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What can I cross off this list since then? Two songs: “Dinner and a Movie” and “Walk Away.”

So I’ll start off with the remaining songs:

• Destiny Unbound
• Camel Walk
• Brother
• Scents and Subtle Sounds
• A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing
• Glide
• Harpua
• Spock’s Brain
• Have Mercy
• The Lizards
• Crowd Control

Then I’ll add songs I want to see as of now:

• Alumni Blues > LTJP > Alumni Blues
• Gone

I don’t think I’ll get Alumni or ASIHTOS because they were played last night, and Camel Walk, Lizards, and Brother were ALL played on Sunday.  But I do have my fingers crossed for something fun.

These are the lyrics of Phish. These are the fun, linguistic acrobatics that entertain us. But, from time to time, things get serious we have to acknowledge that we are human, and we have lives, and we have families. Those, too, shape us and our experiences. I think it’s common for fans to forget that they’re favorite entertainers have lives off the stage, and from time to time, those fans can be both rabid and unforgiving.

When I began to read online comments deriding Trey’s new ballad, Summer of ’89, I was a bothered. When I heard the song debut in Hartford, I thought of it as a light little set-interlude, punctuated by the “and we danced all night” refrain. I wasn’t especially excited about it, but I certainly wasn’t offended by it. On repeat listening, though, I’m feeling differently.

I hope we’re mature enough as a community to recognize Summer of ’89 for what it is: a nice, gentle love song from Trey to his wife. Phish is on the road a lot – less these days, with Shakespeare camp and school vacation commitments – but it seems only fair that once in a while, they can use the stage to remind their family how much they mean to them, especially give the fact that most songwriters write lyrics that touch on their personal lives, while our rock stars tend to sing about imaginary friends, getting raped in the forest on an owl hunt, syrup thieves, aggressive reflections, and, oh yeah… good ol, classic masturbation.

The other day, I was driving along and Summer of ’89 came on, and I listened to the lyrics seriously for the first time. What is it other than an intimate glance into Trey’s love life? Weaving a grass ring, a particular, frequently-worn dress, a shared phase of Brazillian music. And then? “On the road when our first was born in the summer of ’95.” I actually felt a tear well up in my crusty old ducts, one that betrayingly fought its way up, but ultimately, I was just able to hold back. But it connected with me, because the idea of being away from my kids for more than a few days makes me sad, let alone a tour, or missing something as monumental as their birth.

I consider this light little tune, and I realize that behind the simple rhymes are not just memories that make one smile, but a little bit of regret. Regret about how it was simpler then. Regret about missing time with children. Regret in the moment: we used to dance all night, but now… well, now we don’t.

Singing about kids often chokes me up, and this is coming from someone who almost never cries. I’m not ashamed to admit that there was a day a few years ago when, upon hearing the “smiles awake you when you rise” verse of The Beatles’ Golden Slumbers, I suddenly and uncontrollably wept like a baby thinking of my daughter. As a parent, I don’t see any problem with reflecting on the life you’ve built with your family and being wise enough to see your successes and man enough to admit your regrets and mistakes. To me, this was Trey reflecting on his life with his family. A little bit of happy memory, a little bit of bittersweet. But honest. Like Joy, it’s hard not to see something raw underneath the veneer of playfulness that usually coats Phish and Phish-derivative offerings.

Say what you will about Summer of ‘89 – it’s weak compositionally, it’s mushy and out of place at a Phish concert, its chordiness makes it musically unchallenging, it’s not manly enough, it’s unnecessarily sappy, it’s a too-intimate glance into private emotions… to me, those are all excuses. You don’t have to love the song, but to suggest that it’s bad because it’s different just seems disingenuous and uncharacteristic of Phish phans.

But then… what do I know? I likeTime Turns Elastic.

I admit it: I’m a setlist snob.

I started formulating this realization on the field in Indio, when ZZYZX turned to me and said, without the condescension implied, “I remember when I was chasing bust-outs.” And my response was succinctly “If we’re going to hear a 10 minute jam, I suppose I’d rather have the jam be off of a song I haven’t heard before rather than one I’ve seen a dozen times.”

But as true as that is, it’s not the real story. The real story is that I am chasing bust-outs. Not just bust-outs, but “interesting-ness”. And “interesting-ness” changes with the seasons. I’m actually chasing anything at a show that makes me think “Interesting!”

I’ve posted about setlist construction before – to me, as a bit of a Phish geek – it’s fascinating. Those seconds when the band takes the stage, before the first notes of any song, are magical and hopeful – anything can happen. Will it be AC/DC Bag? Will it be Punch? Will it be a song I like? A rarity? A random cover? Will it be something that will make the show immediately legendary, like Harpua? Or an entire cover album?! It’s maddening!

And so it goes, between every song of every show… I wait with bated breath for what might be.

