Audiobook

6/14/95, Memphis, TN, Mud Island Amphitheater

The best jams are stories, and the very best Phish jams are autobiographies. In their improvisational twists and turns, the band constructs a spontaneous memoir that takes listeners on a thematic, organic journey through a slice of their history. One might also interpret these performances as State of the Phish progress reports, but often they contain a recap of the timeline that brought them to the present moment, not to mention glimpses into the near future — as much prophecy as remembrance. 

Tonight’s Tweezer is one of those jams. It not only settles the “how weird should we get?” question of yesterday’s show, it obliterates it: a 50-minute piece of improvised music slammed down right in the middle of the second frame and occupying more than 75 percent of the set and more than a third of the entire show. It remains the longest Tweezer to date, and the second-longest Phish jam of all time, trailing only the Worcester ‘97 Runaway Jim. 

Yet despite this gargantuan length, the Mud Island Tweezer goes down way smoother than some of its peers. Where the Bangor and Bozeman Tweezers of last year are endurance tests, 6/14’s version is a page-turner, exploring the same astonishing number of ideas but doing so at a less disorienting pace, sustaining narrative momentum with confidence and patience. So here’s a synopsis of the jam in a dozen chapters, with the ghosts of Phish past, present, and future they conjure.

I. 0:00

I’m not sure why Tweezer, a truly dopey wisp of a song, is the most common home for these Proustian moments. Perhaps it has something to do with its humble origins, a soundcheck goof with a silly, nonsensical-even-for-them mantra over the top that debuted in a hockey frat house. I suspect Tweezer’s simplicity is also its superpower, strapping the band down to a mantra-like riff, building up potential energy that can propel in any direction they choose. It’s testimony that even the smallest germ of an idea can lead to revelation.

II. 4:40

For the first several minutes, the jam unfolds within the parameters you’d expect for any pre-94 Tweezer. It’s both danceable and fist-pumpable, above-average jambandery, the version of Phish that would’ve been happy and rewarded playing pot-smoke festivals for the rest of their days. It’s Tweezer’s ground floor, and any other quartet would be proud of it.

III. 11:55

Up through 1993, most extended Phish jams took the form of teasefests, hopping like an FM dial through the radio station of their influences. That approach gets a nod here in the form of “Gypsy Queen,” Santana’s mystical coda to “Black Magic Woman” and a song that Phish had previously teased 4 times across 93 and 94. Its specific revival here feels like an acknowledgment of time served as Carlos’ opening act, at the outset of a summer where they’re headlining many sheds where they once had second billing.

IV. 14:55

The leap forward Phish made in fall 94 wasn’t a turbulence-free ride. The ancestors of this Tweezer in Bangor and Bozeman are simultaneously fascinating and a slog, following the band in excruciating detail as they hunt for the balance between experimentation and mass entertainment. As I said up top, the Mud Island Tweezer is much more audience-friendly, but still has a few minutes of that 94-style madness after the Santana groove fades out, with chunks of silence, abrupt power-chord stop-starts, and evasive melodies.

V. 18:30

Wait, I thought this Tweezer was supposed to be long? Around this point, Trey starts flirting with the Tweezer riff, and the full band joins in a minute later. There’s a clear jumping-off point at the 20th minute, and if they had taken that off-ramp — and they absolutely would have at virtually every other point in their history — it would still have closed a notable moment in Tweezer history. But they did not, and a half hour of music completely outside of the already-porous boundaries of the song begins.

VI. 21:45

No jam of this length is without its fallow periods, and for the first three minutes after they decide to take the more difficult path, it feels like a mistake. There’s no shortage of idea bait, but nothing provokes more than a nibble. The crowd cheers like it’s over — either out of astonishment or relief — and the momentum is definitely flagging by the time the clock hits 23. So why not dip back into their history for another flash of inspiration?

VII. 23:30

The first Digital Delay Loop Jam came near the beginning of 1994, in the middle of It’s Ice on 4/8. But its most famous early appearance came a month later, at the heart of the Bomb Factory Tweezer, Phish’s first major experiment in long/freeform jamming before a live audience. Trey’s early fiddlings on the Ibanez DM2000 (thanks @TreysGuitarRig for the fact check) can be self-indulgent, to the point where the rest of the band typically sits out. But here, with a year’s experience, the other three all find interesting counterpoints to weave around the loops — even if it’s just Fishman’s eerie whistling, in callback to another legendary 1994 jam. With everyone checked in, Phish can contort Trey’s cheerful burbles into a ghastly wall of noise, the Mud Island Tweezer’s one moment of pure acid freakout.

VIII. 28:30

Surprisingly it’s Mike, not known at this time for taking the steering wheel, who leads the way out, into calmer sonic territory and the far future of Phish. It was Mike who sang the one-off cover of Brian Eno’s “I’ll Come Running” in May, and it’s Mike’s bassline that ushers in the Full Eno in the midst of this long voyage. For a fun experiment, taste-test the next four minutes against the 12/30/19 Tweezer a quarter century later, or the dozens of ambient bliss moments between these two shows. It transitions seamlessly into 90 seconds of blatant Slave to the Traffic Light jamming — a signal that the Eno influence isn’t a new arrival, it lived inside Phish all along.

IX. 34:00

Another fallow period, another point where they could have easily played a slowdown Tweezer ending, dusted off their hands, and moved on to the rest of the set. But Phish 95 fights through these thorny patches, confident that they’ll find new inspiration on the other side. 

X. 36:00

They find it in a glimpse of the nearer future, starting with an off-kilter Trey riff that, with enough repetition, stabilizes the ship. When the rest of the band has hopped aboard, they’re in classic rock heaven, foreshadowing the widescreen aura of Quadrophenia and bending it into a James Gang funk-rock party. Two songs after this monster, they’ll absolutely slay While My Guitar Gently Weeps; even when they probed the outer limits this summer, they could spin back into the heart of the FM dial at a moment’s notice. 

XI. 43:00

As if there hadn’t been enough time travel already, are those hints of Frankie Says I hear? Followed quickly by a quiet patch where Mike sketches out a prototype of Ghost? Then they hit the gas, reaching a heart-attack euphoria similar to the 7/10/99 Chalk Dust? As Agent Cooper said, what year is this?

XII. 48:30

Nothing lasts forever, entropy remains undefeated. Phish has kept what once was Tweezer balanced on the tip of a broomstick for more than three quarters of an hour. A slight breeze of reggae blows in, and the plates all shatter. The crew scrambles to set up stools for Acoustic Army, the band winds down without ever returning to the Tweezer riff, the stopwatch stops at 49:49.