless bedroom of mine was, there was a mission statement posted between April’s hips, and it said this: Make no mistake; these panties are staying on.

Believe it or not, this was the second of four girls in my time in Durango that liked me enough to spend multiple nights in my bed, mess around with me, and then, when the contract was ready to sign, rip the pen from my hand and ask what I was doing in their office. I’m not going to go into the shenanigans associated with the other three because we’re talking about April here, and one night, my male roommate was out with April and I, having drinks, smoking butts, chewing the fat. And he decided to come home with us, too, for some reason.

It was the strangest thing. We got there, hung out chatting for a few minutes, and then April went into his room –- the room directly across the hall from mine –- and as I sat there trying to figure out what was happening (Note: We had power this particular evening, so there was no beeping and the house was warm.), the door shut. Next thing I know, there’s music playing, and the bedroom light emitting from beneath the door disappeared. When I woke in the morning, they were gone.

I avoided as much engagement with April as I could for about 10 days, and when it became clear that her badgering would not relent, I hung with her one evening, remaining somewhat cold and distant, even when she all but insisted that she come home and spend the night with me. I brushed my teeth, turned out the light, and got in bed, my back to her. She displayed a fair amount of affection, which, translated, meant any whatsoever, as it was usually me trying to assess, time and again, whether or not this would be the night I was tall enough to get in line for Magic Mountain.

I resisted, though, as the fat, obvious cloud of awkward hovered over us, and when her efforts became verbal, then emotional, I turned on the light, propped my head in my hand, and listened to her tale of how my roommate had, according to her, been inappropriate to the nth degree on the night in question.

Now, I don’t know what went down across the hall from me that evening, and I’m not going to use any form of the word allege, and I’m not going to say that anybody was lying, but the gist of her version of the tale kind of leaves my then-roommate wearing a certain black-and-yellow sports jersey, with a particular digit on it that may or may not be a popular uniform-number choice for other athletes that play that same position.

Why, then, she would choose, nay, insist, to return to such a residence still baffles me, almost as much as April’s self-invite to join Dave and I on our journey to Las Vegas to see Phish.

Allow me to clarify: I’m not sure where April was from, but I know that her mom lived in Las Vegas, and this was a free ride to visit her. But it was in my pickup truck with a camper shell with a) a dude with whom she had a peculiar-at-best relationship, b) a guy she’d never met, and c) my dog, who she adored, and again per her insistence, she would share the truck bed with for both legs of the journey, which if you remember, is about nine hours each way in non-winter travel. This was December, on a weekend no less.

That Friday morning, I picked up Dave a little after five. He and his then-girlfriend rented a studio apartment with a Murphy bed, and they were always bickering. This morning was no exception. Dave was up, pulling bong hits, and had the TV on, which were not the quietest two things for that early, and given that it was snowing pretty hard, I wasn’t exactly silent upon entrance either.

But we left, and picked up April, and drove to Vegas, where we had precisely nothing more than tickets to the show arranged. I remember getting to a parking lot down the street from the Aladdin Theater, and feeling like a complete shmuck. Not only could I not really afford to make this trip, but I’d just seen Phish four consecutive nights at Red Rocks Amphitheater that summer, and taken my own bed-of-a-truck ride to New Orleans to see them that spring. I was overextending myself and my budget on this one, and, in the process, leaving my dog in my truck for a three-hour show, after having him back there for over nine hours.

Which is worse, I’m unsure, but the other element was leaving my fragile friend April in a Vegas parking lot in pre-cell-phone times was not sitting well with me, either. Into the show we went, though, and while the show itself would later be unanimously dubbed solid, I was not of the right mindset to enjoy it. Just before the house lights went down, Dave produced a bag of mushrooms from his jeans pocket, which caught me off guard. I’d been unaware of their presence in the truck, and I was not really that far removed from being done with psilocybin altogether. In short, I’d begun taking them with a ratio of 99 parts enjoyment to one part gut problems and over the course of many trips, that ratio had flipped. Dave was a little surprised that I didn’t enjoy the surprise, and after repeated offers, nibbled away solo before putting the rest back in his pocket. As the first set matriculated its way through the evening, the bag came back out, and, for all I know, the remainder of the contents were consumed. It didn’t help that we were in seats, either. I couldn’t walk around and scope the scene, a practice to which I’d become accustomed.

Instead, the troubles on my mind, coupled with an obnoxious repetition of trying to asses Dave’s intoxication via glances –- I’d never not taken mushrooms and hung out with someone who had, so I didn’t know what it looked like from a sober perspective –- distracted me from the show. By the time the first set ended, I’d relaxed a bit, but frankly, by the time the historic encore with Primus and the like was taking place, I was ready to go, and by “ready to go” I mean preoccupied with where we’d sleep.

What I remember most about the show was post-conclusion, when the venue emptied onto the Vegas streets. It was like a pocket of Mardi Gras had been dumped into the Nevada night. The buzz of show goers reached in all directions, and not a single person seemed to have their wits about them. We got to the truck, and let the dog out. Some ticketless lot inhabitants voiced their concerns for his well being, and before long, we were driving. I don’t know what direction we went, or where geographically we wound up, but I do know that it was away from the strip, and on the shoulder of a curved highway on-ramp.

We pulled over and crawled into sleeping bags in the bed of the truck, hardly leaving McConnell, my shepherd, any room to curl. It didn’t take long to fall asleep, and it didn’t take a whole lot longer –- around two a.m. -– for a cop to wake us up via camper-shell-window knocks with his flashlight. I fumbled for my bag’s zipper, hushed my barking dog, and slid the window open.

