Episode 041 - Phish Concert Review

This week, I’ve got a Phish concert review for you, from the Dec 29, 2024 show at MSG. There’s a lot of history with this band for me, and I’ll take you through that and the show itself. So let me know what you think, on this very personal episode of The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!

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Transcript

Alex Gadd: 0:00

Happy new year and welcome to season two of The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and this week I've got another concert review for you. I went to see Phish at Madison Square Garden on the second night of their four night new year's run, where they played a 15 song show over two sets and three and a half hours. I have a long history with this band, yet this is my first time seeing them in just over 20 years, so my feelings about the show are a little more complex than other shows. But I can't wait to unpack it all with you, so please join me for my Phish concert review coming up right now. As I mentioned, I have a long history with Phish going back to when they were playing at Nectar's in Burlington, Vermont in 1987, which was about their fourth year as a band. At that point, they only had released their first recording, which was called The White Tape. It was only a demo, which I had never owned or even heard. At that time, the band was okay, but the music outpaced the singing. Frankly. They just weren't that good as singers, if my memory serves correct. But they kept playing at Nectar's and then at the other place that I could get into even though I was underage, which was called Hunt's, which was only a block away from Nectar's on Main Street in downtown Burlington. I didn't go see them every time they played by any means, but I checked them out occasionally. Their setlists at the time were filled with cover songs, as they didn't have enough originals to fill three sets in a night. And to their credit, they didn't play the same setlist every night. Their cover song choices were wide ranging, and on any given night might include songs by The Stones, Hendrix, Zappa, Zeppelin, ZZ Top, or Lynyrd Skynyrd. Or jazz songs I wasn't familiar with, aside from when they broke out Take the A Train. But when they released their first album, Junta, in 1989, I recognized almost all of the songs. And somewhere in there, I felt like they might have taken singing lessons, as they were singing better both individually, which was mostly Trey Anastasio, their guitarist, primary singer and songwriter at the time, and as a group, where their harmonies were now on key and in tune. By 1988, they had started playing at a new bar that had opened further down Main Street, which was called The Front. Today, I believe that's a Ski Rack store, but The Front is where I felt like they really blossomed as a band. At first, they were playing there on weekends fairly regularly through 88 and 89. But over time, it seemed like they had scaled back to only doing an occasional Sunday night gig. People who knew far more than me about Phish at the time told me they were out touring around the Northeast, and so they'd come home after a tour and they would do a Sunday night. Again, I wasn't going a lot, just occasionally, but by 1991, when I had graduated from UVM, they had two albums out and had signed with a major label, Elektra. I was working at the local rock radio station up there, WIZN. The Wizard of Rock, rockin the Champlain Valley, doing the weekend overnight shifts, and when I first started at the station, the only Phish song we were allowed to play was Bouncing Around the Room, which was their hit? From their second album, Lawn Boy. And then we were only allowed to play it after 8 PM. And then only once in a while, I believe it was our week night overnight, DJ Mike Luoma, who was advocating for playing them. And he was right to, because early the next year they released their third album called A Picture of Nectar, and it had an actual single on it that their label was promoting. It was called Chalk Dust Torture. And I think this is one of their best pure rock-n-roll songs. It was under five minutes long, had a classic verse-chorus-verse song structure that wasn't always the case with this band because they really like to stretch out their songs in all kinds of ways. Now at the station, we played the hell out of Chalkdust Torture and it actually charted nationally. The album itself went gold, which for a local Burlington band was something that made me proud as a now resident of the city and as someone who had seen the band early on. I started seeing them more whenever they played locally, and I really started getting into their music. Their next three albums were released between 1993 and 96. They were Rift, Hoist, and Billy Breathes, and that completed their most mainstream period of making music. That four record run was pretty impressive for any band. In the spring of 94, I made the decision to move back to New York after more than seven years in Burlington, and another nine month period living in Minneapolis. And it was that fall that I met my first wife. On our first date, she asked if, because I had lived in Burlington, I knew the band Phish. I said I did, that I had met Trey a few times and I knew his girlfriend, Sue, and, trying to show off maybe a little, asked if she knew that Trey and Sue had just gotten married that summer. She replied with"ah, yeah, I was at the wedding." It was then that I found out that she had grown up with Trey and his sister, Kristy, because their mothers had been roommates in college and had stayed close. My foot squarely in my mouth, I ceded domain knowledge to my new girlfriend, and a month later we were in a limousine with Trey's mother, Dina, going to see Phish play their first ever show at Madison Square Garden on December 30th, 1994. And at that show, my mind was blown. I had just seen them earlier that summer up in Montreal at the Théâtre Saint Denis, and now they were selling out the Garden? And they did it so effortlessly, so comfortably, like they had been there