Every Song In Its Right Place
10/8/95, Missoula, MT, Adams Fieldhouse, University of Montana
SET 1: AC/DC Bag, Demand, Sparkle > Wolfman's Brother, Reba, I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome, Prince Caspian, Uncle Pen, Free
SET 2: Keyboard Army, Cars Trucks Buses, Timber (Jerry The Mule) > Ya Mar, Sample in a Jar, You Enjoy Myself, Suspicious Minds > Hold Your Head Up, Dog Faced Boy, David Bowie, Keyboard Army
ENCORE: Bouncing Around the Room, Rocky Top
I respect Phish’s commitment to making Montana happen as a reliable tour stop. For two fall tours in a row they stopped in Big Sky Country, visiting two different cities no less. The first time through MT, they played a monumental Tweezer in Bozeman that was forever enshrined as the source of the A Live One excerpt named, appropriately enough, “Montana.” The 95 visit is...less notable, and the full band has never played the state again (though solo bands have passed through), but I’m sure a state with a population lower than the number of Madison Square Garden tickets Phish has sold in their career appreciated the effort.
This stop between Spokane and, um, Chandler, Arizona (1200 miles south!) demonstrates just how thoroughly the Fall 95 itinerary blanketed the country, large and small markets alike. That winding west-to-east path gave Phish (if not their West Coast fans) the benefit of a couple weeks of preseason before they got into the Midwest and East Coast, the band’s primary geographic bases. And just like the last two shows hinted at the band’s arena rock sonics clicking into place, tonight’s show feels like their setlist construction is warming up.
One of my theories for the tour’s slow start was the usual awkwardness when a handful of new songs invade. And this year’s fresh crop has gotten even more of a workout than usual: Cars Trucks Buses was played at each of the first 5 shows (and 8 of 10 so far), Keyboard Army at 6 of the first 10, Fog That Surrounds at 6 of 9, and Billy Breathes at 5 of 8. Put those songs alongside the Class of Summer 95 (Theme, Free, and Caspian, most notably), which also haven’t quite found their place in the set, and you can understand some of the awkward flow.
But like the Lakewood show back in June, tonight in Missoula benefits from some of those rookies finding their proper place in the batting order. First up is the fall debut of Caspian, a song whose blustery intro tends to make it a rude intrusion upon jams and sets (hence its NSFW nickname). But as the return to full volume after the acoustic arrangement of I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome, it works well as a sort of mid-set “opener.” Free then gets its first tryout in the closer slot, where its triumphant riffage (on either side of the now-standard mini-kit jam) serves well as a climactic setbreak send-off.
The second set pulls off its highest difficulty setlist feat, improbably finding a role for Keyboard Army, which otherwise assassinates momentum wherever it appears by forcing ¾ of the band to do a choreographed shuffle over to Page’s rig and play ringtones for 4 minutes. Tonight, for the one and only occasion, it serves as a bookend — opening the second set with one time through the Keyboard Army theme, then dispersing until the end, when they regroup after Bowie and reprise. It’s pretty brilliant, and thus confusing why they performed it this way only once in the song’s brief life. And as an added benefit, it gives the already pretty rote Cars Trucks Buses some freshness, as Page has to vamp a little extra in the intro while everyone gets back to their normal mark, forcing a nicely-ragged staggered entry.
There’s even a couple songs from several tour cycles back that find some fresh air tonight. The opening four-song suite brings Demand back for the first time since June 1994, and gives Wolfman’s its third spin since coming out of early retirement. There’s not a lot of improv to that sequence (which also includes AC/DC Bag and Sparkle), but it’s quirky and unexpected, not just another Jim > Foam. Some other songs on the rare side also make welcome appearances, such as Timber bringing some darkness to the third quarter, and Dog Faced Boy providing a deep breath between hefty versions of YEM and Bowie
Rudely, Phish declined to play Montana the song on the University of Montana campus, but the setlist remained fresh even without it. Phish would go on to play 170 different songs in Fall 95, a number inflated slightly by the Halloween double-album, but still much higher than the short rotation of Summer 95 (116 songs), and both earlier and subsequent 1.0 tours, which typically hovered within the 120-140 range. This year’s looooong cross-country autumn trip inspired them to dig deeper into their songbook, a strategy that almost always pays dividends, particularly when the new arrivals start to congeal as well.
[Ticket stub from Golgi Project.]