1993-08-16 St. Louis, MO

Axilla opener! *headbangs furiously*

Nice to revisit this one. Back when I didn't know diddly squat and was just listening to random various shows to get my Phish sea legs, this was one of the ones I played.

Now, I remember absolutely nothing about it except for some reason Reba is sticking out in my mind.

Let's do this.

Woah... 

Possum - What is this?! 13 minutes of signals galore, jammed out, bordering on Type II roadkill?!

Reba -

What is going on tonight. Never heard a Reba like this - after the complicated composed section, instead of going into that uplifting bliss jamming, they start doing oddball rhythmic playing (led by signals?) for a few minutes. Finally at almost 10 minutes in Page begins to slowly lead us towards heaven with his piano and everyone switches back to regular Reba gear on a dime. Sick.

They end up simpling teasing us however and they go back to more odd jamming for another minute or two before they decide to FINALLY give us that Reba bliss we all love and crave.

Overall a teriffic Reba. I won't say its my favorite or the best one ever, but it sure as well was totally unique and worth repeated listens! 

Foam - Another friggin' oddball version of a song tonight - by golly what were they doing this night....  

And we keep on rolling!

I Didn't Know - you guessed - friggin' jammed out.

What the heck

They do the song, then break out into a WASHBOARD solo for a few minutes before resolving it all with a short vocal jam al YEM.
#what.

And then we get Split Open and Melt. Probably one of the best ever, there's not much to say except that it's like pouring molten liquid magma directly into your ear canals for an all-too-short 12 minutes

And finally to end this monster first set is a gorgeous Squirming Coil with an extra lengthy Page solo to send us off to setbreak with our heads in our hand in disbelief of the greatness witness in the previous 90 minutes  

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*Brace yourselves, this was the greatest Mike's Groove I've ever heard and nothing even comes close*

8/16/93

Set 2 begins with a massive bang: a 32 minute Mike's Song>Faht>Weekapaug Groove

Mike's gets going immediately like you would expect it to. Cactus is layin' it down!!!! Do ya feel the thump in your chest yet or what?!
With Gordo on a rampage, Page takes his turn and lets loose with all kinds of sick organ sounds while Trey is ripping it up.

NOICE!

Eventually the full-on raging morphs into more Grateful Dead kind of full-band jamming (I don't know how to describe it, you know what I mean...). Just a couple minutes of everyone clicking together doing some good old fashioned classic rock style jamming.

After another minute or two this subsides and we return to the spooky organ dark jamming that characterized the first portion of this Mike's Song.

All throughout Trey is inserting lyrical melodic lines on guitar and Trey and Page often try (to varying degrees of success) to follow him up and down the fretboard - it's pretty impressive!!!

Around 12 minutes in we reach the major peak and HOLY MOLY BANANA JEEZUS KRIST THIS IS SOME STUFF RIGHT HERE!

Laying waste to the listener, they proceed to kill us all and then quickly bandage the gaping headshot wound with some blisfful ambiance out of nowhere.
Aaaannndddd cue Faht Perfectly on cue! It's like listening to one of those wonderful "thunderstorm background noise" tapes while you are trying to fall asleep, haha.   

The crowd laps it up and the rainforest sounds commence - LITERALLY RAINFOREST SOUNDS - did they play a tape or did they actually cue these noises live?!?!?!?!

After this hippie chill out, the boys suddenly come busting through the door with Weekapaug. Oh my god that was so sudden - its like they napalmed the Amazon or something And now we get 16 minutes of Weekapaug....

Cactus ripping up from the start, lots of slapping and lots of cool harmonics too!

Very shortly however everyone lands back together and for multiple glorious minutes the whole band is playing TOGETHER with noone actually really soloing!!! Pure group improv! WOW!!! They are building a composition on the spot, obviously acutely aware of and listening to each other. Insane.

Sure there are some awesome Fishman drum fill explosions and a burst of Trey exploding here and there, but for the most part they are just playing together in the best way. Very rare to hear I feel like. Lots of dynamics, everyone going up and down in unison....SICK!



Around 10 minutes in we morph out of this "classic rock GD full band" jam into a more abstract way of thinking with lots of stoccato picking and piano stabs. Lots of space, but not ambiance though. Cactus even gets to throw in a Possum tease for a few seconds Trey starts some melodic picking with Fishman keeping time on the highhat and Page following along on the keys.

This now has a kind of western vibe going on, and they could've run with this and evolved further, but then Trey gives us the Weekapaug theme and we know this train is headed back to the station. Slowly they build this reprisal jam one bar at a time building the intensity with each playthrough of the main musical motif until we are back to the main theme.

2 minutes to go and after this intense buildup, they cut us off before the peak and slam the volume back down low. The speed picks up but the guys are whispering to each other. Enough playing around already guys, GET ON WITH IT!

And get on with it they do - driving it all home and slamming us into the ground, dazed and unconscious, unable to comprehend life anymore.

Best Mike's Groove ever.

And into Mound....   

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So after that insane Mike's Groove, the remainder of the show is just a selection of well performed favorites and stage antics.

The Rift trio of Mound, Ice and Myfe bring the heat (or chill, rather) and after a nice Poor Heart we get another Big Ball Jam.

Take the A Train is very nice to hear, and Good Time Bad Times ends the show with a bang before Amazing Grace to encore.

One of the best shows ever, not just 1993. Mandatory listening.