Autumn Bells
10/1/99, Ames, IA, Hilton Coliseum
SET 1: Chalk Dust Torture, The Moma Dance > Sparkle, First Tube, Bathtub Gin, Heavy Things, Limb By Limb, Cavern
SET 2: NICU > Run Like an Antelope, The Horse > Silent in the Morning > Gumbo > Mountains in the Mist, Julius > Fluffhead > Slave to the Traffic Light
ENCORE: Bold As Love
With a tour like Fall 99 that’s so hard to define, it’s inherently difficult to pick a defining song. The reflexive answer would be one of the TAB crossovers, though these songs are still taking their baby steps in September/October. Instead, you could go with one of the older songs that most effectively soaked up the TAB sound, but the Portland Ghost and the Memphis 2001 so far outpace other versions on this tour that they seem like anomalies instead of consistent representatives. I’ve already discussed some under-the-radar contenders, but it’d be pretty misleading to nominate Limb or Caspian or Coil for Song of the Tour.
In the end, there’s an obvious answer that is nonetheless hard to square with the year’s overarching narrative: Bathtub Gin. Already a decade old, Gin is gray around the temples compared to some of the young whippersnappers getting frequent play on this tour. It’s outside of the heavy rotation club, only appearing four times in 24 shows and mostly in the first set. With its cartoonish lyrics and wiggly end theme, it’s one of the Phish songs that scans as toddler music to the outside world – out of step with Phish in its relatively solemn pre-millenium mood.
And yet, every one of the first three Fall 99 Gins is a certified banger*. Each one ends up around 18 minutes, an improvisational blossom amidst mostly fallow first set soil. It continues the song’s hot streak from the summer, one that will stretch into the winter as well. But in this season, the Gins have a particular melange of the year’s dominant flavors, triangulating the hard groove of TAB, the full-band patience of quieter improvisations, and the blissed intensity of the Camden Chalkdust.
For longtime Gin appreciators, what stands out initially about this year’s vintage is how much the song has slowed down. It’s no longer the sugar-high of 1993, when the song first cracked open, or the more muscular incarnations of 1995 and 1997. Since it kicked off the year in the corn sweat of Kansas, Gin has been almost syrupy, and it creeps into its jam with a sly ennui. But while these Fall versions rarely deviate from Type I course – all three find their way back to the end theme with no major acrobatics required – they’re given plenty of time to build from a murmur to a roar.
Along the way, Trey leads with a more continuous blend of his old tricks and new. There’s less focus on sheets of noise or blip-bloops; instead, he’s sprinkling in Dopplered arpeggios, spontaneous ear worms, and tasteful, sparing use of effects and loops. The result is a much more interactive approach, with Trey spiraling off ideas and sticking with melodies long enough for the others to play off them. When he starts playing faster notes at the jam’s climax, there’s still enough structure to the cascades for Page, Mike, and Fish to do more than hang on for dear life.
Tonight in an otherwise unsuspecting show in Ames**, the same pattern plays out. After a laid-back, conversational beginning, Trey loops a sustain and cycles melodic patterns for six or eight circuits. Fishman slowly turns up the intensity dial, and when Trey goes more abstract in his playing, Page steps into the spotlight with assured piano that’s still tickling fragments of the Gin theme. If Trey kicking on the Leslie speaker at the end is predictable, it’s still no less awesome; if they can’t quite recapture the slow-fast euphoria of the Camden Chalkdust, it’s still a worthy attempt.
But the question remains: why did Gin benefit so much from Phish’s ‘99 state of mind? My guess is that its whimsy has something to do with it; Gin’s natural playfulness balances out some of the more monochromatic palettes of the new songs or the older songs that quickly conformed to the groove-and-loops recipe. That approach could bring out the more aggressive side of some other reliable jam vehicles, making Ghost or Tweezer or Mike’s a one-dimensional exercise in hard rock. Gin’s unabashedly goofy foundation keeps it in a Goldilocks zone, with that pesky theme tugging Phish back whenever they start thinking they’re too cool. Whatever kind of soup Brett was cooking up in that tub, it’s simmered to perfection in 1999.
* - Skipping ahead, the Albany Gin is pretty interesting too, but of a different flavor. We’ll get there.
** - I do really like the Gumbo, which signals the start of an abbreviated Phish Spooktober.