“What in the hell,” he said with a pause, “do you guys think you’re doing?”

“Sleeping, sir,” I said, blinded by the beam he projected into my eyes.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “Can’t sleep here. Illegal and dangerous.”

Dave had not even pulled his bag down over his head.

“Okay,” I said, “but we don’t have any place to go, sir.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “You shoulda thought of that before you left Colorado.”

He was, of course, right about that, but this only heightened that been-pulled-over feeling I was now experiencing, recalling the beers I’d had at the show, and the fact that there was certainly some weed on Dave’s person or in his duffle bag.

“What do you suggest, then, sir?”

“I suggest you get your ass outta here before I start writing you a ticket,” he said.

I got out of the bed, still calming my dog, and Dave now arose, too, and as we were climbing into the cab, the cop continued.

“What happens if a truck driver falls asleep at the wheel and hits you guys? Did you think about that? You’d be dead; that’s what.”

I apologized and pulled away, astonished that there’d been no further repercussions.

Where we chose for our second spot of slumber is also unclear, but it was far from the city, and on some side road surrounded by miles of sand, and buildings stretching the horizon. It was also very bright and surprisingly warm when we awoke.

Dave had made it clear weeks before we left that he wanted to gamble. I had pretended to be interested, but knew that I would not have the funds to do so. What I had, at that moment, was a little more than $30 and an awareness of what it would cost us to get home. We drove back to the strip, however, parked, and walked a ways. Along the sidewalks were people with flyers advertising escort services, and it reminded me of all the previous evening’s insanity, the zooted concert attendees, the peddling of wares, the attempts to sell you sex of one sort or another.

Ultimately, we entered one casino, played a few slots, and got some breakfast. Dave wanted to find the right place to do some higher-end gambling and the noises and the windowless stretches and manner in which one casino blended into another without ever putting you outside slowly began to overwhelm me. I wanted to go home, but I felt some sick bug biting me that seemed to hint at money-making possibilities wherever Dave chose to stop.

It seemed like we walked for an hour and-a-half, and I began to remind him that we continued to get further and further from the truck, that all of these places looked the same. He was patient for a while, and when I actually began to whine and demand to know what he sought, he abruptly stopped walking.

“Blackjack,” he said. “I’m looking for the right blackjack table, and we’re going to make ourselves a little cash for the ride back.”

Blackjack? I thought. I don’t even know how to play blackjack. Wait, I don’t know how to play any of these games, except for maybe five-card draw and five-card stud, and now I’m not even sure what the difference between the two is. Maybe blackjack is the one that’s just like 21.

Dave finally decided on a table, and sat down. I hesitated, and before long, each of the seats next to him and near him became occupied, save one. I felt my $27 through my jeans, and sat, without even the slightest notion of a casino strategy in my brain. The dealer passed me by, addressing each of the other table’s wagerers as he went. He saw the look on my face and during his next pass, he addressed me.

“You have to buy in if you would like to play, sir,” he said.

I felt my face warm a touch, and with sweaty palms, removed a five-dollar bill from my pocket and placed it on the edge of the table. This time, the dealer’s face changed colors a bit.

“The buy-in,” he said, “is $20, sir.”

As I clumsily swapped my five for my 20, any ounce of logic and rationale I had in that moment, was sucked away from the table like the sunlight had been at the time of the building’s construction. I of course knew by then that blackjack was in fact 21, and that I could play this game, and maybe even walk away with a profit. My 20 was replaced with three chips, and when the cards were dealt, I’d been given a seven first, a six second. Apparently, a wager was then placed because people were sliding chips forward, and there was a third pause when the dealer and I locked eyes again.

“The wager is $20, sir,” he said.

I slid my three pathetic chips forward, and when I knocked to indicate a hit, he slapped a king on top of my cards and the chips were gone. The whole experience seemed to span about nine seconds, and I stood up, backing slowly away from the table feeling a little faint and a little nauseous, my arms raised as if someone had just caused a huge scene in my vicinity, my culpability still in question.

I had seven dollars to my name and was nine hours from home, while my dog sat, probably uncomfortably warm, in the back of the truck in a parking lot some 45 minutes away.

I don’t remember anything that transpired between my lone blackjack experience, and Dave leaving the table. I think he told me as we walked back to the truck that he’d been up $140, but then lost $100.

I hoped he knew that at least half of that profit had to go into my gas tank.

When we did stop at a gas station, I dropped a quarter into the pay phone and called April’s mom’s house from the number she’d jotted on a napkin. Much like she had for the journey to Vegas, she slept almost the entire ride home, only popping into conversation when the Kane County police pulled me over for speeding just outside of Kanab.

I didn’t see April for months after that trip, and when I did finally bump into her, it was one of those awkward grocery-store encounters where everything feels weighted and forced. The following summer, Dave and his girlfriend moved to San Diego, that show in Vegas becoming cemented as our first and last together.

A show for the ages it was, and I knew it at the time, even though I didn’t really enjoy myself during most of it, unable to detach myself from a pool of bad decisions. Ironically, Trey Anastasio of Phish and Les Claypool of Primus would record an album together a few years later. On it, a track called "Shadow of a Man" recounted the tale of a man named Billy who'd come back from Vietnam. I don't liken my Vegas experience to post-traumatic stress disorder caused by war, but perhaps I left a shadow of myself somewhere near the Aladdin.

My experience at Dick's was nothing like that trip to Sin City, but as the rave reviews pour in, I felt compelled to mention that even the greatest of shows aren't great for everyone, regardless of what transpires on the stage.
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