There are 23 highlighted versions of David Bowie played between 1993 and 1995. There are 8 highlighted versions of David Bowie played in EVERY SINGLE OTHER YEAR OF PHISH'S CAREER COMBINED, three after 1995, zero in 3.0. The thing is that this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone - Bowie's travails in 3.0 are well-known (though, if you look at the jam chart, perhaps a *tad* overblown - the idea that this Bowie is the first Type II Bowie of 3.0 is patently false), and everyone knows that the mid-90s was the domain of Bowie, right?

But I think that that well-known fact/opinion is the POINT of thinking about David Bowie, much the same way that we think about Stash, or Antelope, or 2001 (the most tailor-made cover for the late 90s imaginable). I went back and looked at both Stash and Antelope's charts (and Maze, for that matter), and it holds true for those bastions of tension-and-release as well - the absolute majority of highlighted versions being played in 1993-95 (sometimes 1996), and a paucity of highlighted versions elsewhere (shoot, even in a peak year like 1997, there are precious few highlighted versions of any of those songs in that year). And I think that what that really tells you, more than anything else, is a) the methodology of the band in those days, and b) how totally glove-like the fit was for those songs to that era. When you have a band that made a science out of atonality and dissonance and pure shredding from its frontman, *of course* a song like Maze or Bowie's gonna thrive in that atmosphere. And when you move away from all of that and towards a more minimal or more full-band style of playing, then you'd have to expect those versions of songs to suffer. I'm not sitting here saying a 2013 Bowie has as much to offer as a 1997 Bowie, so much as I'm saying that neither of those has as much to offer as a 1994 Bowie, and it shouldn't be a big deal. And yet we still have yearly funerals for all of these songs, and it's kind of a shame, because I still like hearing them quite a bit, even if they don't match the heights of 12/29/97's Antelope or some such.

Anyway, this version's pretty good. One of the reasons why 12/31/15 III is a super set.