I thought Black-Eyed Katy was awesome in 1997 — one of the highlights of 11/22/97, I’d say. When Moma showed up in summer 1998, it was a funkified sensation. But now Moma makes me cringe – standard fare on a standard night, been there, done that. It takes a lot to make Moma catch my ear these days. Guyute was a patient fan’s reward not too long ago. But these days, I hear groans when Phish launches into a fairly standard execution of this complex composition, which is no small musical feat. Some used to call Roggae a “set-killer,” but here we are in 2010, and 2009 made it into a cherished treasure.

That’s the thing with setlist mechanics: they change every year, if not every tour. As certain songs get played over and over (Kill Devil Falls, anyone?), they lose interesting-ness and uniqueness. When songs disappear and re-appear, they gain it. I’m not sure I think Spock’s Brain is even a very good song, but it’s certainly a rare treat, and that makes me wish I’d get a chance to see it played.

This is how it unfolds, without fail, as I review each show’s setlist. A show that opens with Vultures? Interesting! A show that features a bust-out? Interesting! A new and random cover that could be a one-timer? Interesting! A novelty show, such as the M show, GameHoist, or even the recent Saw It Again adventure? Interesting! The appearance of a song like Dogs Stole Things in a 2010 setlist is interesting, but in 1997, not as much.

A song like Stash is one where I’ve simply fallen out of love, and yet, my most recent shows, Stash has lead to an incredible jam. Ditto Down with Disease, Bathtub Gin, and Wolfman’s Brother. Seeing these doesn’t inspire an Interesting!, but it might be. Hearing a song like Harry Hood or Fluffhead live is almost always satisfying to me. But when I see it in a setlist from a show I’m not attending (or couch touring), it doesn’t make me think “Interesting!” Ditto for Bowie, YEM, and Reba.

On the other side of that coin, songs like Brother, Camel Walk, and Destiny Unbound are rare and interesting enough that, even when executed in standard fashion, they are eye-catching.

Funny thing, if I made a mix of my favorite Phish live song performances for a fellow Phish fan, it likely wouldn’t include many of the “interesting!” setlist choices, but rather, the best jams. And what songs are they? Ghost, YEM, Piper, Split Open and Melt. Not quite “Interesting!“, is it?

As you can see, judging a show from its setlist is almost always a bad idea. It’s much smarter to use the advice of those in the know, or employ something like the Phish.net show rating results to find shows to hunt down. But that doesn’t mean that some of us don’t go against better judgement, and look for those shows with setlists that make us think “Interesting!“

Today starts Phish summer tour 2010, and I can’t help but get sucked into the whole “Phish 3.0″ debate: are they still any good? Can they still jam? Will there be any notable performances? Will 2010 be able to hold a candle to Phish 1.0 shows?

My friend and colleague ZZYZX recently pointed out that Phish has seemingly been misremebered for their long, exploratory jams, when in reality, they didn’t “jam” much until the late 90s. He also points out that perhaps there’s less work required to hit the jam stride, the sweet spot of the jam, so to speak.

I’ve been sucked in a few times to debates with people who maintain that Phish isn’t the same band they used to be. Of course this is true, they’ve got decades more experience, they aren’t trying to find themselves like they were in the 80s, and they’re at a different point in life. But what’s also true is what got us here may not get us there, to borrow a business motivation phrase.

When I hear the complaint that Phish doesn’t write like they used to, citing songs like Reba and Fluffhead, I’m bothered.  Phish does attempt songs like those still: see Time Turns Elastic. Walls of the Cave. Waves. Pebbles and Marbles. The challenge is that these are new, and new is never as good as old when it comes to music.

Let’s look at Time Turns Elastic. I’ve advocated for Time Turns Elastic before, but let me just highlight some of that here. Those noobs who make smarmy jokes suggesting TTE is only for pee breaks annoy me. Time Turns Elastic is a musician’s wet dream: I dare you to try to count it out. It’s got definitive sections, much like Fluffhead. It’s got a happy ending jam a segment, like The Arrival. It’s got some fun, warm sections, like Reba. And some tough-to-figure-out, intricate composed sections a la Divided Sky. But for whatever reason, there is a large group that simply doesn’t like this masterpiece. So much so that it was voted the worst Phish song in a recent poll on Phish.net. Meanwhile, the return of Fluffhead had phans creaming in their drawers. That doesn’t make sense to me.

I’m forced to maintain that older equates to better for too many. We’ve heard Fluffhead a thousand times, it’s part of Phishtory, and it reminds us of a simpler time. It evokes emotion in a way newer songs just don’t… yet. I think in time, should TTE become a rarity, it will get its due. In the meantime, Fluffhead was first.

There’s a certain pride, with a band, in being there first. I only heard of Phish for the first time – that I can remember – in 1992. By then, several of the Phish.net staff had already seen more concerts than I have since. I wonder sometimes if I would have even gotten into Phish if it was 1988 when I first saw them. Or 2004. The state of the band when you first took interest in them undoubtedly shapes your judgement of them in all subsequent phases of their career. But I think we’re unique here, because we have so much of the history captured on tape for posterity… and repeated analysis. I think that many of us are brainwashed because we don’t revisit the totally average shows nearly as often as the epic shows of days past, so we start to believe that the quality used to be higher. We compare every show we attend now to the highlights of days past. Dip that ladel in the tub, and your creation will yield disappointment – the purple paste of “Phish 3.0″ being a letdown. It’s not. It’s exactly what anyone paying close attention should have expected. It’s the natural evolution of Phish.

