"Friday is for the fans, Saturday is for the bros, Sunday is for the band. Think about it." – Ancient Wook Proverb

DISCLAIMER: The author watched the webcast from his home last night, after smoking pure DMT crystals off a katana he got from Sharper Image, using an arc welder formerly owned by Tommy Chong. He had spent the week leading up to the show sending messages to other phish.net Working Group members about his plans to "brutally savage" Friday's show in this recap, promising "carnage" and expressing an intention "to tear the show a third asshole, since it's so full of shit it already has two." He apologizes for not getting this recap up sooner, but it's the World Cup quarterfinals for Christ's sake, give him a break.

Two big questions hung over the middle SPAC show like ominous twin stalactites, and both got answered with "hell yes, apparently." The first question was, is Phish ever going to play a good show this year. No, no, I'm just playing.

<
Photo by Dave Vann © Phish 2014. All rights reserved.

The first question was, how legit is "Fuego" going to be? We all were hoping. Each of us has his or her favorites, but it's fair to say "Fuego" was the consensus best-in-show and most-likely-to-succeed from the Wingsuit set. The band seemed to think so anyway, changing the name of the ensuing LP release to Fuego and slotting in the now-title track in the favored spot after "Auld Lang Syne" on New Year's Eve, like NBC premiering The A-Team right after the Super Bowl. It seemed designed to be the next "Down with Disease" or "Ghost," an open-ended jam that can carry an entire set on its shoulders. But there was no real jam on New Year's, and the other night's limp performance at Great Woods had some posing the disquieting question whether "Fuego" was going to be "DwD" or "Ghost," or if it was more like "Walls of the Cave," which gets plenty fiery but apart from some early exploratory versions has always colored reliably within the lines.

But there was no need to worry, and now those of us that did maybe feel a little silly. Remembering that Phish doesn't go far out when it plays "Down with Disease" in the first set either, the Great Woods performance was no omen. Sure, last night's "Fuego" eased into the chilly evening waters with almost comical hesitancy, feinting and building, probing and dying down. But they stayed with it, and then as often forms the basis of great Phish improvisational moments these days, Trey found a simple ascending progression and the band surged patiently to a deliberate but awesome peak. I actually found the subsequent "Down with Disease" more satisfying than the "Fuego," but they've been playing "Disease" twenty years as opposed to eight months, so this is no slight on the first exploratory "Fuego." I am sure we will get many more over the next few weeks.

Photo by Dave Vann © Phish 2014. All rights reserved.

The rest of the second set was your basic throwdown, without ballads or breathers, along the lines of the third show from last fall's Hampton run. A spare and patient "Twist" didn't overstay its welcome but gave way to "Light" – why does Trey have trouble finding the right key at the start of "Light"? – which did what "Light" does, generating huge momentum through weird harmonics. "First Tube" was the sledgehammer driving the last spike.

Which brings me to the second question: this no covers thing is for real, huh? Yeah, homie, it appears to be. Don't quibble like a pedant about "The Star-Spangled Banner." It's essentially a traditional like "Auld Lang Syne" and they do it once a year on a particular day. It doesn't count. Other than the odd exception of "Funky Bitch" Phish hasn't played a cover since the "Sneaking Sally" encore that closed Phish.net's consensus favorite show of last year.

And this year it's not just no covers. No Gamehendge songs except for "Possum," which isn't really part of the narrative anyway. Also and more significantly, no Junta songs. No "YEM," though tonight seemed poised for a big one following "Theme." We haven't seen my personal second-favorite Phish song "David Bowie" close any first sets. Again, they could have gone that way Friday night, but they turned left with "Split Open and Melt" instead. No "Divided Sky" or "Fluffhead" or "Golgi." Nobody can imagine all these songs staying out of the rotation for long, but Trey has talked in interviews about the frustrations created by such a large repertoire, with too many children vying for the attention of an older, less intense band that plays fewer shows these days. If limiting the repertoire, even arbitrarily, is a way to keep the band focused, I say roll with it. As long as they're playing music together Phish is always going to play awesome jams, and it's okay with me if those jams come out of "Fuego" or "Seven Below" or "Twenty Years Later" rather than "Crosseyed" or "Rock and Roll" or "Golden Age."

I'm not going to assign last night's show a number. You could quibble with certain things. Sure, the first sets could be stronger, more improvisational. I am not going to defend another lifeless "Moma Dance" at this point and I can take or leave "Kill Devil Falls" and I have hated "Rift" forever. The "Jim" and "46 Days" were perfunctory. But the "Reba" jam was gorgeous, with burbling melody and surging in temperature until its brutal Fishcording. And take your hat off to the tone-perfect 1993-era closing sequence, with a dark and viscous "Split" jam (listen to Page!) that even stuck the landing, then the brisk early-morning jog and long cooldown of "The Squirming Coil." It has come to my attention that some people think "Coil" is a buzzkill, and you can't see me but I'm shaking my head at all of you right now. Don't like "Backwards Down the Number Line" deep in the fourth quarter? I'm not going to fight about it, but today actually is my birthday so I'm pretty sure Trey was playing it specifically for me. This version actually raged, also. Bottom line, this was a very, very good Phish show, right up there with the best of last fall's incredibly strong nor'easter.

Photo by Dave Vann © Phish 2014. All rights reserved.

CHEERS to Jon Fishman, who is playing his ass off, dictating the scope and tempo of jams, slowing "The Moma Dance" to a crawl, which didn't really work, but later catching "Split" on the hook of his wrecker and dragging it bodily into the swamp, and shutting the place down by bringing a little New Orleans (or maybe Nashville) to a swaggering "Character Zero."

CHEERS to Chris Kuroda, constantly reinventing himself to the point where it's not clear if he's an obsessive perfectionist or just gets bored easily. He's now rocking four stations across the stage, one for each band member, with a horizontal grid up high and a rack descending vertically toward the floor, plus big racks on each side. Last year's setup is gone. His go-to look last night seemed to be big, bold horizontal stripes of immaculate color across the white backdrop.

JEERS to vodka-enthusiast turd man Billy Joel for too many reasons to count, but I guess if his oafish self-regard leads Phish to a career reinvention by focusing on their own idiosyncratic repertoire, then possibly also CHEERS to Billy Joel, America's beloved "Piano Man."

JEERS to the LivePhish app, last updated during the Eisenhower Administration.

CHEERS to the Randall's tickets sitting next to me on the desk.

Read more...