Dance to that Station

7/12/99, Mansfield, MA, Tweeter Center

Photo by Dave Goldstein. Hookahville! Now that takes me back.

SET 1: Foreplay/Long Time > Down with Disease, Back on the Train, What's the Use?, Split Open and Melt, Water in the Sky > Character Zero

SET 2: Twist > The Moma Dance > Makisupa Policeman > David Bowie, The Lizards, Guyute

ENCORE: Rock and Roll

Listen

Tonight’s show feels like a callback to the jukebox summer of 1998, with the band opening with a new (sort of) cover of a song by Boston in Boston (sort of), inspiring general crowd bedlam. It would be a hokey move, except for the fact that “Foreplay/Long Time” frickin’ rules, is exactly the kind of pop-prog that sits at the very core of Phish’s DNA, and joins a select group of songs – and maybe the only cover? – that the band has played in two entirely different arrangements. As successful pandering moves go, only next year’s Great Woods debut could top it. 

If you add in the soundcheck, Phish was clearly in a local FM radio mood. They apparently worked through hits by The Cars, J. Geils Band, and Aerosmith before settling on the band so Boston that they bear the city’s name. Perhaps they could have used that time to finesse their ultimate choice – it kills me that Trey has the wrong tone on for that first “Long Time” breakdown – but the only things missing from their comprehensive musicological survey of Massachusetts were House of Pain, “Dirty Water,” and “Sweet Caroline.” 

As the first new cover of the year, Boston in Boston sets a comfort food trend for the rest of the summer. Tomorrow, they’ll play Skynyrd, and Springsteen, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Ted Nugent, and Joni Mitchell/CSNY are all right around the corner before July ends. With the exception of Pavement – and boy, get ready to hear a lot more about that surprise – these choices are safe as can be, whether played straight, tongue-in-cheek or mercifully aborted after a verse and a chorus. 

That’s kind of a bummer, after last year’s diversity in cover song selections. Back then, I praised how the broad array of source material enabled Phish “to sketch out their full universe of influence across time and genre,” showing that they were much more than just Dead disciples (except, I guess, when they played the Dead). Some of the more adventurous choices in ‘98 even tracked well with the band’s sonic evolution instead of just being mere novelty – the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Rhinoceros” complemented Trey’s blooming shoegaze phase, Neil’s “Albuquerque” suited their newfound confidence with a quietly broken ballad, “Sabotage” represented a song with prominent lead bass.

By contrast, the Summer ‘99 covers stand out for how disconnected they feel from the major Phish trends of the year. Most are songs that they could’ve played at virtually any point in their career – “Tuesday’s Gone” and “Misty Mountain Hop” would’ve killed in the dorm cafeteria. Even the oddball of “Gold Soundz” feels a couple years too late, when the weirder indie-influenced songs from Trampled By Lambs and Pecked By The Dove invaded setlists. The outer space sounds of 1999 would be better contextualized by some Eno or Krautrock, maybe a Radiohead song 18 years ahead of schedule, or something contemporary from the electronica scene finding crossover success and influencing jambands on lower circuits*. 

Instead, this summer’s Time-Life classics tracklist feels a bit like the sugar coating helping the band’s more experimental developments go down smoother. Phish aren’t exactly coming out and playing Metal Machine Music every night, but they have put a couple Siket Disc abstractions into heavy rotation (four What’s The Use?s in six shows!). The jamming style, as we have discussed over the past week, is trending towards slow and subtle, a potentially alienating move when used in large quantities in front of large crowds. So balancing those confrontational moments out with a dumb, catchy song everyone knows from the radio is smart policy. 

The covers also contribute to an emerging characteristic of Summer 1999 – the polarization within shows between loud rockers and quiet textures. Foreplay/Long Time joins tonight’s Disease, Zero, and Rock & Roll in the former group, while Water in the Sky gets an elongated and pretty jam and Makisupa lets them apply the ‘99 sonics to some slow, spacious dub. There’s always been a wide dynamic range in a Phish show, but now all the interesting stuff is happening at the extremes, without much business in the middle. Songs that fall in between come out unsatisfying: tonight’s Disease finds a frisky second wind once Trey tires himself out, but Melt, Twist, and Bowie spend a lot of time doing very little.

This herky-jerk experience is obviously detrimental to set flow, whiplashing between loud/fast and quiet/slow. It also seems to be taking a toll on song variety, as the young tour has already picked a bunch of every-other-show favorites while some of the improv warhorses sit on the sidelines, not yet hip to the new sound. So maybe a feelgood, sing-along cover works by putting those troubles to the side for a few minutes, using the classic Phish team-building strategy of pretending to be someone else. Sometimes you gotta just take your time and keep movin’ along.

* - Genuinely surprised – though also relieved – that we didn’t get a Fishman “Firestarter” at some point.