SET 1: Chalk Dust Torture, Big Black Furry Creature from Mars, Wilson > Roggae, Sparkle > The Moma Dance, The Old Home Place, Sample in a Jar, Frankie Says > Maze, Loving Cup, Reba
SET 2: Down with Disease > Piper, Prince Caspian, The Squirming Coil -> Slave to the Traffic Light
ENCORE: Grind, Possum
If a major part of a successful NYE run is accurately representing and summarizing the preceding year – a job that 1998 handles with aplomb – then it’s only proper to have a show like this one. I still maintain that 1998 is an excellent year of Phish and it remains my personal favorite, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect or flawlessly consistent. As I’ve pointed out in several essays this year, there are shows and stretches that are pretty uneven, with the growing pains of a transitional year creeping into the margins of a band that is confident to the point of cockiness.
12/30 is often the night of the run where all the pent-up tension for the actual holiday leads to the most fascinating music. But the conventional wisdom didn’t pay off in ‘98. Instead of cherry-picking the best of what they cultivated in the year prior, 12/30 provides a candid portrayal of the highs and the lows. While the weakest of the foursome, it’s not a bad show by any means, and it contains some moments as fascinating as anything they played at MSG over these four nights. But it’s also weighed down by some of the issues that plagued summer and fall and the years to come.
For starters, there’s that first set, which recapitulates the scattershot approach I mentioned often this fall. It comes out of the gate all heavy metal, but eases back to check off a few Story of the Ghost songs and casual-fan favorites that hadn’t appeared yet in the run. It starts to get interesting in Frankie Says, which breaks out for the first time since Denver despite the disrespect of a multitude of chompers. For a three-minute coda, they’re floating free, complete with seated, subtle, and as of press time, uncredited vacuum contributions from Fish.
That dissolves tastefully into a Maze full of pleasingly glitchy effects, and the subsequent Loving Cup feels like a logical conclusion to a 75-minute set. But Trey shoves in a last-minute Reba, a fine version that gilds the lily nevertheless. It’s one of those setlist decisions that just feels wrong, a momentary wobble in the band’s command of Pennsylvania Plaza, audible in Trey’s set break banter.
It’s also a decision that puts the squeeze on set 2, with the band unwilling to repeat its likely expensive curfew violation of a year ago. It’s a five-song set but a weird one on paper, with a preponderance of slow stuff after the opening Disease. In ear, it feels torn between the two poles that destabilized Fall 98. Both Disease and Caspian go initially for a wall of sound maximalism that can wear out its welcome, particularly on a less pristine tape than the night before. But with patience, both eventually find interesting spaces, Disease landing in post-apocalyptic funk and Caspian finding an ambient coda of its own with a gorgeous Trey dy.
It all up a unique Coil, which dispenses with the busy, loud preludes and even the usual Page solo to get right down to (quiet) business. Due to the strange mid-set placement, nobody leaves the stage, producing a jam that swells from delicate Trey/Page dialogue to arena-sized drone crescendo. It’s an unpredictable moment that feels fully ‘98, a climax that the band would have packed with busy notes just a couple years prior, but now is a pure hose of layered sound.
And the crowd…kinda talks right over it. I may be biased by the placement of the mics, but the MSG audience seems truly unmoved by this display, at least compared to the rapturous response when Phish reprises Worcester “Wipe Out” madness in the Possum encore. Which ticks another box on the 1998 Year in Review, reflecting the disconnect between an audience that is partying harder than ever and a band that is interested in more contemplative improvisation*. It’s all the conflict that defined 1998 brought into the year-end celebration, leaving 12/30 not the most beloved show of the run, but the most honest.
* - While also, ironically, partying harder than ever themselves.
loving these write-ups as always, Rob. Muchas gracias. regarding your last point, I swear I remember trey mentioning in an interview that he (and the band) were almost intentionally calming things down on stage as a reaction to the out of control backstage party scene. never considered the irony about they themselves partying harder than ever also. funny.
the lack of connection between a party crowd audience and quieter, exploratory phish is one that I've definitely noticed and struggled with as a fan. its one reason why i avoid saturday shows if possible, and am also pretty content couch touring these days without all the chads around.