Seasonal Menu

11/19/98, Winston-Salem, NC, Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum

SET 1: Cities, The Curtain > Sample in a Jar, Ginseng Sullivan, Bouncing Around the Room, Maze, Something, Ghost > Golgi Apparatus

SET 2: Also Sprach Zarathustra > Rock and Roll -> Taste, Frankie Says, Gumbo -> Chalk Dust Torture, Frankenstein, Been Caught Stealing

ENCORE: You Enjoy Myself

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After all my setlist whining, Phish tried to make it up to me with a night almost fully programmed to my specific taste. It gets off to a shaky start, with me salivating over Cities and getting real amped up for what the Curtain drop is going to be before getting…Sample’d. Illegal, go straight to jail. But it starts regaining its footing with excellent versions of Maze and Ghost late in the first half, teeing up a second set that feels extremely well-suited to the best of the 1998 sound.

It’s of a different flavor than four nights ago in Tennessee, when they filled the second set with songs that excel across most eras of Phish. Tonight’s second half is full of songs that have proved themselves somewhere in this particular calendar year, sometimes in surprising ways. Where the heavy hitters still struggle to shake off the jam trends of years past, tonight’s selections are mostly happy to slide headfirst into atmosphere and minimalism, if that’s where the band’s inclinations lie. 

First, you’re leading off with 2001, which has been oddly rare in this tour where it feels like a perfect fit. In fact, this is only the second Strauss-Deodato collab of the fall, with the first being a fairly forgettable late-show afterthought in Denver. Tonight it’s in its ideal location, with an interstellar intro that flips all the right switches to Go.

It drops into Rock & Roll, now crowned as the Loaded song that will stick in heavy rotation. Taste is nearing the end of its 97/98 hot streak, but still incandescent on the brink of decline. Gumbo and Frankie Says have both turned in unexpected year highlights, you never know when Chalk Dust is going to crack open, and Frankenstein and Been Caught Stealing provide two of the band’s most innervating covers, one old and one fresh. 

from r/phish

And it sort of delivers, but it’s right on the verge of something special without ever grabbing the ring. It feels of a piece with the lovably flawed 11/8/98, as shows I enjoy listening to for the songs without ever really feeling bowled over by the improvisations. With almost any other band, that criticism would be psychotic; but Phish, I think we can all agree, isn’t any other band.

Once again, the playing feels consistent, tone slightly derogatory. 2001 is always an open book about how many ideas the band have for each performance – when it’s going great, it’s an absolute marvel that four musicians can hang so many variations on such a simple skeleton. Tonight’s has one good idea before the first peak, but it’s a slight rerun of Cleveland’s Trey Twins, this time with the guitarist cloning a three-chord funk loop so that he can flirt with Crosseyed & Painless*. But the merely two-minute mid-peak jam is a sure sign that they’re rapidly running dry; Trey tries the loop trick again, tries to build a new chord base over a perky Fish switch-up, but gives up quickly and starts the pre-peak drone. It beats Denver, but it’s no Gorge/MSG.

Rock & Roll still isn’t eclipsing its debut performance on Halloween, but it tries hard here, with a hushed post-solo section that flirts with a new theme and ambient decay but doesn’t really spark. Taste feels a bit rushed, hinting at clumsy versions to come, and while I had high hopes for Frankie Says in a second set after Denver’s eerie gem, it doesn’t spread its wings again. The Gumbo comes closest to living up to the set’s promise by, what else, reviving my favorite riff, which I now belatedly realize is the “My Name is Slick” lick from The Siket Disc**. Maybe it only sunk in here because this deployment is particularly sparse and slinky, dissolving into weird static at the end and promising a very dark turn. 

Instead, it’s plucked back from the brink by Chalk Dust, those fun covers, and a YEM encore with an exceedingly rare vocal jam guest: Heloise Williams from Viperhouse and the 8 Foot Fluorescent Tubes. The happy ending is fair enough; it would be impolite to send fans on their way to Hampton with a bad trip. But the hour beforehand strongly suggests that, after a mid-tour lull, Phish is on the verge of a breakthrough just in time for the final week of the fall. It won’t quite go in the direction you’d expect.

* - Hey, there’s another song that is mysteriously and cruelly MIA this year…’98 C&Ps would’ve killed!

** - This would have made describing it all year a lot easier, alas.