SET 1: Cities > Rift > Wilson > The Moma Dance > Divided Sky, Horn > Split Open and Melt, Poor Heart, Bouncing Around the Room > Run Like an Antelope
SET 2: Possum > Tweezer -> Llama, Mike's Song -> I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, The Wedge, The Lizards, You Enjoy Myself
ENCORE: Sweet Adeline, Tweezer Reprise
Details are somewhat scarce about these shows, so I was delighted to find that 8/1/99 has some video footage available. It allowed me to confirm some of my priors; for example, it’s pretty decisive that the audience is, other than the rail, mostly Japanese people instead of globe-trotting Americans, and that by night three this rookie crowd is having a blast, doing the hippie shimmy like seasoned vets. Some new details are also revealed: apparently, Fishman played this weekend in a big white cowboy hat, Page’s grand piano made the trip over (or they found a loaner) as did Trey’s Deset Patnact t-shirt, and both sets of these shows took place after sunset. The Field of Heaven stage is a little less idyllic than I imagined, basically a big half-circle in a dirt field…but hey, you gotta hang the light rig from something.
An important overall point confirmed by the video is that Phish is clearly having a blast in Japan. There’s a little bit of random festival footage before the set starts up, featuring some slightly creepy spy shots of Mike walking around the grounds. But apart from a couple autograph seekers, he’s mostly anonymous in a way that his Stateside golf cart excursions into the lot never could be. Onstage, the reduced floor space makes the new band arrangement feel less spread out and disengaged; Trey could probably lean over and knock that silly hat off Fishman’s head if he wanted to, and the smaller crowd means he can call out songs without using his secret coffee mug mic.
But Phish’s instant chemistry with Japan leads to some well-intentioned missteps in this final show. In their eagerness to give Japanese fans the full 360° experience in just three days, Phish has to pack the final one with the signature songs they haven’t gotten to yet, regardless of flow or vibe or all the other usual reasons to pick the next tune. That creates a setlist that feels more like a checklist, and a grand finale that comes off as forced.
The first half of the show is the casino buffet version of this concept, just a bunch of songs thrown together for no reason apart from novelty. But that’s often the case for first sets, so consider it another lesson in the Japanese fans’ tutorial. It’s the second set that sets unreasonable setlist expectations, containing as it does a Tweezer, a full Mike’s Groove, and a YEM. It’s the sundae bar at the end of that buffet, where it seems like a good idea to put all the candy toppings on top, ignorant of the stomach ache to come.
Even with a hefty 96 minutes to work with, that’s an ambitious assemblage of reliable jam vehicles and thus, corners must be cut. They were stingy with the Tweezers this summer, and the ones we got weren’t up to the song’s usual standards, but at 12:41 this one is a sprint. In its favor, it has a Camden-like efficiency with Trey reaching a big peak without much build-up, and they can’t resist the temptation of a nifty Llama segue soon thereafter. YEM in ‘99 was the opposite of stingy, but the jam is once again abridged, either due to the late hour or an impatience to give Japan a vocal jam.
It’s the Mike’s Groove that lives up to the 7/30 innovation of “n00b setlist with vet jamming,” though the meat comes in a surprising place. Another brief, but gnarly jam segment in Mike’s drops off into either a very different second jam or an extended Hydrogen intro, reminiscent of the quantum 11/27/98 version. That’s for the setlist nerds to fight over; what’s important is that these five minutes before Hydrogen proper kicks in are the closest thing to a Siket Disc jam the Fuji fans get all weekend, a free-floating dream with a bit of anxiety nibbling around the edges through Trey’s still-aggressive tone.
That segment is possibly the most accurate portrayal all weekend of where Phish’s mind was truly at in Summer 1999, highlighting the disconnect of these shows from the tours that preceded and followed. It’s a reminder that the Japanese fans aren’t really getting the full, honest experience; with the band on their best behavior and playing the hits, the messiness – both thrilling and frustrating – of the current transitional period gets shoved into the closet. Instead, this weekend was just about throwing everything at the wall and seeing if the Japanese crowds flinched. When they didn’t, it laid the groundwork for the final great tour of the 1.0 era.
Dude!! I’m on fire for your writing and this project, long-time taper/setlist nerd over here; pls keep it up, I love your perspective on the shows!