Soundcheck: Cities, Manteca, Cities > Manteca
SET 1: Rift, Sample in a Jar, The Curtain > Letter to Jimmy Page > If I Could, Uncle Pen, Stash, Esther > Down with Disease, Sweet Adeline[1]
SET 2: Punch You in the Eye > Sparkle > Bathtub Gin > Lifeboy, Cities > You Enjoy Myself, The Great Gig in the Sky > Hold Your Head Up, Ginseng Sullivan[2], My Sweet One[3], Amazing Grace[1], Golgi Apparatus
ENCORE: Good Times Bad Times
This show included the first Letter to Jimmy Page since July 18, 1991 (358 shows) and the first version played separate from Alumni Blues since May 11, 1987 (811 shows). Esther and YEM contained Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy teases from Trey. Trey quoted the theme from Shaft at the start of the second set. Cities was played for the first time since March 1, 1989 (679 shows). Sweet Adeline and Ginseng Sullivan through Amazing Grace were performed without microphones. Ginseng Sullivan and My Sweet One were performed acoustic. The latter evolved into a sing-along with the audience during the second verse.
Jam Chart Versions
Teases
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy tease in Esther, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy tease in You Enjoy Myself, Theme from Shaft quote
Debut Years (Average: 1989)
Song Distribution
On This Date
- Jul 5, 2025: Phish - Boulder, CO
- Jul 5, 2019: Phish - Boston, MA
- Jul 5, 2018: Trey Anastasio Trio - Charlottesville, VA
- Jul 5, 2015: Fare Thee Well - Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead - Chicago, IL
- Jul 5, 2014: Phish - Saratoga Springs, NY
- Jul 5, 2013: Phish - Saratoga Springs, NY
- Jul 5, 1999: Derek Trucks Band - Macon, GA
- Jul 5, 1998: Phish - Prague, Czech Republic
- Jul 5, 1997: Phish - Como, Italy
- Jul 5, 1996: Phish - Rome, Italy
- Jul 5, 1993: National Guitar Summit Workshop Jam Session - New Milford, CT
Performers
This show was part of the "1994 Summer Tour"
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Show Reviews
, attached to 1994-07-05
What a show,those on tour that skipped Ottawa sure missed a beauty.
Curtain>Jimmy Page,SOLID Stash,early rocking Disease.
The 2nd speaks for itself,Punch opener..Quite possibly my favorite Bathtub Gin,1st Cities since 89'.YEM and Fishman antics.This is a keeper!
Review by pauly
What a show,those on tour that skipped Ottawa sure missed a beauty.Curtain>Jimmy Page,SOLID Stash,early rocking Disease.
The 2nd speaks for itself,Punch opener..Quite possibly my favorite Bathtub Gin,1st Cities since 89'.YEM and Fishman antics.This is a keeper!
, attached to 1994-07-05
The first and likely last appearance in Ottawa was an early example of the "you snooze you lose" show Phish tended to unleash at out-of-the-way, sparsely attended venues to reward the loyal fans who showed up. One of the hallmarks of such shows are bustouts, and Letter to Jimmy Page and Cities ably fill that role here. Great Gig in the Sky is another minor bustout of note, and this was its last performance before returning on 11/2/98, the king of all sleeper shows. The tidy crowd also probably factored into the decision to let the audience take over vocals in My Sweet One.
Aside from those more novel features, the musical highlights come in a gnarly Stash, a graceful Esther (w/"Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" tease), a typically hot '94 Disease, the biggest outing for Gin since Murat, and a YEM with a jam that takes a slightly more circuitous route than most including more "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" teases for some bizarre juxtaposition.
All in all an eminently fun show. A bit more meat at the end of the second set (Slave, Hood, etc.) would lift this show to the next level but it's still 4 stars to me.
Review by westbrook
The first and likely last appearance in Ottawa was an early example of the "you snooze you lose" show Phish tended to unleash at out-of-the-way, sparsely attended venues to reward the loyal fans who showed up. One of the hallmarks of such shows are bustouts, and Letter to Jimmy Page and Cities ably fill that role here. Great Gig in the Sky is another minor bustout of note, and this was its last performance before returning on 11/2/98, the king of all sleeper shows. The tidy crowd also probably factored into the decision to let the audience take over vocals in My Sweet One. Aside from those more novel features, the musical highlights come in a gnarly Stash, a graceful Esther (w/"Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" tease), a typically hot '94 Disease, the biggest outing for Gin since Murat, and a YEM with a jam that takes a slightly more circuitous route than most including more "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" teases for some bizarre juxtaposition.
