You ask the question “how this deep and abstract set played in the room?”. I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that for 25 years. Thank you! The answer is, “pretty poorly”.
I did 18 shows this tour. 37 in 99. I was memorably sober 7/7, because I was driving to and staying at my Aunt’s house after the show.
There was a palpable weird vibe the whole second set. It felt like something was wrong with the band. That 2001 Fishman flub you mention, felt in the moment like he was falling asleep or just otherwise totally losing his concentration.
The long my left toe->waiting section felt like something was wrong. We did not know my left toe was a song. Maybe 3 nerds in attendance knew. Nobody I knew had heard the silket disc before the tour. On 7/25 we still didn’t recognize it as a song.
So everyone was just standing around waiting for Trey to do something, because it appeared as if they were doing nothing. And after the patient wait, the hyped up, pressied up crowd did not want Wading. They wanted to dance.
I have to imagine if you were high at this show, and you caught the energy of this section early, you probably rode that wave to its conclusion, and had a magical Phish experience.
If you didn’t find this groove early, you were standing around waiting for your groove for a long time. You couldn’t just hop back on in the middle.
When the band started YEM my buddy and I had a conversation like “Why the fuck would they play YEM right now? Trey can’t even play guitar!”
And sure enough, Trey barely even tries to pull off huge chunks of the scripted sections. He flubs, jams through or just straight up skips big chunks.
But what’s more revealing, is Trey does nothing during the jam. Trey does nothing. It’s a huge Mike/Things that make you go Hmmm jam. No Trey.
And walking out of the concert, everyone was having similar conversations about how weird that all had been. Some were calling it the worst concert they’d seen.
In the moment, I assumed a band member or 2 were just too high on something. That’s just how it felt.
I give the show 4.273 stars. I rank it the 8th best show of one of my favorite tours.
I’ve listened to the Sally, 2001 and YEM an infinite number of times. Some of my favorite jams of all time.
But I personally hear nothing of interest in the my left toe->waiting.
This was the first Phish show I attended that I wasn’t entirely sure I loved. Possibly for reasons elucidated by Rob. Upon relistening this past weekend, I feel comfortable in calling it a damn good show that even hits some transcendent moments in set two, but the shadowy, goopy, hazy, and oppressively hot character of the Summer ‘99 vibe could get a bit sinister, disorienting, and uncomfortably introspective in the moment. I had pavilion seats to this show (a first for me at the time), and being separated from my buddies on the lawn might have contributed to the “not in Kansas anymore” feeling of the early stages of this tour. Where was guitar hero Trey? Why all the swirly, loopy synths and effects pedals droning in the interstitial spaces?
The era between Lemonwheel and Big Cypress feels as close as Phish ever got to contemporary electronic music in my opinion- more on the Boards of Canada-esque downtempo end than thumping Ibiza sounds to be sure, but the repetition, textural minimalism, and de-emphasis of guitar were a big change to digest in real time. I got used to it pretty quickly- rapidly enough that “What’s the Use?” became (and remains) a Top Five Phish song for me. Fair to say it re-wired the band’s approach as well.
You ask the question “how this deep and abstract set played in the room?”. I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that for 25 years. Thank you! The answer is, “pretty poorly”.
I did 18 shows this tour. 37 in 99. I was memorably sober 7/7, because I was driving to and staying at my Aunt’s house after the show.
There was a palpable weird vibe the whole second set. It felt like something was wrong with the band. That 2001 Fishman flub you mention, felt in the moment like he was falling asleep or just otherwise totally losing his concentration.
The long my left toe->waiting section felt like something was wrong. We did not know my left toe was a song. Maybe 3 nerds in attendance knew. Nobody I knew had heard the silket disc before the tour. On 7/25 we still didn’t recognize it as a song.
So everyone was just standing around waiting for Trey to do something, because it appeared as if they were doing nothing. And after the patient wait, the hyped up, pressied up crowd did not want Wading. They wanted to dance.
I have to imagine if you were high at this show, and you caught the energy of this section early, you probably rode that wave to its conclusion, and had a magical Phish experience.
If you didn’t find this groove early, you were standing around waiting for your groove for a long time. You couldn’t just hop back on in the middle.
When the band started YEM my buddy and I had a conversation like “Why the fuck would they play YEM right now? Trey can’t even play guitar!”
And sure enough, Trey barely even tries to pull off huge chunks of the scripted sections. He flubs, jams through or just straight up skips big chunks.
But what’s more revealing, is Trey does nothing during the jam. Trey does nothing. It’s a huge Mike/Things that make you go Hmmm jam. No Trey.
And walking out of the concert, everyone was having similar conversations about how weird that all had been. Some were calling it the worst concert they’d seen.
In the moment, I assumed a band member or 2 were just too high on something. That’s just how it felt.
I give the show 4.273 stars. I rank it the 8th best show of one of my favorite tours.
I’ve listened to the Sally, 2001 and YEM an infinite number of times. Some of my favorite jams of all time.
But I personally hear nothing of interest in the my left toe->waiting.
To anyone who read this far, thank you!
Great post, man, thanks for sharing! Always nice to have my speculations confirmed too, haha.
This was the first Phish show I attended that I wasn’t entirely sure I loved. Possibly for reasons elucidated by Rob. Upon relistening this past weekend, I feel comfortable in calling it a damn good show that even hits some transcendent moments in set two, but the shadowy, goopy, hazy, and oppressively hot character of the Summer ‘99 vibe could get a bit sinister, disorienting, and uncomfortably introspective in the moment. I had pavilion seats to this show (a first for me at the time), and being separated from my buddies on the lawn might have contributed to the “not in Kansas anymore” feeling of the early stages of this tour. Where was guitar hero Trey? Why all the swirly, loopy synths and effects pedals droning in the interstitial spaces?
The era between Lemonwheel and Big Cypress feels as close as Phish ever got to contemporary electronic music in my opinion- more on the Boards of Canada-esque downtempo end than thumping Ibiza sounds to be sure, but the repetition, textural minimalism, and de-emphasis of guitar were a big change to digest in real time. I got used to it pretty quickly- rapidly enough that “What’s the Use?” became (and remains) a Top Five Phish song for me. Fair to say it re-wired the band’s approach as well.