Turn The Page

10/11/95, Chandler, AZ, Compton Terrace Amphitheater

SET 1: Stash, The Old Home Place > Cavern > Divided Sky, If I Could, The Fog That Surrounds, Acoustic Army, Julius, Sample in a Jar

SET 2: Possum > Bathtub Gin, Mound, Mike's Song -> McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters > Weekapaug Groove -> Llama, Suzy Greenberg -> Crossroads, Hello My Baby, A Day in the Life

ENCORE: Chalk Dust Torture

Listen on phish.in (seriously, listen to this one, it’s great)

The most insane week of travel in the Fall 95 schedule saw the band traveling over 2,000 miles in two leaps, from Missoula to suburban Phoenix and then from Chandler to Fort Worth. Respectfully, Dionysian Productions — what the flippin’ hell? Perhaps they were trying to discourage any of those West Coast Deadhead bandwagon-jumpers from following the entire tour, or maybe some planned dates in Boise or Salt Lake City or Las Vegas or El Paso fell through. But in the days before the band flew ahead of their gear on long mileage jumps, the bus time must have been absolutely brutal in this stretch.

On the other hand, confining the members of a Phish to a small space is a pretty reliable strategy for inspiring them, so maybe that was the plan all along. The long road trip certainly appears to pay off at the Compton Terrace, which is chock full of surprises despite not featuring any obvious notable jams to single out. On the day between the band and crew’s two thousand-mile treks, the layover gives this whole show a certain zestiness that the rest of the tour has been lacking, apart from some sporadic sparks.

They’re hot from the moment they make their chess move. A rare set-opening Stash that goes pretty deep? Great! An inscrutable “live in concert” reference that Trey makes afterward and repeats throughout the set, perhaps in reference to the venue’s marquee or a tour bus in-joke? Weird...but cool! The return of The Old Home Place instead of hearing I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome every other night? Welcome! But then, after a surprisingly noisy Cavern outro, there’s Divided Sky, which will surely bring things back to normalcy? Wrong!

Now when you listen to a couple hundred Phish shows in a row, there are a few songs here and there that you can safely tune out and experience as background noise. Divided Sky is a wonderful composition, but usually if you’ve heard one, you’ve heard...well not them all, but most. I was tipped off by a reader in advance, but this one would’ve snapped me out of half-attention anyway, probably around the point that Trey adds an unusual quavering tone to his post-pause solo. 

If there’s a knock on the Divided Sky jam, it’s that it’s a little too clean; a happy, uplifting jammy payoff without much venom. But this one has a gnarlier edge to it, injecting that nasty and aggressive Fall 95 spirit that’s just starting to assume shape. As a result, there’s an atypical layer of tension/release in the jam instead of just release/release, while the band takes the closing sequence for a couple extra rounds. I don’t know if it’s the best version I’ve ever heard, but a better one doesn’t come immediately to mind, and chasing it with my sweet lady If I Could is an emotional double-punch I wasn’t expecting this early in the show and tour.

Later, there’s a Fog That Surrounds with a new Trey/Fish call-and-response vocal and a staccato guitar solo, both of which don’t really work, but hey, I’m glad they were brainstorming between Pocatello and Provo. There’s a Possum that plays up the quiet-loud dynamics of the song by going heavy on the quiet early, then later doing a delirious 93-esque run through a DEG and a Note and a Johnny B. Goode tease. 

There’s a cantankerous Bathtub Gin, and an exquisitely evil Mike’s with a grinding, disorienting second jam that sorta-reprises the White Rabbit groove from Shoreline, except now it’s Benicio Del Toro in a fetid bathtub pleading to be electrocuted. There’s a Weekapaug that accelerates itself into Llama, and a Suzy that Double-Claptons itself into Crossroads (the first since Durham ‘93), both unfinished. I try not to mention every song in these essays, but almost every song this time around has something worth mentioning.

Nowadays, they prefer to rest their weary Dad Bones for several nights in one city — it’s not like they’re sharing the same bus anyway — and multi-night runs lead to the highest-quality shows. But back in the day, those long, stir-crazy nights on the bus between chess matches could apparently produce some magic. I don’t know if frequent thousand-mile gaps between shows are healthy, even with off days built in, but this one sure seems to have chased away the doldrums of this tour’s slow start.  

[Ticket stub from Golgi Project.]