Room Recession

12/17/99, Hampton, VA, Hampton Coliseum

SET 1: Piper, Meat > Sparkle > Gotta Jibboo > Punch You in the Eye, When the Circus Comes, Water in the Sky, Twist

SET 2: Birds of a Feather, The Moma Dance > Jam > Bug, Jennifer Dances, Split Open and Melt, Character Zero

ENCORE: The Old Home Place, The Squirming Coil > Loving Cup

Listen

Insomuch as the Winter ‘99 dates were promoting anything you could buy and take home, it was the Hampton Comes Alive tour. Released on November 23rd, just nine days before Auburn Hills, the six-disc box set with the satisfying magnetic click was most notable for being Phish’s first time releasing complete shows in stores. Full-show soundboards available for purchase a mere 12 months after the show?! Preposterous!

I’ve already shared my thoughts on the somewhat odd choices of 11/20/98 and 11/21/98 for an official release. But one thing Hampton Comes Alive definitely accomplished was enshrining Hampton Coliseum in the pantheon of Phish venues. The fancy packaging was a love letter to the venue’s architecture, and the official nod given to the ‘98 run on the heels of the already legendary ‘97 tapes meant The Mothership would forever be a destination event. It may have already been hallowed jamband ground, thanks to the Dead and “The Warlocks,” but those four shows locked it in for a second generation.

But with reputation comes expectations. All that history meant that Phish could never again get away with a normal, average show in Hampton. And the first night at the Coliseum in 1999 might not even reach the level of average – it’s carrying a flat 3.0 on phish.net, a scathing damnation by phish.net hivemind standards and more than a half-point lower than any other show on this tour. It’s the purest dud of the month, and it unfortunately happened in one of their highest-stake rooms.

Or maybe it happened because of the environment? The band is clearly pressing in the first set; after the inspired opening choice of Piper fails to ignite beyond its first build, they keep trying additional openers hoping for a reset. Frustration waiting for improvisational inspiration eventually leads to that forced post-Moma jam, an impressive arena ambient swell that is nevertheless fully detached from what comes before and after. When it comes over the crest and lands in Bug instead of something meaty and crowd-pleasing, you can hear it knocking the wind out of the Hampton crowd, and the show never recovers.

The night’s struggle reflects a broader one as Phish reached the end of their all-conquering 90s: how do you keep outpacing expectations when the growth stops? Phish spent the first half of the decade gradually climbing the venue ladder, going from bars to clubs to theaters to arenas and sheds. That steady advance kept the Phish experience constantly fresh and exciting; every time they came to your town, it was in a new, bigger space. Their sound expanded in parallel, sometimes even faster – there are many stretches of the mid-90s where they already feel too big for the room they’re currently playing.

Even if it had made commercial sense, Phish was never going to make the final venue leap to stadiums; the Dead were a cautionary tale. So for the back half of the 90s, Phish started cycling through the same pavilion-lawn amphitheaters and hockey/basketball arenas again and again, establishing a regular circuit. Without the background momentum of capacity size, Phish set about making those big rooms feel small, like they were a natural inhabitant instead of a tolerated guest. Consider the differences between their first shows in 94-96 at MSG, Hampton, The Spectrum, or The Palace to their 97-99 equivalents – it’s the sound of a band that’s just happy to be there versus somebody with the whole crowd eating out of their hand.

But even that imperial phase strategy has diminishing returns. For the seventh time around Hampton’s round room, Phish sounds like they’ve run out of new ways to assert their dominance. The relaxed residencies of 3.0 are still far in the future; the sporadic two-night stops of ‘99 are usually just seen as double the opportunity for Phish to burn the house down. On nights like this one when the kindling isn’t dry, there’s a palpable sense of “now what?” And as Phish comes up on the biggest concert they’ll ever play, “now what?” is about to become the band’s central existential question.