Phish is no longer a bunch of kids trying to define themselves. They’re a bunch of 40-somethings who have experimented and found their comfort zone. They’re evolving, but at the same time, narrowing in on what makes them happiest and will sustain them longest. They like a variety of music and styles and like variation in their setlists. They like adopting wacky covers, sometimes only once (e.g. Rhincerous, Layla, Golden Age, Terrapin Station). They like playing their classics. They like shelving songs and surprising audiences with their unexpected return. They like treating remote audiences to something special. They’re not a jam band or prog rockers or hippies or old men or young men – they’re amorphous. They’re not just performing, they are creating an overall experience.

In 2009, Phish honed their skills and ambitiously aimed for flawless execution. People complained about lack of variety (AC/DC Bag to open seven shows in 2009?), but Phish played 248 different songs last year, a full third of their entire twenty-five plus year repetoire. What will 2010 have in store for us and will it appease the masses?

Stay tuned to Phish.net to find out.

Jillian: Daddy?
Me: Yes?
Jillian: Dora sings Camel Walk.
Me: She does?
Jillian: Mmm-hmm.  And Benny sings Icculus.  And Tico sings Timber Ho.  And Isa sings Mockingbird.
Me: Really? What about Boots?
Jillian: Boots sings…. Timber Ho.
Me: Who sings Harpua?
Jillian: Uh… Cinderella.
Me: Cinderella sings Harpua? What does Sleeping Beauty sing?
Jillian: Icculus.

SO PROUD.

At heart, I’m a stats geek. Maybe not like Zzyzx, but certainly I’m interested in the stats. I’m incredibly interested in Phish setlist construction, and hope that one day I find myself in a situation where I can interview Trey about it. “Why,” I would ask, “does a song like, say, Camel Walk, only appear every 50-some-odd shows? Is that intentional? Why premiere Glide II only to drop it seemingly forever? Are there ever permanently retired songs, like, perhaps, No Dogs Allowed, Dear Mrs Reagan, and Jennifer Dances? Can we ever expect to see Eliza again?” I would assume that, like most musicians, Phish collectively enjoys playing some songs more than others, but is that reflected in the setlist? If they don’t like a song, why would they play it at all… or write or perform it at all? Maybe it’s purposeful that they “create” rarities? I wonder, do they maybe love playing Harpua, but intentionally not overuse it so that its appearance heralds a special show? Why not just unleash a hose of rarities during a tour knowing it would make fans very happy^[1]? Unless these some songs are purposely rarities? Will Alumni Blues ever rejoin the setlist as anything other than a super-rarity?

What about common songs? Is Trey aware that AC/DC Bag has opened no fewer than SIX shows since November 1? Did Phish decide to showcase Kill Devil Falls more times than any other song off of Joy because they feel it’s the best song, or was that just coincidence? Are they purposely playing songs like Llama less frequently, or are they simply not remembering it during on-stage setlist construction? Will Time Turns Elastic get its due, in time, when it is a rarity?

In the end, the whole debate is, at the same time, pointless and essential; it is, one on hand, irrelvent, and on the other, the heart of what makes Phish so interesting. If they played rarities all the time, they wouldn’t be rarities and a large part of the fun of Phish shows might be lost. But we all go to see them play, and even songs of which I’ve personally grown a bit tired, such as Stash, still manage to steal the set from time to time, most notably night one of Festival 8. It’s not so much what they play as much as how they play it. I’ve learned that even Character Zero, once you get past the lyrics, can be just as interesting a jam vehicle as Mike’s, YEM, Jim, or Bowie. And yet, I’m still kind of hoping for a bust-out. Despite that, certain songs – for me, Moma, for example – are a bit of a letdown, because I’d rather hear something else I like better. I suppose if I have to hear a jam, I’d rather that jam stem from a song I’ve yet to hear live than a song I’ve heard 10+ times before.

When I look at the NYE setlist, I think the highlights, musically, were Ghost, Rock and Roll, and Piper, three fairly common songs. I also think Demand was awesome (mostly given the infrequency of its appearance?), and Swept Away into the most uncommonly jammed Steep I’ve ever heard is a high point, largely because it was an especially unique performance. So it’s a mix of both quality jams, song frequency, and performance uniqueness that made this fun. A prior night of the run included Gotta Jibboo > Wilson -> Gotta Jibboo, again, two fairly common songs that provided a notable highlight as well. It’s not just about rarities, that much is certain.