All in all an eminently fun show. A bit more meat at the end of the second set (Slave, Hood, etc.) would lift this show to the next level but it's still 4 stars to me.
, attached to 1994-07-05
On July 5th, 1994 I had a few drinks and strolled a handful of blocks between my house and the Ottawa Congress Centre to see a band I had been hearing a bit about called Phish. I had missed them before in Montreal when a friend that I had seen the Grateful Dead with all but insisted I come with her to see Phish at Metropolis. I remember bowing out with the excuse that I had been out several nights in the past week seeing local bands in Ottawa and could use a night off.
Ouch.
But a few days before Phish played their one and only show in Canada’s capital city another friend of mine played me a cut off of the band’s Junta album, a catchy rock number with the unlikely title Golgi Apparatus. “Pretty good,” I said, not entirely convinced. He put on one more song that he thought would hook me, and he nailed it with Contact. The bass-driven song was quirky, weird, and clever; I was in.
The venue was sparsely attended to say the least, with perhaps 200 people in a room that could hold three thousand or more. I grabbed a couple of drinks from the bar and walked right up to the stage and stood audience-right in front of the drum kit.
That was odd (thought I), having the drum kit set up on stage left instead of in the middle.
No matter, I had the whole area to myself and if I remember correctly I even used the stage as a table to set my drinks upon. Soon the band came on and changed me.
They opened with Rift and then Sample before The Curtain went into the first Letter to Jimmy Page in several years. The second set had the first Cities played in half a decade but none of that meant anything to me - I had never heard any of this before. Frankly, I had never heard anything like this before.
For me the show was a mind-bending display of musical and instrumental pyrotechnics that poured out of the four guys with a never-ending cavalcade of shock and surprise. Nothing went the way I thought it would, the music was utterly unpredictable with sharp turns and right angles all over the place; time signatures overlapped each other in ways I had never heard before…vocal harmonies that shouldn’t have worked landed perfectly on top of jagged melodies that were unforgettable.
I was flabbergasted, sonically and otherwise.
At the time I was just finishing up my music degree and I was in a band that I thought played some pretty crazy, off-kilter rock and roll so I was completely ready for this Phish concert whilst simultaneously not at all ready for it.
The gorgeous instrumental beauty juxtaposed with the Dada-esque lyrics of Stash, the miraculously original melody of Bathtub Gin (how had nobody found that one yet?), the absolutely jaw-dropping YEM with an intro that pits Trey’s 11/8 guitar part over Mikes 5/8 bass line and Page’s 10/8 keyboard part while Fishman pounds 4/4 underneath plus the vocal outro jam and oh yeah, they were jumping up and down on trampolines? I mean c’mon now! I was thoroughly humbled and awed.
Oh, and then the band plays Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky with the drummer doing the solo by blowing into an old vacuum cleaner, then they performed two songs with no amplification whatsoever, just melodica/standup bass*/acoustic guitar with the crowd alternating between hushed applause and shush-ing each other, then they did a couple of barbershop quartet classics and ended the set with that very first song my friend had played for me a few days earlier, Golgi Apparatus. I was dancing like a fool laid out to dry. My t-shirt long wrenched from my body, I flailed away banshee-like with the entire Fishman-side floor area all to myself.
Capping the show as they did with a Good Times, Bad Times encore was perfect, proof that Phish could tear up a straight-ahead rock and roller without any gimmicks quite fine, thank-you very much. The show I had just seen had changed how I looked at rock music and to see them Zep out and nail it hard for my walkaway song felt like a kudos to the history of the genre…a reminder of what rock music used to sound like now that I had seen its future.
To date I have seen the band 131 times. I’ve travelled all over North America and met friends from a thousand places while following Phish around, so yeah, this was a pretty big show for me.
*Wait now…there couldn’t have been a doublebass could there? Mike must have been playing his electric bass.
https://toddmanout.com/
Review by toddmanout
On July 5th, 1994 I had a few drinks and strolled a handful of blocks between my house and the Ottawa Congress Centre to see a band I had been hearing a bit about called Phish. I had missed them before in Montreal when a friend that I had seen the Grateful Dead with all but insisted I come with her to see Phish at Metropolis. I remember bowing out with the excuse that I had been out several nights in the past week seeing local bands in Ottawa and could use a night off.Ouch.
