Time Loop

7/6/00, Toronto, CAN, Molson Canadian Amphitheatre

Photos from Clopex2003 on Reddit.

SET 1: Reba, Dogs Stole Things > Taste, Dog Faced Boy, Heavy Things > The Moma Dance, First Tube, I Didn't Know, The Inlaw Josie Wales, Prince Caspian > Golgi Apparatus, You Enjoy Myself

SET 2: Limb By Limb > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Bug > Piper > Driver, Harry Hood > Loving Cup

ENCORE: The Squirming Coil

Listen

By the second half of the summer, Phish had conquered the early-tour fatigue issues by returning to the familiar 3-4 nights on/1 night off rhythm and limiting travel through a trio of 2-night stands. That changes this week, when they play three one-off shows in succession, but with the finish line in view, they’ve got enough in the tank to see out the season. That leaves another itinerary-based issue lingering, one they can’t do anything about mid-stream: that the 2000 summer tour is a virtual repeat of the 1999 run.

Apart from the weird KC start to ‘99, the overall routing is exactly the same, moving from the southeast up the east coast and then turning left into the upper midwest. With the exception of Walnut Creek and Hartford Meadows, 9 of the 11 venues in Summer ‘00 were visited the year before. And almost in the same order too; this week’s Toronto > Pittsburgh > Alpine run is just missing a Columbus stop from ‘99, though they’ll double back to finish in Ohio’s capital at the end of this summer.

There’s probably an “if it ain’t broke” logic behind this duplication, as well as Phish butting up against their self-imposed venue size limitation. There are only so many 25k-30k capacity sheds in the country, and playing anything smaller at this point risks fan mayhem, while anything larger is in forbidden stadium territory*. So Phish finds themselves looking out every night at the same pavilion-and-lawn setup as last year, with the only variation being that cool ceiling in Holmdel or Alpine’s wooden roof.

It’s a situation destined to cause deja vu, and it could be to blame for some of this summer’s wheel-spinning. Tonight in Toronto is a perfect example; even if it only shares three songs with 7/20/99, they play a very similar performance on the lone Canadian stop. Both Toronto shows feature plus-sized, fairly random first sets that end on YEM and a more focused second set with solid moments that don’t really add up. At the risk of offending any of my northern neighbor subscribers, it’s a very Canadian show, in that it is polite, competent, and just a little bit boring.

There are highlights though, and they get started early. Reba opens a show for the first time since they were playing gazebos in Vermont; it’s played flawlessly and jammed luxuriously. Dog Stole Things is, as always, whatever, but Taste is another strong version, and the show seems to be trending towards a laid-back Thursday night on the shores of Lake Ontario. But it zig-zags from there, darting between the intimate (Dog Faced Boy, Inlaw Josie Wales) and the exuberant (First Tube, Golgi). Caspian splits the difference best, finding an appropriate arrival time for once and building up to a wall-of-sound roar that is a counterintuitively brilliant use case for Trey’s 2000 sonic assault.

The second set starts strong as well with yet another excellent Limb by Limb – I’m increasingly convinced that it’s the most underappreciated song of the late 1.0 era. It goes sideways at 8:30 and never fully returns, introducing a strain of dissonance into the song’s normally joyous center, erupting in a swaggering theme that could have been developed much farther instead of dropping into an anxious and punchy 2001.

The crowd quickly deflates when it drops into Bug, which I think is unfair – it hits the same spot as the first-set Caspian (two songs I never thought I’d find myself defending, but here we are). I find the Piper that follows far more irritating, once again in a hurry to rage for no purpose, followed by the longest segment of Trey fiddling with his keyboard that we’ve heard in quite some time. Its best trick is somehow landing itself, improbably, in Driver.

It’s right around this point where the two Toronto shows diverge, as ‘99 featured the Phish debut of Misty Mountain Hop. I considered it a little contrived last year – calling it a “Play Zeppelin In Case of Emergency” situation – but oh what I would give for a fresh cover now. I know it’s a drum I’m beating over and over, but we are now 21 shows into 2000 and have heard exactly one (1) new song: Del McCoury’s rendition of Jimmy Martin’s “Hold Whatcha Got” in Nashville. It’s usually second nature for Phish to find at least a new cover to make familiar surroundings feel unique from night to night and year to year. But in 2000, seeing the same sheds all over again, they’re seemingly lacking the motivation to bother.

* - A funny thing to observe as 2025 Phish finishes up a three-night run at Folsom Field!