Tension at the Border

2/22/97, Rome, ITA, Teatro Olimpico

SET 1: Walfredo, Also Sprach Zarathustra > Funky Bitch, Theme From the Bottom > NICU > When the Circus Comes, Talk, Split Open and Melt, I Didn't Know, Character Zero

SET 2: Chalk Dust Torture, Bathtub Gin > Sparkle > Simple > Jesus Just Left Chicago, Harry Hood > Free, Hello My Baby

ENCORE: Johnny B. Goode

As I am very much not a musicologist, I’m wary of making any technical claims about the nature of Phish improvisation. After thousands upon thousands of hours of Phish listening, I have a pretty good sense for the different flavors of jams, though not the precise terminology of what’s going on. If you want to know details about mixolydian modes or unusual key changes, I’m afraid I’m not your guy.

But there’s a jamming shift in 1997 that I wish I had better language for. Generally, I’m not talking about the funk jams, though they are certainly a component. It’s more about the overall structure of a jam, the path that it follows and the strategies they use. Because I have a very strong (and obvious) late 90s bias, it feels like we are moving closer to what my brain perceives as “correct” Phish improvisation. But then it’s all the more noticeable when, in shows like this one, it’s not there.

Roughly speaking, I think you can lump most early 90s Phish jamming into two buckets: the slow build and the tension-release. The first category is the bread and butter of almost every jamband, a steady chord progression that builds from quiet to loud, from serene to intense, providing a big crowd-pleasing climax. Primal Phish songs such as Slave, Hood, Reba, and Antelope were built around precisely this payoff, with a few Phish-y quirks or a proggy introduction thrown in to keep it interesting. 

The other style, tension-release, was the circus trick that separated Phish from their peers in the 90s jam scene. Despite their goofy appearance, Phish was always far more comfortable getting uncomfortable than the other happy-go-lucky neo-hippies, exploring the emotional effects of sprinkling in dissonance and even pure noise. The best representative here is Stash, which offers tension-release masterclasses from (as Official Phishcrit Consultant Drew Hitz recently pointed out) its studio version on A Picture of Nectar to the classic 7/8/94 version chosen for A Live One. 

As the 90s progressed, what us non-musicologists refer to as Type II jamming started to appear more frequently, first as the hyperactive medleys of 1993, then with the longer, novel-length excursions of 1994 and 1995. These marathon jams (think A Live One Tweezer or Providence Bowie) were organized into distinct chapters that switched mood, rhythm, and key, but didn’t always establish an organic flow or narrative – they sometimes felt like they were switching segments on a timer, instead of by musical instinct.

Those are the qualities I associate with Fall 97 and the years beyond, jams that unfold naturally, as though they were pre-written, but with the magic of being conjured up from thin air. There’s a patience to these jams, a confidence that an idea can be poked, prodded, and embellished for several minutes before it suggests the next leg of the voyage. Some of the most famous 1997 jams stretch past 20 minutes, but might only explore 2 or 3 themes over that time, and the transitions between those segments feel like segues instead of chapter breaks. 

Thus far in Winter 1997, only the Disease > Carini of 2/17 has reached that high standard. Other jams have found fresh sonic territory, but haven’t yet reached the point of stringing those together — even the surprising first-set jams of yesterday’s show were largely built around one theme, with some brief interludes. If there’s been an improvisational theme for this tour, it’s been more around quiet, early ambient zones like last night’s Swept Away intro or tonight’s Hood, a minimalist sound that makes sense in these smaller venues.

But tonight’s main jamming approach is a throwback: the ol’ tension-release trick. It appears first in Split Open and Melt, another favorite tension-release vehicle where the tension is often delivered through the disappearance and reappearance of the three-note motif that marks the end of each cycle. Here, they never fully lose the grip on that structure, but there’s an exciting break near the end (11:15 ish) where the key changes ever so slightly, injecting some added danger just when it seems to be wrapping up.

That nudge turns into a full on hostage situation on the other side of setbreak, as the opening Chalk Dust eschews it’s normal cock-rock for a blitzkrieg of dissonance. Mike seems to be the engineer – his urgent notes starting at 4:00 knock the song crooked, and Trey responds by playing in one of those weirdly-named scales that I can never tell apart for three minutes. Very subtly, the song becomes much more foreboding than usual, a fitting prolonged tension-release partner to the earlier Melt within a song that, in the 90s, was generally more of a standard fist-pumper. 

It’s an absolute highlight, but also a throwback at a time where I’m mostly looking for clues to the fast-arriving future. Removed from context, it feels like more of a 1994 jam – the sonic bells and whistles of 1997 aren’t really present. Perhaps it’s the other side of the “small venue” coin; while Europe’s clubs and theaters might be a good place to try out new things, there’s also a temptation to revert back to the approaches Phish favored in U.S.venues of similar size. But put a pin in it — I know that the tension-release approach didn’t disappear in 1997, it just wasn’t the band’s favorite flavor. Let’s see where it ends up.