But why should we care about stats, right? What good are stats anyway? All they do, one might argue, is allow you to measure your own satisfaction comparatively, an expressly non-Phishy attitude. What good is seeing Buffalo Bill or Brother if you don’t like those songs as much as, say, Divided Sky or Possum except that one can say they’ve seen a rare song?

I think the conclusion is that it’s a mix of all of that: great jams, cool people, uniqueness of an individual performance, and the fact that the setlist remains an unknown all provide a different dimension of interest, and it’s all of that that can make a Phish concert so fun. It’s not about comparison to others’ shows, but rather, a comparison to my own show history: a re-affirmation of the fact that I can keep seeing the same band without ever tiring of the process. As much as I love the great jam, there’s still a moment in between songs when I’m jumping out of my seat with excitement that the next song could be something crazy.

[1] I realize that there were scores of rarities this tour, but I’m talking a total blow-out, something like “Set 1: Brother, Alumni Blues, Dog Log, Glide, Anarchy, In a Hole, She Caught the Katy, Sparkle^[2], Have Mercy, Harpua > Buffalo Bill“.

[2] …Just seeing if you were paying attention.

This post originally appeared on the phish.net blog.

Destiny Unbound (36)
Camel Walk (50)
Brother (17)
Scents and Subtle Sounds (7)
A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing (11)
Dinner and a Movie (10)
Glide (8)
Harpua (23)
Spock’s Brain (64)
Have Mercy (141)
Walk Away (21)
The Lizards (4)
Crowd Control (13)*

The number following each song is the average show gap between performances since the debut.  As you can see, given the number of shows I currently attend each year and the number I expect to attend in the next few years, it’s increasingly unlikely that I will see… well… ANY of these songs live, ever.  With each passing show, many of these number are increasing just a touch to the right of the decimal point, and the odds I actually see them go down inversely.  Even Lizards, which is still really low, is deceivingly so, given that it was so overplayed in the “old days” and underplayed these days.  In fact, ZZYZX’s stats say the odds of me not seeing Lizards in 35 shows is 0.0%.

I realize that with NYE being my only remaining show this year, any of these showing up is unlikely, because Phish has a history, for several years now, of not  going too crazy on NYE, but rather, doing that in the nights leading up to NYE.  Expect a Harpua on 12/30, and another set of standards for NYE.   The most likely candidates to show up on NYE? I’d have to bet on Lizards, Scents and Subtle Sounds, or Dinner and a Movie before any of the others.  But I’m expecting none of them.  Sigh.

* Edit: Add this song after the fact
Anyway, know that if I catch any of my wishlist on NYE, I will go nuts.

That’s what they tell us, at least. It was performed with the New York Philharmonic in September of 2009. A video surfaced, Trey playing TTE alone, acoustically. And then there’s the Fenway debut.

Somehow, we find ourselves here in November, a few short months after the song was released, and many Phish fans, not just the next generation, are calling TTE the worst Phish song ever. I hear “Time Turns Molasses.” I hear “Time Turns Craptastic.” I hear “Time… to pee.” But why? Why do so many fans hate this song? Why don’t they see what I do in TTE?

I think it’s for a few reasons. Firstly, this song took me a while to “get into.” It’s a long song with many distinct sections, and most people, I honestly think, don’t take the time to listen to it to not only ingest it all, but to even get to know it all. Much of the instrumental part of TTE, I think, is really easier to appreciate as a musician. Counting out some of the bits are a challenge. Many people think the song rambles on for too long aimlessly. Yet I can’t see any section of the song I’d want to trim out. Every bit is great. It’s said that Phish took something like 283 takes to get this track right. I believe this, there are a lot of intricate bits to the song that would be a challenge to capture in one 13 minute chunk.

Which leads me to argument 2 against the song: it’s not been “nailed” yet live. All of the performances thus far have ranged from “pretty lackluster” at worst to “decent” at best. I was excited to get my TTE at Festival 8 only to have it crush under the weight of itself. I love the song, and I’m willing to give Trey the benefit of the doubt and say that the cold air of night one of Festival 8 was responsible for so much of the fudging, but it was hard to hear the climax of the song, “The Carousel,” be executed so sloppily. Having said that, poor live execution does not a bad song make.

Clocking in at over 13 minutes (for the studio version, at least), and usually closer to 18 minutes live thus far, TTE is a big commitment in a set. So it seems reasonable to assume that, in time, Phish will tire of a song like that in regular rotation. When TTE becomes more of a rarity, more like a McGrupp, I bet people will start to think it’s more interesting to hear the song performed live.

The third argument for Time Turns Elastic is that it’s actually a suite of several smaller sections, which, as songs, aren’t nearly as tough to swallow. The song is arranged as follows:

Movement 1a – Song At Dawn
Movement 1b – Ruby Shaded Sea
Movement 2a – Submarine
Movement 2b – Landslide
Movement 2c – Rays Of Blue Light
Movement 3a – Silver Sound Shower
Movement 3b – Hilstorm
Movement 3c – Funnels
Movement 3d – Carousel

Image courtesy of Mr. Miner

Surely, most would agree that the intro and the outro are the most identifiable and the easiest to digest at first glance. It’s just parts of the middle that require some patience and some re-listening. If these parts were played on their own, they wouldn’t be hated.  So narrow it down for me: it’s obviously many smaller bits pieced together: which is the part(s) you don’t like? It can’t be all of them, because the odds of Phish writing so many greats songs and then 3 you hate all coincidentally stitched together are pretty much nil. So those who hate TTE probably aren’t talking about the entire song, but rather, some bit of it.

