Phish Starts their 2016 Halloween Run on a Good Note and their Destiny is Unbound leading Up to the Big Night.

After a couple of weird shows following triumphant runs in Nashville and Atlanta, Phish comes ready to play in Vegas.

  Phish starts their four night run at MGM Arena in high fashion. They played the exact opposite of what is to be expected. Our trip will not be short, unlike Page's sample states, from the opening set of the first night, it looks like we are in for a good run. The band is locked in and listening to each other. With the surprise bust out of "Beauty of My Dreams" and "Dogs Stole Things" to the uber-rare "Destiny Unbound" preceding a rare-ish "When the Circus Comes to Town" the band seems to want to make a statement to all the people who slagged off Texas and decided to skip the first couple of nights of the run. Word on the ground at the MGM was this afternoon, extras are plentiful and anyone that really wants to get in can.Those that put in the effort got a rare first set "Steam" and a really tight, well-played first set, concluding with "Walls of the Cave". 

The second set kicked off with the Phish rarity, "Crimes of the Mind" off the Dude of Life's album of the same name. They last played this in 2009 and normally play it with the Dude but the last few times they have busted it out have been Dude-less and  according to Phish.net "invokes the memory of such acts as T. Rex and Mott the Hoople". Teases for the Halloween album? Both of those artists were part of the glam-rock scene personified by David Bowie. It was followed quickly by an extended "Golden Age" whose Brooklyn-funk led into an extra long dark and exploratory jam that resolved into "Simple" that let the crowd explode. Trey and company rode the tension and resolution that makes each of their jams unique and makes the venue feel like its' about to achieve liftoff. Even if the venue happens to be an outdoor amphitheater. It's a Phish thing. I have to say that having bebop back in the band is an amazing feeling. They started fall tour on a shaky note but has gone mostly nowhere but up since Dick's. Listening to this fall tour has reminded me that Phish are still the best at what they do and even though they've been playing together for thirty three years, they still love playing together and it shows. The "Light" came pouring out of a very short "Simple" but the second set pushed the energy up from the first set and led to a monster jam that went off the reservation for sure. Chris Kuroda makes sure to add another element to the stew during this jam when Trey was making whale calls and the band was deciding what to play.

The deep "Light" jam went pretty far out and came back home to "Twenty Years Later" that they took for a spin and led to the Meters-esque, "Blaze On" in a fourth quarter spot. Ending with a "Squirming Coil" and a double"Bouncin'", "Bold as Love"(possible Halloweent hint) encore, night one bounced into the books as a win for sure.  

This weekend is going to hold some big surprises. I'm blown away that they played "Destiny Unbound and "Crimes of the Mind" in the same show. The first show of the run has set the bar high and the band is not giving any indications that they can't exceed those expectations. This weekend is going to be a great run of Phish shows and I can't wait to hear the arguments over which one of the four was the best. Excluding the Halloween set of course."Just ask the Axis"

Greg Heffelfinger

SET 1: Martian Monster, No Men In No Man's Land, Dogs Stole Things, Beauty of My Dreams, Destiny Unbound, Limb By Limb, Home, When the Circus Comes, Steam > The Wedge,Cavern, Walls of the Cave

SET 2: Crimes of the Mind, Golden Age > Simple > Light > Twenty Years Later > Blaze On, The Squirming Coil

ENCORE: Bouncing Around the Room, Bold As Love

This show was webcast via Live Phish. Trey teased San-Ho-Zay during No Men In No Man's Land and Sand in Golden Age. Dogs Stole Things was played for the first time since 06-17-2012 (182 shows). Beauty of My Dreams was played for the first time since 12-31-2010 (227 shows). Crimes of the Mind was played for the first time since 11-29-2009(283 shows).  thanks to Phish.net

© 2016 Grateful Music LLC

In the spirit of the Upcoming Halloween show, I Want to Take a Look Back at Some of the Bands Phish has Covered. An article including video of the live concert the album was taken from.

 Many people all have their favorite Phish halloween show. They more or less correspond to whether you were there. It also matters how big a fan you are of the band they covered. I love the Talking Heads and The Velvet Underground but I'm not a big Who fan. It's a tradition that even mainstream music media respect at this point.

Phish always surprises me with it's Halloween choices. I think the most inspired choice so far has easily been the Chilling Thrilling Sounds Disney album. The fact they had free rein and could interpret the vignettes as they felt like and had little in the way of a roadmap made up the perfect recipe for a Halloween costume. I will discuss the other choices later but today I wanted to talk about Waiting For Columbus. It was one of the top-selling albums of 1978 and is widely considered to be one of the greatest live albums ever made. This puts it in a different category than the other costumes. True, almost all have been double albums but that isn't a lock when trying to make a guess because Remain in Light and Loaded were both single albums. So was Dark Side of the Moon.  That's not technically a Halloween show but it was the next show and specifically played because so many people got shut out of Vegas and since Salt Lake City was undersold, they gave the fans a treat. This is a band that rewards those that go out of the way. I learned that lesson when my friends skipped Darien Lake to get to The Great Went early and I got to see the Merry Pranksters and the Furthur bus instead of driving up through New York and Maine and then sitting in line for forever like they did. Yes, I still sat in line but we ended up only about two miles behind them and had seen the "Prankster show" taboot. 

All the other albums they have covered have been double albums that were either extremely produced, e.g. The White Album or almost live like Exile on Main Street. I still don't know how I feel about the Halloween show where they played themselves in the future by playing Wingsuit which later became Fuego. It seemed like a live rehearsal and a way to test new material. Still, the show was pretty good but it wasn't their most creative choice. This is backed up by the fact that only a handful of tunes off of Fuego are still played but the Disney set songs have almost all been played again. I've long heard rumors that Fish and Trey want to do Loveless by My Bloody Valentine but Page and Mike aren't into it. I personally would love to see them do it almost as much as I would have loved to see them do Kid A, one of the finalists at Festival 8. But we will delve more into the Phish Halloween tradition in the next few days.

I don't know what it is about Little Feat. They have a rabid following but a lot of the younger people that were exposed to Phish in the 99'-04' era only heard them if they were looking through their parents vinyl for the worst album cover. Lowell George was a wizard who played with Frank Zappa but was told to leave because Frank knew he deserved his own career instead of being led by Frank, or the popular story of George writing "Willin'" which has drug references that the famously drug-free Zappa didn't approve of but that sounds far-fetched to me. They only had one big hit but they were incredibly influential, so much so that the Grateful Dead asked Lowell George to help produce a record for them. The results were, well, mixed at best. But Little Feat, has fallen into the crevasse of so many great bands of the 70's. All people remember is disco and singer-songwriter stuff like James Taylor or John Denver. At most the Eagles are a notable 70's band. Little Feat just doesn't have the familiarity with younger fans and I think that is why it isn't ranked higher in the Phish Halloween show power rankings. So for you listening pleasure, here is video of the actual concert most of Waiting for Columbus was recorded at. 

Greg Heffelfinger

 © 2016 Grateful Music LLC