Seasoned Travelers
2/14/97, Brussels, BEL, Le Botanique
SET 1: Runaway Jim > NICU, You Enjoy Myself, Sweet Adeline, Axilla > It's Ice > Billy Breathes, Uncle Pen, Run Like an Antelope
SET 2: AC/DC Bag > Ya Mar > Down with Disease > Funky Bitch > Reba, Walfredo, Rock A William, Scent of a Mule > A Day in the Life
ENCORE: Character Zero
We did our first all-arena tour in fall ‘96. It was successful in some ways, and unsuccessful in others, but it helped make us comfortable in our own skin with playing large rooms. We had to ask ourselves, “How can we make this transition and still be the same band we always were? How can we maintain the same musical ideals as when we were playing clubs?” It so happened that the next two tours would consist mainly of clubs and theaters in Europe, which not only reminded us where we came from, but proved to me that even if I only did that for the rest of my life, I’d be thrilled. These tours got us back in touch with the looseness that’s always been part of Phish, and I think we brought these renewed feelings of spontaneity and intimacy back into the bigger rooms we played that summer. (Trey, The Phish Book)
One of the disappointments of Europe 1996 was that the band sounded like what they were: tourists. For Phish’s first extended tour of Europe (not counting the fortnight of Summer 1992), they were split between their duties as opening act for Santana and their headlining debuts in London, Amsterdam, Italy, and Germany. The short sets and rude crowds of the former meant they were a little too tightly wound for the latter, er, Amsterdam aside. In the smaller venues of the two-set shows, Phish mostly reverted back to their early-90s chef’s menu approach, instead of using those intimate dates out of the spotlight to experiment.
Spoiler alert: their return trips to Europe in 1997 did not follow the same pattern. On the winter run, there are no supporting dates, no multi-band festivals (though there are a few in the summer trip), no water parks or soccer fields. It’s two weeks of tiny clubs in front of what sounds like mostly vacationing Yanks, who were very excited to stand closer to Phish than was generally allowed at home. And in turn, Phish is much, much more relaxed than they were on their previous visit to The Old World.
I’m not sure there are any rooms on this run tinier than Le Botanique, “the cultural center for the French community of Brussels” according to Prof. Wikipedia. There are three performance spaces in the building attached to the city’s 18th-century botanical gardens, and I imagine Phish played in the largest of the three, the 650-capacity Orangerie. That’s more or less one section of the Fleet Center.
“It’s been incredibly fun to play in this size of a room,” Trey says, and that’s easy to hear on the tape. Sure, it might not be the most memorable night of the tour. But when Phish are chilled out, they break rules, and nothing says rebellion like dropping YEM in the three-hole. Later, they play both of their silly, brand-new rotation songs back-to-back, and when Trey isn’t feeling his half of the Mule Duel, he pulls the rare welcome ripcord and bails out into A Day In The Life.
Beneath the setlist, the band also takes advantage of the unusually small environment in ways they didn’t dare a year prior. The YEM jam is incredibly sparse, and followed up by a vocal jam that dwindles away into silence and an unamplified Sweet Adeline. New textures are either unveiled by the band or revealed by the close-up recording; most notably, Mike’s synth pedals in the YEM, and Trey’s richly Leslified solo in Billy Breathes. Some songs are slower: AC/DC Bag is starting to get gooey. Some songs are louder: Disease and Zero bring their still-growing arena maximalism into the club.
These are all hints at the year to come, but to be honest, you still have to squint pretty hard to hear them. For now, it’s enough that Phish has shrugged off the awkwardness of their previous European tour, seeing it as a low-stakes opportunity to goof around instead of a new market where they need to prove themselves on their best behavior. Gradually, that anything-goes spirit will produce more significant breakthroughs; in the meantime, they can just act like they’ve been there before, steering clear of the tourist traps.