If anyone has the gall to say “it’s too stretched out,” I’d tell them “you have no place at a Phish show.”  These same people would soil their pants for a 20+ minute jam of 46 Days, Down With Disease, or Split Open and Melt.

Not everyone has to love every Phish song.  Not every fan has to love TTE.  In fact, I understand and concede that TTE is not for everyone.  But it’s annoying me that it’s simply becoming “cool” to not like TTE or to call it the “bathroom break.”

I’ve heard stories that when the Grateful Dead debuted “Terrapin Station,” many fans were unsure of how to receive it.  It wasn’t bluesy, it didn’t rock, it wasn’t a ballad, and it was long.  Years later, many of us regard Terrapin as one of the band’s masterpieces.

I think that many new fans, those that got into Phish during the post-breakup phase, are the ones most vocal about disliking TTE.  And many of them, I do in fact think, are simply naive noobs.   Some have a “kinda” fair argument: I like the song, I don’t like it live.   To them I say: many songs took a while to find their right incarnation and place in the Phish repetoire. Water in the Sky, Shafty, Limb by Limb, Black Eyed Katy/Moma, Tela, and many more went through revision before it found its sweet spot.  On the whole, I don’t think TTE is getting the love and patience it needs and deserves, so I’m making the case.

I was a little nervous about this one for a number of reasons, because I didn’t want to go on an adventure like this without my wife; I didn’t want to miss my two year old’s first trick-or-treating adventure; I didn’t want to go cross country alone. But a big one was that I didn’t want to go and be alone the whole time. Sure, there were JAM listers who were going to be there, but sometimes you meet people in real life and it’s awkward, and you realize it was more natural when you were just talking to a screen.

I was lucky enough to have found a hotel where two of my new friends were staying, Scott and Elayne. Elayne and I had arranged to carpool to the event. I had softly pre-planned to meet a few people, so I figured I’d bum a ride the first day and then go my own way so as not to be a leech.

I got to the hotel around 5:30 or so, completely mentally drained and exhausted, and Elayne texted me that they were about to go on “an adventure” and “did I want to come?” I knew blowing off the excursion was exactly the opposite of what I wanted the trip to be, so I threw my stuff in my room and headed out with Elayne, George, and their friend Jess. Jess was working on site, so we stopped by to drop her off. While waiting for her pass, I turned to George and whispered, “Hey, isn’t that Brad Sands?” “I don’t think Brad Sands works for them anymore,” he answered, at full volume. Elayne shot him a dirty look and loudly whispered – “That IS Brad Sands!” He was about 5 feet from us. I imagine it was more awkward for him than us, since we were just excited to be there.

We lightly scoped the festival grounds and inadvertantly learned our way around Indio. I was starting to fade from lack of food, so we found an authentic Mexican restaurant. It’s hard to sum up how grea the meal was largely because I don’t know how good it actually was: at the time, it was incredible. The best guacamole I’ve ever had combined with an array of homemade goods: crunky taco shells that were imperfectly crafted from freshly-fried hand-made corn tortillas, strechy and rich queso, thick and hearty chips… it was all perfect. We followed the meal with a stop off at some of E & G’s friends’, where I finally got to meet ZZYZX. Afew hours later, day one was done and all that remained was the festival itself.

DAY ONE

An easy morning of lounging around laid the base. We stopped at Wal-Mart for some essentials. We tried to go to a burger joint called “Burgers and Beer” for lunch, but both of the locations on Google Maps were out of business, so we settled on Cactus Jack’s. It was the perfect lunch, the “California Chicken” sandwich: a grilled chicken breast with swiss, bacon, and avacado on a bun. Not too heavy, not too light, just right for a pre-concert meal. No one wants to be carrying a lump of food in their stomach during a Phish show.

We got to the site around 1 anticipating traffic, but, much to our surprise, they waved us right in. There was absolutely no back up due to, I’m sure, a combination of excellent planning and a venue that had so many ins-and-outs that there was nary a bottleneck. On the way in, the promise of chocolate chip pancakes, corn dogs, veggie burritos, and much more suggested that there would be an array of foods and goods to make the event sustainable over several hours.

