After two straight shows that brought jams, creativity and excellent song selection, 12/30 had incredibly high expectations. Unfortunately, unlike many other 12/30 shows of the past, this one just had a lot missing.
The night started off with a ton of energy, brought to you by Punch You in the Eye. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: When a show starts with Punch You in the Eye it is bound to be a kick ass show. Well… in this case, it was hit or miss throughout the night. But for this song in particular, Phish had the Garden in an absolute frenzy. However, it was already apparent that Trey was off. In the first four minutes alone, he was flubbing notes that he would normally hammer out. At the time I didn’t think anything of it because, as we all know, Trey is prone to flubbing one second and then absolutely tearing the roof off during the next.
With excitement high, Phish pulled a strange one and went to Prince Caspian. I am a fan of the tune, and pretty much anything off of Billy Breathes, but it takes a certain placement for Prince Caspian to be effective. Coming after a straight up rocker like Punch took the life out of the building a little bit, but it was a cool segue. I had high hopes, but it was nothing out of the ordinary, and it didn’t help that it was followed by Backwards Down the Number Line.
While Phish might love playing Number Line, I am not particularly fond of it. Much like Caspian, it takes a certain placement in a set for it to work, as well as a jam that takes it to the next level. This had neither. The placement was awful and sucked whatever energy there was out of the building. Trey did add “Ella” into the lyrics in honor of Fishman’s daughter whose birthday was that day. But really, he should have added an extended jam segment to this otherwise flat version of an already completely played out song. It was barely 6 minutes long and had absolutely nothing interesting musically coming from it.
I remember thinking to myself, “it has to go uphill from here. Rough start…”
Phish banged out the rarity Nellie Kane, which was a pleasant surprise right before a killer Divided Sky. Suddenly I was right back into things with a huge smile on my face. Divided Sky was beautifully played as it usually is. As far as composed rockers, with possible jams go, this was placed at the right point in the night. At this point I knew jams must be coming in the second set.
But this Divided in particular eclipsed the 16 minute mark and was spot on. For any problems Trey was having finding notes during earlier songs, he was certainly on point during this one. The whole band was spot on during the composed areas of this song, and Trey’s solo from 10 minutes on is completely on point.
I pleasantly surprised to hear Sand start up after a long raging Divided Sky. For much of the summer, Sand was a huge jam vehicle with stand out versions in Portsmouth (stop/start with the jam reprised for several additional minutes) and Dick’s. Naturally I thought we were in store for a special Sand, but instead got one that was fairly short and standard, though well played. Either way, it had the whole building dancing and it was then that I noticed that you could literally feel the building shaking. Around the 6 minute mark, I thought it had potential to go deep into things. Trey was ripping the solo and the band was surrounding him with a steady, fast paced type one groove. It became a soaring ripper at about 7 minutes, and suddenly, around 8 minutes I could tell it might be winding down as Trey went right into the composed section of the song to finish it off.
It gave way to Vultures, another rarity, which was unfortunately flubbed. Trey straight up forgot a section of the song and began singing where there was supposed to be a jam. While a valiant attempt was there, it went for naught. It was cringe-worth, a shame it occurred during a favorite like Vultures. But it’s not like we haven’t seen Phish flub before, it doesn’t usually make for a bad time if there are some flubs. But these were straight up sloppy, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Coming right out of Vultures was a well played Rift, which kept the energy high. However, that energy was brought to an abrupt halt with Joy as the next song selected. What the hell was going on here? This set just didn’t make any sense to me, and had me feeling confused. The energy from the band and the crowd, as well as the quality of playing, was so up and down.
The set ended with Quinn the Eskimo and I can honestly say that it was one of my least favorite sets of the year. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time because I was at a Phish show, but it was disorganized and sloppy.
The second set started off with a standard Wilson, but definitely got the fans riled up for what we hoped would be a redeeming set two. Wilson led right into Axilla and I went nuts! That was until… the worst flub I have ever seen live by Trey. Wow. It was really bad. Trey even had to stop playing all together and lean over to Mike to see what key the song was in.
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. It was reminiscent of when he played Glide at Coventry. Not quite as bad, and certainly not as sad, but ughh. Fortunately, he turned it around and rocked out the rest of the song.
Funny, as I said before, how Trey can take a terrible flub one second and then cruise into some uncharted territory another second later. After cruising right through the rest of Axilla, Phish played the jam of the weekend with Piper.
This was over 15 minutes of top notch, quality Phish. In fact, it holds up on recording, but being in the building for it was another thing all together. This jam goes to outer space, with Mike throwing bombs (one nuke in particular) that shook the very foundation of Madison Square Garden. This was an all out effort by Phish that took us on a ride to another galaxy. At 5 minutes I knew it was starting to get special, with a lot of energy and an upbeat vibe. I was not prepared for the twisted journey it was about to take me on, though. Around the 7 minute mark, Page started playing the organ, along with looping a variety of other noises that translated into musical greatness. From 9 minutes until it finished up around 15 minutes is must hear Phish. Around 10 minutes I felt like the Garden was going to turn into a freaking spaceship and blast off.
It segued right into Twist, which was short and fairly uninspired especially after coming out of some incredible jamming. I really thought Piper could have gone with that jam for another 10 minutes or so, but I’m not up there on stage. Either way, this was the best segment of playing they had done all run, quickly following some of their worst.
After some crazy jamming, Phish went into straight up rocker mode with Julius and Golgi Apparatus. Julius got going pretty good, with Trey tearing through the solo, but otherwise it was fairly standard. 2001 followed and didn’t get jammed out hard, but there was some interesting work here with some stop/start jamming at the 4:30 mark. Fishman and Trey were on fire during this, calling and responding to each other. At about 5:20, Page starts going nuts on the keys and I was really diggin’ this jam. Fishman had a nice steady beat going and it had the potential for full lift off, but fell flat after the interesting, yet short jam… by segueing into Horse>Silent. There’s a time and a place for this and I can honestly say this wasn’t it.
David Bowie was up next and had a very cool intro, complete with Silent in the Morning teases. It was almost as if Trey was redeeming himself after aborting a jammed out 2001 to go into a poorly placed and played Horse>Silent. During Horse>Silent Trey had several miscues musically and lyrically, which was certainly the theme of the night. At one point he was just mumbling lyrics, clearly forgetting what to sing. Bowie was spot on, and was sounded fantastic at about the 7 minute mark. The whole band was on point in this one. Trey’s work is especially excellent in this one.
It was such a strange night for Trey. Times like this it was as if he turned the clock back, but others he seemed lost entirely. The set ended with a glorious Squirming Coil, featuring some great work on the grand piano by Page.
Phish encored with Boogie On Reggae Woman, which featured some serious work on the bass by Mike. This, while staying within the parameters of the song, is a must hear because of the energy displayed by Gordo. He has some great solos that had the whole Garden bouncing around. The night ended with Good Times Bad Times, which was fitting because this is exactly what this show offered.
Who would have thought that the best jam of the run would come during the show with the most miscues? Compared to the first two nights, which were outstanding, this one was a bit of a flop. But the Piper, Bowie, Divided Sky and 2001 make it worth listening to.
Comments