But a few days before Phish played their one and only show in Canada’s capital city another friend of mine played me a cut off of the band’s Junta album, a catchy rock number with the unlikely title Golgi Apparatus. “Pretty good,” I said, not entirely convinced. He put on one more song that he thought would hook me, and he nailed it with Contact. The bass-driven song was quirky, weird, and clever; I was in.
The venue was sparsely attended to say the least, with perhaps 200 people in a room that could hold three thousand or more. I grabbed a couple of drinks from the bar and walked right up to the stage and stood audience-right in front of the drum kit.
That was odd (thought I), having the drum kit set up on stage left instead of in the middle.
No matter, I had the whole area to myself and if I remember correctly I even used the stage as a table to set my drinks upon. Soon the band came on and changed me.
They opened with Rift and then Sample before The Curtain went into the first Letter to Jimmy Page in several years. The second set had the first Cities played in half a decade but none of that meant anything to me - I had never heard any of this before. Frankly, I had never heard anything like this before.
For me the show was a mind-bending display of musical and instrumental pyrotechnics that poured out of the four guys with a never-ending cavalcade of shock and surprise. Nothing went the way I thought it would, the music was utterly unpredictable with sharp turns and right angles all over the place; time signatures overlapped each other in ways I had never heard before…vocal harmonies that shouldn’t have worked landed perfectly on top of jagged melodies that were unforgettable.
I was flabbergasted, sonically and otherwise.
At the time I was just finishing up my music degree and I was in a band that I thought played some pretty crazy, off-kilter rock and roll so I was completely ready for this Phish concert whilst simultaneously not at all ready for it.
The gorgeous instrumental beauty juxtaposed with the Dada-esque lyrics of Stash, the miraculously original melody of Bathtub Gin (how had nobody found that one yet?), the absolutely jaw-dropping YEM with an intro that pits Trey’s 11/8 guitar part over Mikes 5/8 bass line and Page’s 10/8 keyboard part while Fishman pounds 4/4 underneath plus the vocal outro jam and oh yeah, they were jumping up and down on trampolines? I mean c’mon now! I was thoroughly humbled and awed.
Oh, and then the band plays Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky with the drummer doing the solo by blowing into an old vacuum cleaner, then they performed two songs with no amplification whatsoever, just melodica/standup bass*/acoustic guitar with the crowd alternating between hushed applause and shush-ing each other, then they did a couple of barbershop quartet classics and ended the set with that very first song my friend had played for me a few days earlier, Golgi Apparatus. I was dancing like a fool laid out to dry. My t-shirt long wrenched from my body, I flailed away banshee-like with the entire Fishman-side floor area all to myself.
Capping the show as they did with a Good Times, Bad Times encore was perfect, proof that Phish could tear up a straight-ahead rock and roller without any gimmicks quite fine, thank-you very much. The show I had just seen had changed how I looked at rock music and to see them Zep out and nail it hard for my walkaway song felt like a kudos to the history of the genre…a reminder of what rock music used to sound like now that I had seen its future.
To date I have seen the band 131 times. I’ve travelled all over North America and met friends from a thousand places while following Phish around, so yeah, this was a pretty big show for me.
*Wait now…there couldn’t have been a doublebass could there? Mike must have been playing his electric bass.
https://toddmanout.com/
, attached to 1994-07-05
PHISH, TUESDAY 07/05/1994
CONGRESS CENTER
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Soundcheck: Cities, Manteca, Cities > Manteca
SET 1:
Rift: Standard.
Sample in a Jar: Standard.
The Curtain: Super cool segue. >
Letter to Jimmy Page: Standard. >
If I Could: Brilliant version, absolutely beautiful.
Uncle Pen: Standard.
Stash: Absolutely electric first peak. After that things get extremely spooky and dark. They sort of sneak in through the back door from there. Would recommend this version!
Esther: Standard. >
Down with Disease: Short power house.
Sweet Adeline[1] Standard.
SET 2:
Punch You in the Eye: Not as tight as you might expect from this era. >
Sparkle: Standard. >
Bathtub Gin: Short, compact power house. Would recommend. >
Lifeboy: Nice placement, breather was needed after the torrid start to the second set.