Security was relatively easy: no explanation necessary for my bag full of clothes that also had phone batteries, sealed water, Tylenol, and a pharmacy full of just-in-case stomach medications. Entering the venue from the grounds was almost overwhelming. There was a giant ferris wheel, a pizza stand, a small general store and a water stand. For $10, you could buy a Nalgene bottle that would be freely refillable for the duration of the festival. I bought one right as I entered. It was hard to take it all in – there was so much to do and so much to see. They were serving Sierra Nevada’s custom “Foam” beer. There were bloody marys. There was food – tons of it. I mean tons. Pizza, cheesesteak, chicken fingers, lemonade, ice cream, turkey wraps, burritos, nachos, hamburgers, garlic fries, coffee, gyros, hot waffles and ice cream, chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick, fire-roasted artichokes… there was enough that you never needed more than 5 minutes in any line for anything you could envision.

It was hot – really hot. But we shuffled through and made our way through the campground. We found Scott, then Herschel. We wandered through the field until we found Jack and Kat.  Then Phillip.  Then Charlie.   Slowly, the people with whom I’ve been working so closely for the last several months started to become real. Before the event began, the first buzzkill of the weekend emerged: a guy dropped like a rock about 5 feet from us and had a wild and violent seizure. It was so crowded that everyone had a “what should we do?” look. Perplexed, we wondered: do we go for help and miss the set after everything? I wish I could even tell you what happened to the guy, because the band took the stage and I tuned out. It got cold fast, set 1 began with jackets on. A fun set from Party Time through Time Turns Elastic, even though the latter was pretty sloppy. Clearly a “warm up” set, we all agreed, but there were some highlights – I specifically remember liking the Page song “Beauty of a Broken Heart”. After some shirtless, drunk d-bag trampled Elayne and landed on ZZYZX’s feet (how fun to watch him man-up and scream at the guy “Get the fuck out of here… you fucking asshole!”), we used to setbreak to relocate to right behind the delay speaker stacks, which afforded us both more space and, frankly, better crisper sound. The screens were such crispy HD signal that it was like watching a DVD, so much so that I probably spent only a small fraction of time scruntinizing the boys on stage. Most of the time, it was either Kuroda’s majesty or the side screens pulling my eyes, so the location was great. So great that we made it our home for the next 6 sets and much of the time in between.

Set 2 was more of the same: standard setlist, “clearly out the back catalog,” many said, but there were some clear highlights for sure. Piper, Wolfman’s, Down With Disease, and Joy – which means so much mor to me now that I know it’s at least partly about daughters – were highlights. It was pretty cold out at that point, but the music was keeping us warm. Post-set, George and Elayne and I got in line for a post-show slice of pizza, and it was the perfect cap to the night. Traffic out was drop-dead easy: we got in the car and waited a grand total of 45 seconds before exiting onto the main road. We stopped at Wal-Mart for the second time that day on the way home to pick up water and some basic breakfast foods. Got home about 1:30 and to sleep around 2. Great day.

DAY TWO

Day two was Halloween, and the most anticipated of the three days for most. We stopped at Wal-Mart yet again for sunscreen and Tylenol for our aching foot muscles. We left around 11 for the grounds because George and Elayne wanted to participate in the horsehoe contest. We got to the grounds and were immediately presented a “Phishbill” revealing the musical costume of 2009: the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. I had combed over many of the remaining albums and was really hoping for Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, but once eliminated, I was pulling for Thriller or the elusive “100th album.” So Exile was a disappointment for me, at first. I was, however, happy to see Halloween in Miami announced.

Knowing that there were 100 options for food at the event, I split off for my own adventure. I went to a “tweet up” to meet several folks I know from Twitter. It was really cool to meet some of the people I’d spoken with so many times, a theme for the weekend, it seemed. After the tweet-up, I met up with Herschel and Scott and we got some lunch. It was ridiculously hot outside. Despite the heat, there was much to do. But it seemed that one of the most fun things to do was to meet at our central location – a large blanket that G&E had decorated like basketball court for part of their group Halloween costume – and just hang out with the many cool people around. It was a blast to spend some time with new and exciting people like Erik Janus and David & Mel Steinberg, some of whom I knew before via email, some of whom I only met at the event.

AT&T coverage seemed to stretch everywhere except the concert field, where even Edge coverage was spotty. While in GPRS territory, from time to time, my phone would catch a signal and deliver a chunk of pending email. It was a very odd experience to receive a message from people tagging my Facebook photos telling me to have a good time, only to find out that they were the friends of the very people I was sitting with. Watching the “phamily” unfold was really something that can’t be explained to non-Phishheads. George and Elayne rejoined us having secured a spot in the semi-finals.

Set 1 began not much later than expected, and it was a lot of fun. Looking back at the setlist, I have to say that nothing really stands out as truly memorable. Divided was great as always. Kill Devil Falls, my absolute least favorite song off of Joy, was actually really well done and I appreciated it at the time. I remember liking Gin and Coil, and Antelope was as rockin’ as it usually is. But nothing from Set 1 ranks among the top of the weekend. Either way, the atmosphere made it taste like an appetizer.

