Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Phish's Lemonwheel Festival was the Third Festival Held at Loring AFB and it's Anniversary was yesterday and the Day Before.So We Are Going to Wrap Up the LAB anniversary's Today: Soundcheck, Both Shows, and Ambient Jam shows at the Bottom

Phish played the third festival, Lemonwheel, at Loring Air Force Base yesterday and the day before. So let's wrap up the trilogy shall we?
All three show plus soundcheck and ambient jam below

The Lemonwheel Festival was the third of the three at Loring that all took place on the same couple of dates, three years in a row. Then came, Osweago and Big Cypress, etc. I have to admit I didn't attend this one so I don't have the intimate knowledge of this one like I do the first two. Lemonwheel was a special fest because it had attendants making candles all weekend, the band played an ambient jam surrounded by hundreds of candles during the fourth set of Saturday and the band lit a fuse that lit up a tower near Page. I'll leave the surprise until the end of the article. 



The band played seven sets over the three days of the festival. This festival had other, unlike the other festivals, acts like Keller Williams,  Manic Mule, and returning was The Gordon Stone Trio, and The Miracle Orchestra.  There was also skywriting, people on stilts, jugglers, wandering minstrels, an elephant, and the Garden of Secret Pleasantries. This garden contained a five-story Port-a-Let Pagoda, crawling tubes,viewing mounds,smoking huts, and prayer temples. It also had a changing garden of stone statuary, a walking pipe that led to a waterfall which fed into a pool with a lemon tree in it. This pool cooled off rocks that were heated in an ember pit by artisans. They also had a walk-in bird nest and a coterie of artists and craftsman and a whole lot more. They spared no expense to please the fans. Let's not forget the Ferris Wheel. I didn't ride that until Festival 8. The whole campground was laid out like a figure eight or the infinity shape, depending on your view or state of mind.



Photo by: Cliff Shubs

Three sets each for two nights plus the "ambient jam" and the attendance was about 60,000. Once again, it also made the festival one of the biggest city in Maine for the days it was open. On Sunday night, during the "ambient jam" the band used the propane fueled pagoda flames to light a fuse that burned up and around the stage, twisting and turning in spins and then out of the right side of the stage and along the perimeter fence when it reached the elephant "statue". It was spotlit from the stage and smoke came out of the bottom of the elephant who then raised it's trunk and sprayed water into the air appeared to howl, which was Fishman with a trombone, who was joined by Page, then Mike, then Trey on drums who started to play "Baby Elephant Walk" and fireworks blew into the air behind the perimeter fence. The elephant, named Lee, began to move through the crowd led by men on stilts and others carrying tiki torches the length of the site with the crowd gathering in behind it, while it went into the campsite and continued to walk around until about 3 in the morning.

Phish.net makes the connection of continuity and movement from The Clifford Ball, The Great Went, The LemonWheel. Ball, Went, Wheel. Draw your own conclusions.

Written by:Greg Heffelfinger

 Friday, 08/14/1998
Loring Commerce Centre, Limestone, ME



Set 1: Funky Bitch, Ginseng Sullivan, Back at the Chicken Shack, Jam, She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride, Dog Log, Down Home Dirty Blues, I Gave My Love a Cherry, Please Send Me Someone to Love 



 Saturday, 08/15/1998
Loring Commerce Centre, Limestone, ME



Set 4Ambient Jam

 Sunday, 08/16/1998
Loring Commerce Centre, Limestone, ME


EncoreHarry Hood -> Jam[3] -> Baby Elephant Walk
[1] Unfinished.
[2] Alternate lyrics referring to "Bob Weaver."
[3] Fish on trombone.
Teases:
· Sexual Healing tease in Run Like an Antelope
· Crosseyed and Painless and Super Bad teases in Also Sprach Zarathustra
· Jean Pierre tease in Possum
(setlists courtesy of phish.net)
Lemonwheel soundcheck
Lemonwheel 8-15-98
Lemonwheel 8-16-98
Lemonwheel Ambient Jam



































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