many times before. It was really something to see, especially remembering back to eight years earlier at Nectar's. From that show on, I saw just about every show they did in the New York City area for the next 10 years, including every show at the Garden, a show in Philly in December of 97, their island tour dates at Nassau Coliseum and the taping of their appearance on PBS's Sessions at West 54th in 1998, and the amazing 2004 show in Brooklyn, where Jay Z came out as an unannounced surprise guest, played Big Pimpin' and 99 Problems and left the whole crowd absolutely in ecstasy. One of the best memories was a show in Camden, New Jersey, when we again went with Trey's mom, Dina and our older daughter, Alison, who was maybe three or three and a half at the time. And we watched the show from the side of the stage. Before the show started, Alison ran out and was dancing around on the stage, not really aware that there was a whole crowd waiting to see the band, just kind of watching her. It was quite an experience running out after her to bring her back. I also saw a bunch of Trey's side projects throughout the years, including his first ever show with the Trey Anastasio Band that was up in Winooski, Vermont at a new club called Higher Ground. That was, I think, in the spring of 98. He also did a short set at the Tibet House Benefit at Carnegie Hall in 99 with Philip Glass. And I also went to the first of two Oysterhead shows in 2001 at Roseland. Where I had dinner before the show with all three members of the band and some of Trey's other friends. Every show I saw from 1994 on included tickets and backstage passes, except the Tibet House show, of course. Additionally, my wife and kids and I stayed at Trey and Sue's house in Vermont. They stayed with us in an RV at our family's cabin in Maine. We went up to see his new studio, The Barn, before it was even built. And then went back, once it was completed. We went out to dinner with him and his wife at New York and in Burlington. Now, I'm not saying I was super close with Trey or Sue in any way, but we were friends and I will never forget his generosity and giving me just a little bit of access to his world for those 10 years. And his mom, Dina, played a big part in that is she was very close with my wife and I during that period. She's an amazing person and a children's author of some acclaim on her own. Now, when the band broke up or disbanded as they termed it, I wasn't really upset. I had kind of struggled to connect with their 2004 album Undermind and knowing that they were disbanding, those final shows I saw in Brooklyn and in Camden, New Jersey seemed like the end of an era, and boy, what an era had been for them, and for me as a fan. Then in 2005, my wife and I split up and I lost access to Trey. Now, it was understandable. There was never any question about why or it not being fair. Given the relationships involved, that's the way it had to play out. I just stopped having any access to him, and I went on with my life, which was kind of sad, but it was fine with me because. I look back on it and had enjoyed so many unique experiences while I was in his and the band's orbit. They were all so nice to me. Now Phish got back together in 2008, started touring again, which they continue to do through today. And I never even considered going to see them again until this year when my friend Dave, who was my guest on episode 28 of the podcast in early October, invited me to pick one of the four shows over the new year's run this year, and he would take me. I jumped at the chance to see them for the first time in more than 20 years. And then I wondered, can I ever really go back home again? Is Phish still a band I can really enjoy seeing live. Let's talk about it. I chose the Sunday night show, which was the second of four in a row and met up with Dave and a few of his other friends who were also going to the show at a bar a few blocks away from the Garden. We grabbed dinner and headed over, walking in and getting to our seats just as the first song began, which I recognized right away. Sample in a Jar from 1994's Hoist album, one of my favorites. Our seats were behind and sort of to the side of the stage, so I spent the first few songs figuring out the best way to record. So I don't have any usable footage of those songs, but they sounded great. The crowd was immediately into it as was I, and the second song really sealed the deal for me. AC/DC Bag was next, which is an amazing song. It was never released as a studio recording, but was part of Trey's senior thesis composition from college. He called it The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday. It was a concept album that's taken on legendary status amongst Phish fans. And has been played in its entirety only a few times over the years. I had heard most of the songs from the project at different times, especially earlier on. There was an early studio recording done maybe in 1988, but it was never released. I never heard it. However, I do believe there's a live recording from the July 8th show, 1994 up in Mansfield, Massachusetts. And I think you can get that somewhere where they played the whole piece. And then New Year's Eve of last year, 2023. They played the whole piece again, leading up to the midnight countdown. Anyway, AC/DC Bag. Great. That led into MoMA dance from the 1998 album, The Story of The Ghost, which is a mid tempo groove that I'm not really crazy about. It's a good song, but the crowd definitely loved it. That moved into a good version of the song Rift, the title track to their 1993 followup to A Picture of Nectar. This song is uptempo and has that great lyrical interplay between Page and Trey as they trade off lines throughout the song. I finally got a video perspective that I felt was good enough to share Our seats give you a good view of what the crowd is doing and the band was totally locked in. When they started the refrain of the second verse, I got some good footage including Trey milking a pause for just a few extra beats to get the crowd whooping and hollering. Take a listen.

