Remember All Them Times

7/25/98, Austin, TX, South Park Meadows

SET 1: Roses Are Free > Down with Disease > Roggae > Beauty of My Dreams > Ya Mar > Guyute > Julius

SET 2: Piper > Wilson > Frankenstein > Tweezer -> When the Circus Comes > Limb By Limb, Fee > Run Like an Antelope

ENCORE: Harry Hood > Tweezer Reprise

Listen on phish.in or watch Set 2 on YouTube.

Given that we’ve spent most of Summer 98 discussing Phish’s spirit of calm, relaxed assurance, it makes a lot of sense that one of the signature songs of the tour would be Ya Mar. It’s not a new song, in fact it’s much, much older than Phish, first recorded by Cyril Ferguson in 1974. Phish themselves had been playing it for over a decade by this point, inspired by a young Mike stumbling upon a resort band in the Bahamas doing a much slower rearrangement. But 11 years later, there’s arguably no other song that better captures the summer tour Phish experience, all sunburn and sweat and cigarette smoke.  

And lately, it feels like Phish never wants to leave the poolside bar of this cover-of-a-cover. First there was the extended version last year in Albany, a clever reinvention whether or not it was sparked due to Trey being passive-aggressive about the tempo. The Island Tour Ya Mar doesn’t get much press because, well, the Island Tour has a surplus of highlights, but it almost matched Albany’s for length as it spiraled off into a Lizards-esque jam. And at The Gorge, another excellent, double-digit Ya Mar again hides in the shadow of a legendary show, evaporating into Slave-ish steam for an ambient outro.

Austin caps off this hot streak for the calypso track with a version that’s only outlasted by Albany and the IT Festival.. At 16:35, it’s the longest track in a show that also features Disease, Tweezer, and Hood; a fella could make a killing at the Phish sportsbook on that one. It’s business as usual until halfway through, when Mike cuts through Trey’s busy curlicues with a monotone heartbeat then goes as high up on his bass as he can – it almost sounds like a two-guitar jam for a bit. 

Texas does love guns.

It continues along at this peppy, nervous pace for quite a while, and I have to say, Fishman is killing it, playing quietly but with fascinating wood-block details around his unceasing hi-hat. The jam stays hushed and minimal, even as Trey switches to wah and bweeoooo, then improvises what sounds like a doomed sea shanty. The island vibes have turned dark as a tropical storm blows in, but it ends in a gentle wall of sound (and a homicidal porcine, but we won’t go there).

In a weird way, it reminds me of another cover-of-a-cover that’s having a moment this year: 2001, which is similarly effective at forcing the band to do less for longer to great reward. On the surface, Ya Mar and Also Sprach Zarathustra would seem to be worlds apart, but as I’ve said before, calypso/reggae/dub share a lot of genetic material with funk, and both genres have the magical power to lull Phish into spells of atmospheric minimalism. See also Makisupa, which also ran longer than usual in 97/98 and could similarly morph from peppy novelty to seething noisescape without a hiccup. 

That’s the deepest Phish will go all night in Austin, though the Tweezer also hits a languid, gooey zone; it’s the kind of show where I could tell the day was a scorcher before I looked up the historical weather data (yup, a high of 100 when doors opened). It’s still very 1998, hitting all the already-established marks, including the return of Roses, a metal break in Wilson (Trey’s second time finger-tapping in two Texas nights) and quiet postscript jams in Circus and Limb. But nothing captures that summer 98 feeling like Ya Mar, a hammock swinging in the breeze so satisfied and comfortable that you hardly even notice it slowly unraveling.