Border Crossing

11/23/96, Vancouver, BC, Pacific Coliseum

SET 1: Chalk Dust Torture, Guelah Papyrus, Cars Trucks Buses, Divided Sky, Punch You in the Eye, Midnight on the Highway, Split Open and Melt, Rift, Funky Bitch

SET 2: The Curtain > Mike's Song -> Simple -> Makisupa Policeman > Axilla > Weekapaug Groove -> Catapult, Waste, Amazing Grace, Harry Hood

ENCORE: Good Times Bad Times

If there’s two things that don’t mix well, it’s jamband tours and border crossings. No offense to my readers up north, but it’d probably be safer for all parties involved if Phish just kept shows within the contiguous United States. Dipping into Canada here, in the middle of a 3-night run, appears to have caused all sorts of issues for the band; lord knows how many fans got in trouble with the Border Patrol on their way into Canada. 

According to the night’s Makisupa lyrics, Phish got their tour bus searched, and Trey didn’t dangle his stash in a secret enough place to avoid the drug-sniffing dogs. If true, the story raises several questions. Did the border patrol just confiscate the dope and let them pass? Isn’t it Rock Band 101 to give the drugs to a non-essential crew member in a separate vehicle, just in case of this exact situation? Did Trey learn his lesson about carrying illegal substances on his person? (No)

Whatever the exact circumstances, Phish came out of their unpleasant border experience with two silver linings. With the hours stuck at the border, they learned a new song: Hot Rize’s “Midnight on the Highway,” which made its one and only Phish appearance tonight (Mike had previously played it in an acoustic trio with the late Gordon Stone). It’s a pleasant bluegrass song, though redundant to the usual rotation of Uncle Pen, Ginseng Sullian, Nellie Kane, and The Old Home Place. It feels like it would’ve fit right in during the Rev. Jeff residency of Fall 94.

That’s not the only throwback of the night, as the show also features a triple-stuffed Mike’s Groove for the first time in a while. Ever since the rule-breaking Mike’s > Weekapaugs of last year in Hershey and Niagara Falls, Phish has been very concise with what they put inside the bookends. Most versions this summer and fall have used Hydrogen, Swept Away/Steep or the national anthem alone as the brief bridge between the two songs.

But tonight’s unfurls over most of the second set, returning tour prima donna Simple to its original role as a Mike’s off-ramp, then moving through the aforementioned Makisupa and a fiery Axilla. The whole thing is played pretty aggressively (Trey even swears!), the pent-up anger a second positive after-effect of a night under police observation. There’s very little time for another round of funk training; tonight is fairly blistering from the Chalk Dust opener and first set Melt through the Good Times Bad Times encore.

It’s almost as though Phish jumped back two years in time when they crossed the international border. There’s a joke to be made here about Canada always being a couple years behind, but again, I’m trying to be kind to my northern readers. No, the more polite take is that it’s jarring to hear Phish slip so easily back into a previous self, or that there are even previous selves to revisit at this stage. You can’t have a throwback show unless the present sounds different from the past.

The progression from 1983 to 1995 was more continuous; the band got better, sure, but there weren’t really any abrupt breaks in style. It’s hard to imagine hearing a ‘94 show and saying, “this sounds more like a ‘92 vintage” — apart from new songs and some new gear, there wasn’t a big evolutionary break. But despite how methodically 1996 has unfolded, the band has still traveled to a new enough location that a throwback show feels viscerally different. It’s yet another sign that we’re on the border of a new Phish era, even if we don’t quite have the full clearance to move ahead.