11:55

Struggles of destiny, of revenge And guess what defeat, he slipped off the page And silence contagious in moments like these It soothed me and strengthened my will to appease The passion that sparked me one terrible night It shocked and persuaded my soul to ignite It shocked and persuaded my soul, my soul It shocked and persuaded my soul, my soul And I'm gonna get this shot in my soul, my soul, too. I'm gonna get this shot in my soul, too.

Alex Gadd: 12:44

Rift led into Prince Caspian from the Billy Breathes album, which I really love. It's a slow tempo song that's kind of dreamy and wistful, and has not that many lyrics. It's a great build that the audience can really get into singing along with, and it allows for the band to stretch it out at the end. That was followed by the first song I didn't know, Monsters, from their current 2024 album Evolve. I had to look it up and like Prince Caspian, this is a mellow song that's kind of repetitive. But unlike Prince Caspian, this one didn't sit so well with me. I kind of found it dull and without charm, but my disappointment was short lived because they followed it up with one of my old favorites, another song without a studio release, Runaway Jim. A simple story of a boy and his dog who's run away. It's a great song that's been around since 1990 or so. And our crowd was way into it. As was I, here's that

13:38

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Runaway Jim Tell my old Jim when Runaway, runaway, runaway Cause he took all the money that I saved for when Runaway, runaway, runaway Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Runaway Jim Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Runaway Jim

Alex Gadd: 14:08

The fun continued with the next song. You Enjoy Myself, which was on the first album, 1989's Junta, and has been around since before then. And according to Phish. net is the most played of any Phish song live. You Enjoy Myself is almost 10 minutes long on the album, and often goes 15 or 20 minutes or even longer when it's played live. Yet it only has a very few lyrics, which come up in the middle section and then are repeated again between musical breaks as they play out the rest of the song. It's got a deep groove that gets the crowd moving and kept us going throughout. Here's the vocal part of You Enjoy Myself. Notice how they use tension and release to get the crowd even more engaged than they already are.

16:19

I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know why I'm doing this.

Alex Gadd: 16:29

Now, I thought that would have led to the set break, which would have been perfect, but instead they segued into the song Ghost, which I'm not really crazy about as a set closer. It sounded a bit different than I had remembered them playing it in the past, but I still didn't love it, and it kind of petered out to end the set. It wasn't the best way to end the first set, but overall a really strong first set. Then as they do every show, they took a 30-35 minute break, and they had an intermission, they came back out for a second set, and they started off with a great old tune, Bathtub Gin, from their second record, Lawn Boy. Now I love this song. But it's not the highest energy tune and it didn't really spark up the room to start the set. That was followed by a Trey song from one of his solo records called Ruby Waves, which they went on to play for over 35 minutes. It's a song that I just don't like, in my opinion, the lyrics are clearly personal to Trey, but they sound disjointed and not particularly meaningful to me or universal in any way. But my point is, it's a six minute song on the solo record Ghosts of the Forest from 2019. The band extended it to 35 or 36 minutes and that was just a lot. I mean, I almost took a nap during it because it got so monotonous. When it finally ended, they followed with Waste, one of their most gentle, mellow songs. And while I really like that song a lot. I felt like the set needed a jolt of energy at some point, and this seemed like a weird time to play another mellow song. The fourth song of set two is the title track to the band's 2014 album, Fuego. It's another mid tempo song. This one at least had a chance for the crowd to chant along with the band, but the repetitive nature of the song, in which they sing"Inside Your Fuego, We Keep It Rolling," what seems like 50 times. The entire second set was turning into a bit of a slog for me. Finally, they played their fifth and final song of the set. Yep, five songs in a 75 minute set, but it was a great song, a cover of the Talking Heads' amazing album track, Cross-Eyed and Painless. Now, I believe the first time they played this song was on Halloween in 1996 in Atlanta, when they played the entire Talking Heads album, Remain in Light, as their musical costume, a tradition that started that year and was repeated a few times since, and everyone looks forward to whenever they have a Halloween show. Here's a bit of that.