It got dark and cold, but not nearly as cold as the night before. The band took the stage after a 5 minute tribute video to their costume also-rans. Busting in to Rocks Off was so much fun. It’s one of my favorites off the album, so it was very welcome. The band was joined by Sharon Jones and Shaundra Williams on vocals and The Dap Kings on horns. And then Phish did what they normally do to me: they changed my mind. They made me enjoy Exile. A few days out, I say what I didn’t then: after hearing Phish perform Exile, I’m learning to love it. Is it just wacky psychology? Maybe. But either way, you must hear their take. Torn and Frayed is genius. Shake Your Hips, Let It Loose, Casino Boogie, all great. Loving Cup? Probably the best ever. The entire adventure was fun.

We did nothing between sets except hang out. There was one dude, Z-Dogg – 16 years old and stoned out of his skull – who was just crashing all over everything and everyone’s stuff. It was funny to watch this numbskull mope around looking for weed he could bum off of anyone. And, strangely, I think his mother and father were with him constantly smoking him up. Very weird.

Set 3 may have been the musical highlight of the weekend. It started with an unexpected but triumphant Backwards Down the Number Line, a song that really captures some of Trey’s demons, but in a happy way, if that’s possible. It was well executed and dropped into a well performed and powerful, if relatively standard Fluffhead. Fluffhead morphed into one of the best Ghosts in recent memory. I normally find When the Circus Comes to be a little too slow for most sets. In short, it’s hard to recover the energy after such a slow song. Fear not, after some deliberation, You Enjoy Myself came along and set things right.

For an encore the band re-emerged with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and tore through what most people are calling the best Suzy Greenbery ever. It’s hard to argue it, the horns and the backup vox made this a really special and screaming Suzy, and it’s unlikely to be matched without a similiar lineup – ever.

In post show bliss, we got our post-show pizza and took a trafficless post-show drive to our post-show ritual Wal-Mart stop. An all around great day.

DAY THREE

Woke up early Sunday to make it to the acoustic set. G & E and Jess dropped their stuff in my room, they were checking out that day, abnd we were off. We did NOT stop at Wal-Mart that day.

I was thinking that morning about how lucky I was to have met Elayne and George.  It could easily have been weird to be carpooling with people I didn’t know: I had figured, before getting there, that I would bum a ride the first day and then “do my thing” the remaining days.  But they were very cool and it was very chill with them, so I stuck around.  That morning, very casually, George said to me, “One of the coolest things about this festival was meeting you, you’re good people.”  I totally felt the same way, and it was true, for me,  that having a home base with cool people was elemental in the trip being successful.  It was a huge compliment to know that people I was enjoying hanging out with were enjoying hanging out with me too.  Especially those two.

We arrived to the only traffic of the weekend, I’m sure everyone was getting there at the same time for once, so we (ab)used Jess’ artist pass to park in a special lot. We trekked in to the first security backup of the weekend, but it wasn’t too bad, they let us in without much fuss. We made it in time for the set, and it was a great set. It was unlike any other Phish set… well, ever. And when they switched from slow and mellow to upbeat via McGrupp and The Curtain, it made my day. Talk was one of the bigger “bust outs” of the weekend, if you can call it that, and though the sun was killer, the experience was unforgettable. When they played an acoustic encore, we spent the following hour debating how to represent the encore to a set in the setlist. I got a chance to meet Ellis and his family, only missing a few Mockingbirders for the weekend.

Hopes were high for sets two and three, and they didn’t disappoint. Set two began with a short and powerful AC/DC Bag dropping right into a clean and energeic Rift. Then came Gotta Jibboo, one of my favorites of the weekend just because it was really well played. Reba was nice, The Wedge and Guelah, two tunes that have been much rarer in recent years, followed. Undermind is, perhaps, going to go down as my favorite song of the festival. The reworked version is the same they played at the soundcheck, but it’s so funky and fun. A standard Sparkle preceded a very welcome Split Open and Melt. All in all, good set. In between, we got to meet Julia, who, believe it or not, actually exists, and is not, as is often claimed, Mike Gordon.  [If, however, anyone would go to the trouble of hiring a temporary stand-in just to fool with us.. oh, and also create a Facebook and Twitter page for her, well, that'd be Mike.]  Either way, we met a person claiming to be her, unfortunately, she arrived just as the set started, leaving us no time to actually talk to her.

It didn’t get cold for set 3, which was welcome. By this point, everyone was realizing that the weekend was winding down. So we settled in, knowing, as well as one can, that we were in for a Tweezer. And we were, Set 3 opened with Tweezer -> Maze. Then came some very good songs: Free, my first Sugar Shack, a high-energy Limb By Limb, and a heavy Theme From the Bottom. The closing series was Mike’s Song > 2001 > Light > Slave to the Traffic Light, which is very hard to beat. I love Light, this one is being debated on many discussion groups as great vs standard, but I love Light, and given the atmosphere, I call it great. And, as you may know, I’ve already made the case for Slave.

The encore was a slightly different Grind, followed by an unexpected and oddly placed Esther. And then, with the hard-hitting mini-jam of Tweezer Reprise, the weekend was over.

