Without Peer
SET 1: Sample in a Jar > The Curtain > Ha Ha Ha > Julius, NICU > Bathtub Gin, Rift > Fast Enough for You > The Lizards, Fire
SET 2: Cars Trucks Buses > Tweezer -> Makisupa Policeman > Run Like an Antelope > Scent of a Mule, Free, Strange Design, Amazing Grace
ENCORE: Harry Hood
Listen on phish.in or LivePhish+
You ever think about how calendars are just, like, a societal construct, man? Some Romans back in BC days decided the year should be chopped up into twelve unequal pieces, and named the twelfth month for the number ten, just to mess with us two millennia later. So who are we to say when December begins or ends? After all, stores start selling Christmas stuff before Halloween these days, right?
This deep philosophical discussion is inspired by my best Phish friend Andrew Peerless, the person I have seen the most shows with, dating back to an Ohio weekend run in 1998. Tonight in Dayton was Andrew’s first show, beating me to the scene by a crucial nine months, and he’s long insisted that this night should be considered a honorary member of the esteemed “December 1995” club, having missed the month’s official start by less than an hour. His argument gained support from the official LivePhish release of the concert in late 2019, only the third non-Halloween, non-December show from the tour to receive that designation thus far. You’d have to be a real calendar nihilist to grandfather in the 10/21 Lincoln or 11/14 Orlando shows, but you certainly could fudge a bit on the Dayton date.
So let’s test that assertion out. Does the band’s debut at the Nutter Center (one of the best venue names, bar none) feel like a significant leap forward? Does it contain the qualities that make December 95 one of the most revered months in Phish history? Is it worthy of being included in the pantheon?
To take on the first issue, the Dayton show is unquestionably a big step up from the Tennessee shows that preceded it, which reverted back to the typical Phish mid-90s median of “pretty darn good.” It also contains little of the big-venue awkwardness that marked the Landover and Hampton shows — Trey needs an assist from Page to remember the first lyrics of Fast Enough For You, and everyone blows the ending to Fire, but those are both pretty forgivable flubs. I’d probably go so far as to say it’s the best complete show since the delirious Midwestern run of late October; no coincidence that it’s also the first show back within Big Ten borders since that time.
As for December 95 qualities, it’s a little tricky since we haven’t gotten there yet in the project, even if I’ve listened at least once in my life to pretty much all of the shows that are left on the schedule. But the characteristics of the month that come to mind are fluidity, intensity, and a big, widescreen rock sound — all elements that have popped up individually at times throughout the fall, but which all hit at the same time, for multiple weeks in a row, in the year’s final month.
Dayton absolutely aces the fluidity category on the report card, from the very start of the show. You can see it plainly in the number of right-facing arrows on the setlist up top, gluing together some unorthodox pairings such as Sample > Curtain and Rift > FEFY. They’re not the “true segues” of overlapping songs — at least not in the first set — but they’re a sign that the band is feeling liquid and flowing the setlist naturally from song to song, with little or no hesitation about what’s coming next.
That’s elevated a further notch in set 2, where the Tweezer -> Makisupa -> Antelope centerpiece earns those arrow stalks, each subsequent song telegraphed for nearly a minute while the band smoothly lines up for the official switchover. One reason that Fall 95 slightly misses my sweet spot is the general lack of song suites of this sort; shows tend to roll out like playlists instead of cross-faded DJ sets where the borders of songs begin to dissipate into a continuous narrative of pure music. This 37-minute segment is the first to scratch that itch since the Orlando Stash, itself an anomaly for the tour.
That famous December 95 intensity is also found in this stretch, though maybe a tick lower than what’s to come: let’s call it a B+. The Tweezer sets a deliberate pace from the beginning that only increases its heaviness; Trey even sits out the first minute of the jam, presumably doing the kind of pedal-wizardry and/or plotting that will become a familiar prelude for the biggest improvisational moments. There’s no retreat to the mini-kit, just a couple separate, patient builds on the back of some thick Fishman snares, the second of which hints at the delirium of the New Haven version 48 hours later...but it pulls the emergency brake, a lever that will snap off in their hand two nights from now.
Still, there’s enough momentum remaining to produce one of the fastest Makisupa tempos you’ll ever hear, and that keeps the wheels greased for Antelope, the moment (along with The Curtain) that most frightened young Peerless. “I just remember feeling like Antelope couldn’t possibly build any more and then not believing it kept building… and then having that experience three or four times. I’m pretty sure I clutched my chest and turned to my friend Paige (female, does not play piano) and said “good God” when it finally peaked,” he reports. Provoking terror and heart palpitations in unsuspecting first-timers — that’s the December 95 experience, baby.
Finally, after a bit of a late second-set lull thanks to the inescapable Mule and Strange Design, a rare Harry Hood encore provides the arena-rock sized spectacle that will define the next month’s triumphs. It’s not a Hall of Fame version, but in its confident pace and fluent emotional manipulation, it represents a band that has no uneasiness about playing at a venue just a half step below the East Coast arenas where their debuts have so far produced mixed, nervous results. I’d quote Peerless here, but he had to leave early to get a ride home from his Mom (sorry, still jealous he got to see a 95 show).
So my final answer to the prompt, “is Dayton 95 a December show” is...mostly yes. It ticks a lot of those December 95 marks, but without absolutely defining or mastering any of them, leaving room for improvement in the weeks that follow. Like those interstitial spaces between Tweezer and Makisupa and Makisupa and Antelope, it’s a hybrid of both November and December, a sleek transition from one phase into another.
[Ticket stub from, yes, Andrew Peerless.]