Cities: Huge bust out. >
You Enjoy Myself: Nothing in this one really grabbed my attention at all though it is a jamcharts version.
The Great Gig in the Sky > Hold Your Head Up: Typical Fishman antics.
Ginseng Sullivan[2], My Sweet One[3], Amazing Grace[1] - Standard.
Golgi Apparatus: Standard.
ENCORE:
Good Times Bad Times: Standard.
Summary: Good show. Once again, Phish realizes this is an out of the way show on a Tuesday night so they drop a few highlights and a huge bust out. 3.75/5
Replay Value: Stash, Bathtub Gin
[1] Without microphones.
[2] Acoustic; without microphones.
[3] Acoustic; without microphones. Sing-along with audience during second verse.
This show included the first Letter to Jimmy Page since July 18, 1991 (358 shows) and the first version played separate from Alumni Blues since May 11, 1987 (811 shows). Esther and YEM contained Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy teases from Trey. Trey quoted the theme from Shaft at the start of the second set. Cities was played for the first time since March 1, 1989 (679 shows). Sweet Adeline and Ginseng Sullivan through Amazing Grace were performed without microphones. Ginseng Sullivan and My Sweet One were performed acoustic. The latter evolved into a sing-along with the audience during the second verse.
JAM CHART VERSIONS
Stash, Esther, Bathtub Gin, You Enjoy Myself
TEASES
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy tease in Esther, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy tease in You Enjoy Myself, Theme from Shaft quote
Review by spreaditround
PHISH, TUESDAY 07/05/1994CONGRESS CENTER
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Soundcheck: Cities, Manteca, Cities > Manteca
SET 1:
Rift: Standard.
Sample in a Jar: Standard.
The Curtain: Super cool segue. >
Letter to Jimmy Page: Standard. >
If I Could: Brilliant version, absolutely beautiful.
Uncle Pen: Standard.
Stash: Absolutely electric first peak. After that things get extremely spooky and dark. They sort of sneak in through the back door from there. Would recommend this version!
Esther: Standard. >
Down with Disease: Short power house.
Sweet Adeline[1] Standard.
SET 2:
Punch You in the Eye: Not as tight as you might expect from this era. >
Sparkle: Standard. >
Bathtub Gin: Short, compact power house. Would recommend. >
Lifeboy: Nice placement, breather was needed after the torrid start to the second set.
Cities: Huge bust out. >
You Enjoy Myself: Nothing in this one really grabbed my attention at all though it is a jamcharts version.
The Great Gig in the Sky > Hold Your Head Up: Typical Fishman antics.
Ginseng Sullivan[2], My Sweet One[3], Amazing Grace[1] - Standard.
Golgi Apparatus: Standard.
ENCORE:
Good Times Bad Times: Standard.
Summary: Good show. Once again, Phish realizes this is an out of the way show on a Tuesday night so they drop a few highlights and a huge bust out. 3.75/5
Replay Value: Stash, Bathtub Gin
[1] Without microphones.
[2] Acoustic; without microphones.
[3] Acoustic; without microphones. Sing-along with audience during second verse.
This show included the first Letter to Jimmy Page since July 18, 1991 (358 shows) and the first version played separate from Alumni Blues since May 11, 1987 (811 shows). Esther and YEM contained Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy teases from Trey. Trey quoted the theme from Shaft at the start of the second set. Cities was played for the first time since March 1, 1989 (679 shows). Sweet Adeline and Ginseng Sullivan through Amazing Grace were performed without microphones. Ginseng Sullivan and My Sweet One were performed acoustic. The latter evolved into a sing-along with the audience during the second verse.
JAM CHART VERSIONS
Stash, Esther, Bathtub Gin, You Enjoy Myself
TEASES
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy tease in Esther, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy tease in You Enjoy Myself, Theme from Shaft quote
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Review by Penn42
Punch > Sparkle is a nice way to open set two. Of the three '94 Gin's I have heard, this one is by far the best. It's quite energetic and has a nice peak. I really like it. Hearing Cities in '94 is odd. Considering that this is the only one played between '89 and '97, it's not a song associated with the era and it seems a little out of place, though it is a perfectly acceptable performance. YEM is fine, GGITS is fun, and the rest of the show is just fine and not really worth noting.
Highlight: The Curtain > Letter to Jimmy Page > If I Could, Bathtub Gin
Overall, a fun but far from essential performance from Summer '94.