I passed on the pizza on Sunday. Instead, I sat back and took it all in. Festival 8 was over. And it was awesome.

I fell asleep on the drive home (I was Z-dogg’in it, you could say), I said goodbye to G&E and went to sleep.

GOING HOME

The next day, I was set to travel home. When I got to the Ontario airport after my maiden voyage to Avocado Burger. In a welcome coincidence, I was on the same flight as Jack and Kat. I got a chance to spend a few minutes chatting up Mockingbird business with him. Good times. The flight from Vegas to Orlando wasn’t bad at all – smooth and generally uneventful, the way I like my flights.
It’s hard to communicate to those who missed it what 8 was like. They can listen to the MP3s, they can look at pictures, they can hear the stories, but they probably can’t appreciate just how amazing the whole vibe was, how free the whole atmosphere was, they way we were welcomed by the city and the venue, how the weather, and the organization, and the hotels, and the restaurants, and the friends blended together into such an event. I suppose all that can be said is “I hope this happens once again!”

See you at 9?

Phish is back.  

The first time I saw Phish was in Hampton.  The last time I saw Phish was in Hampton. The best Phish show I saw was in Hampton (11/22/97, best Piper ever!).  

It would be awesome to see them in Hampton in 2009.

I’ve pondered over my favorite Phish songs before, and ultimately, I’ve never been able to settle on one. But today, I’ll give you what I think is the “best.”

First, we’ve got to agree on what “best” means. Does it mean most well liked? Most representative? Most iconic? I am choosing to define it as the song that best captures and satiates fans, be they new, old, or even future.

And the runners up are:

You Enjoy Myself
The logical, most obvious select for “best” phish song is the classic You Enjoy Myself. YEM, as we Phishheads call it, was debuted in 1986 and was featurd in more Phish setlists than any other song – ever. YEM includes a structed composed part, a loose jam part, and has led to some incredible experimentation, including the vocal jam. While YEM is an awesome song, a load of fun, and arguably the quinessential Phish song, I don’t think it’s the best, and one of the reasons is that it’s just too chaotic and hard to understand for those new to Phish.

Bouncing Around the Room
I include Bouncin’ only because, unlike YEM, it is quite easy for those unfamiliar with Phish to immediately fall in love with this song. The tempo, the lightweight guitar, and the repeated clear lyrics make it a natural sing along gem. But, most decidedly unlike YEM, it received quite a bit of radio play and became one of the 5 or so songs that college students that didn’t count themselves as Phish heads knew. As a result, many elitist Phish heads began the backlash against Bouncing. It was not unlikely, in the late nineties, to hear the regulars whine when Bouncing reared its head in a setlist. One more legitimate reason to dislike Bouncing was because, like many other songs, it was not a platform for jamming. This made it more of a recital than a participatory exercise. Since the most loyal fans, whether right or wrong, grew impatient with it, Bouncing cannot be the answer.

Chalkdust Torture
Chalkdust Torture was another “famous” Phish song. While the song is pretty much verse-chorus-verse, it served as a jam platform more often than you might expect. Chalkdust featured a catchy chorus and was a setlist regular from its debut right through Coventry. That said, Chalkdust remained popular for its entire run, and was often recognized by non-hardcores, and even featured on several albums. However, Chalkdust is rarely mentioned as one of the more cherished songs.

The Divided Sky
Ah, the final three. It’s easy to make a case for the Divided Sky. First of all, it’s got several sections, many tightly composed. It’s a musician’s wet dream, it’s got emotion, and it’s a fun song. It features all four members at some point. It’s Gamehendge-related. There are so many things that make this a fantastic song. But, like others above, there is rarely much exploration when this is performed live. Don’t let this take away from the song, it’s one of my faves, but any song that doesn’t encompass everything Phish is about can’t be called “best” in my book.

Harry Hood
Hood is the next step from Divided Sky, and also lands in all of the above categories, sans the Gamehendge connection. Harry Hood is one of the most well-liked songs in Phish-story, and when they open a show with it – as they did twice in 1999 – it signaled an incredible evening. I can’t fault Hood on anything worthwhile. It’s a virtual tie, but there had to be a winner, and that winner is:

Slave to the Traffic Light
In my humble opinion, no Phish song is better than Slave to the Traffic Light. Slave, as we call it, has elements of reggae, rock, jazz, ambient, harmony, and more. Slave includes long jams at times, some really long. It’s well liked, it’s been played with frequency, but not too frequent. It didn’t spark the amazing, but eventually annoying glowstick wars, and the end of the song is really something special nearly every time. Slave is not too complex, so even the relative newbie to Phishdom can understand and appreciate it, and certainly will be swinging and swaying by the end of the song. Also, Slave is the perfect set-ender, the perfect song to draw out your energy, calm you down, and lay you down to sleep nicely.

You can throw around several song like Guyute, Fee, The Lizards, The Squirming Coil, or Cavern, but I have to make the case for Slave to the Traffic Light.