18:55

I don't doubt, cause I like the taste of medicine, working by the sun, and this is what I do. I do. I do. I do.

Alex Gadd: 19:45

So they left the stage from set two on a high note, and they came back for a one song encore, and that one song was an excellent version of Jimi Hendrix' Bold as Love. And that was it. They were done off the stage before 11:30. So here are my takeaways. Number one, Phish is playing and singing as good as ever. They sounded great. And they've been doing this since 1983. That's a 40 plus year history with no noticeable degradation of their overall sound. Number two, the four night New Year's Eve stand is an event that phans look forward to and hope for every year. Walking into the arena, there was a palpable sense of excitement among the crowd. Unfortunately, The overall show didn't leave the best impression. There's no other way to say it. It was a bit dull. And when I was thinking about it afterwards, I realized that this run, when they do it, the four nights in a row seems to be more enjoyable for the large contingent of the fans who go to see all four nights. So that it's less important if any one show is fantastic, because the overall experience certainly is, and you end up hearing so many of your favorite songs. But for someone going to see just one show, maybe it's not the best idea to go see a show during the New Year's Eve run. I don't know. That's just my takeaway. Even though the show I saw started off really strong, the second set just fell flat. My third takeaway, this is another band that doesn't use video screens. And I just reviewed the Sturgill Simpson concert in November, which was in Queens. And I found it odd that Sturgill Simpson didn't use video screens, but where it was out at that show. It wasn't for Phish. And that's because Phish has one of, if not the best light shows in the whole concert world, thanks to their lighting designer, Chris Kuroda, who's almost like another member of the band. Those lights really add to the overall experience every night, including the night that I saw. Number four, the crowd was generally younger than me overall, but there were plenty of people my age or around my age, not a lot of people significantly older than me though, which I was surprised by as when I used to go see shows when I was younger, there were tons of people older than me. Maybe there just aren't that many people alive who are older than me anymore. I don't want to think that, but I don't know in any event, everyone who was there was really into it. I'm sure my reaction to the show is not shared by the vast majority of the audience in attendance on that night. My fifth takeaway, John Fishman should have trademarked the design of his dress that he seems to wear every night on stage, that muumuu with the red circles, because so many people were wearing clothing with that pattern on it. Shirts. Hats. Pants. Socks. Patches. The band should be selling everything they can produce with that pattern, because someone else is making a lot of money selling that stuff. My sixth takeaway, there were so many songs that I missed that I would have loved to have heard. And that's why I should have seen all four shows, I guess. From old originals like Lizards, Simple, Punch You In The Eye, or Character Zero, to newer originals like Kill Devil Falls, Blaze On, and No Man in No Man's Land. Or those old covers like Loving Cup, La Grange, Fire, Peaches en Regalia, and many more. Oh, I gotta go back. Seven, and finally, I had a really good time seeing my first Phish show in more than 20 years, regardless of the dull second set. A big, big thank you to my buddy Dave for sharing the experience with me. I still felt the joy of Phish's music on songs like Sample in a Jar, AC/DC Bag, Runaway Jim, You Enjoy Myself. And seeing Phish at the Garden makes me realize that after 30 years of playing sold out shows there, the Garden is really their home arena. They've played there 91 times, which is almost twice as many times as they played Nectar's or the Front back in the day, and only nine times fewer than they played both of those foundational rooms for them combined. So later this year, whenever they hopefully book shows at the Garden again, Go see him. If you can, I will be going again to chase the dragon of a great show that brings me back to the way I felt 30 years ago, the first time I saw them there. They're a great live band and their shows still have the potential to be great at any time. While I was okay pretty much ignoring their music for the past 20 years, I just don't think I want to do that anymore. I have too much history with them and their music does mean too much to me. So that's it for this week's episode. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back next Tuesday. And if you like what you heard today, we'd appreciate it if you would like and subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about each new episode and please tell your friends. Also a reminder that we release a playlist for every episode. So look for The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast Playlist on Spotify every week, this week, featuring all 15 songs from the set list of the show at the Garden that I saw, plus other songs that I mentioned. So check that out. Additionally. We want to know what you think. So please leave us a comment. We'll try to respond to all of them, but please remember, I'm just sharing my opinions here and I want you to be able to do the same, but please do so respectfully. We don't want another Jeff Lynne's ELO situation. The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets.