SET 1: Wilson > Divided Sky, Bouncing Around the Room, Character Zero, Punch You in the Eye > Prince Caspian, Ginseng Sullivan, Train Song, Chalk Dust Torture, Taste > Cavern
SET 2: Makisupa Policeman -> Maze, McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters > Split Open and Melt, The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Avenu Malkenu, My Mind's Got a Mind of its Own > Mike's Song, Sleeping Monkey > Mean Mr. Mustard > Weekapaug Groove
Gimmick shows are, for better or worse, an essential part of jamband culture. And Phish, for better or worse, are mostly to blame. The Dead may have codified the basic structure of a night at the jams: two sets, changing setlists, and all. But they weren’t too big on stunt sets, aside from the occasional topical Werewolves of London, Iko Iko, or songs about rain when it was precipitating. Phish took the flexibility of the jamband show format to the logical next step, and every jamband since has done their best to run it into the ground: mashup shows, acrostics, backwards setlists, nights based around movies or decades, and on and on.
These nights can be creative, they can be corny, and they can all be traced back to this show in St. Louis (yes, 36FTV fans, the “city of bleuhhhsss”). Phish had done theme sets before, but they were mostly of the usual “playing an album/rock opera in its entirety” form: Gamehendge sets, Halloween costumes, and GameHoist. But on the Blues home ice, for whatever reason, Phish decided to play all of their “M” songs in the second set. It required some fudging — filing Split Open and Melt as “Melt” and Sleeping Monkey as “Monkey,” leaving the “The” off TMWSIY and the “Avenu” off Avenu Malkenu — but astute setlist-keepers in the crowd might’ve picked up on the gag even before Trey introduced the show as “brought to you by the letter M” and said thank you on behalf of “myself, Mike, Moses, and Mr. McConnell.”
The big clue that something was up is that the second set just doesn’t feel normal. There are some infrequently played songs, such as McGrupp, (T)MWSIY, MMGAMOIO, and (Sleeping) Monkey, and Trey’s not making the song decisions he normally would. McGrupp > Melt is an unusual combo, Malkenu doesn’t go back into TMWSIY (even though it could under the loose “M” laws outlined above), Mike’s doesn’t go into anything, it actually ends. And then there’s a Beatles cover, but not the one they’ve been playing most often, and not one of the White Album remnants either; it’s a quite random one that Phish has never played before, a song that isn’t usually heard outside of its medley surroundings.
Gag aside, that unpredictability is a very good thing. Post-Halloween and -Perazzo, Phish has started to slip back into some formulaic patterns, in association with the shallower songlist discussed a few shows back. That’s not really a problem except for people following them on tour, either in person or 25 years later via newsletter, but with Phish, predictable setlisting often correlates with predictable playing. The occasional shake up is good, no matter how artificial or pre-planned it might be.
That’s where the gimmick setlist turns into something far more beneficial to Phish: a useful constraint. The joke of playing only M or S songs, spelling out a profane early song title, or choosing only songs with numbers or animals might get stale by the time the show ends, but the execution creates rules that pushes Phish out of their comfort zone. Consider the FUCK YOUR FACE show, which not only forced some interesting song placements (that mid-first-set YEM) and choices (the return of Emotional Rescue, because Esther would’ve been a downer), but also mandated that Phish only play twelve songs (not counting the punchline) across two sets. Time had to be filled, and it produced a breakthrough in jamming for 3.0.
There’s not really anything like that in The M Show; the atypical song selection is its most winning quality. The Mean Mr. Mustard debut is too good to have only been a one-off — I’d be happy to hear Phish tackle the entire Abbey Road medley any time — and it makes up for the unfortunate guest appearance that follows. Say what you want about harmonica, but John Popper, Blues Traveler, Weekapaug Groove…there’s not an M to be found anywhere, commit to the bit, dudes!
No, the impact of The M Show is more auspicious; it created the eternal promise that this kind of thematic show could happen on any random night, not just tied to a holiday. But Phish has always had a great sense of restraint with this kind of trick. They easily could have been dropping letter-themed shows every year after, and plenty of jambands would, but they held back, making the rare show in this vein special, and preserving a thematic setlist’s power as a creative exercise, not an attention-seeking crutch. It may be a gimmick, but sometimes a gimmick becomes a method.