2012-08-31 Commerce City, CO - F Your Face

Anywho, it's an absolutely GORGEOUS day here today. About 55 degrees and full sunshine. Normally I'd be at the park with my acoustic on a day like this (no work this afternoon) but I jammed for about an hour before I left home so I quenched that thirst.

In Starbucks for the afternoon just to get out of the house and I'm finally at the legendary Dick's 2012

I've never wanted a show to live up to the hype as much as this one, haha. If I'm not blown away I will be bummed


But enough babble! Onwards we go!!


8/31/12 Commerce City, CO

Set 1 -

First Tube - When was the last FT opener? I'm sure there was one recently (in 2012) but I can't recall when. For the sake of not ending up highlighting everything ( ), I'll say this opening First Tube is great but nothing we haven't heard elsewhere. Great stuff, terrific way to bust open the doors on a show. Love the energy and the crowd is reacting to it audibly.

Uncle Pen - Fantastic! Great solos from everyone, including two bass solos! This is the first one since 2010 and only the 4th of 3.0 so far.

Carini - Ok, first big-leaguer of the night! Let's go! By 7 minutes, it has been raging hard and has already been through the usual level of darkness you expect out of an early 3.0 Carini. But by this point it shifts into uplifting, blissful jamming for a good while. Everyone feel the good vibes, haha (who would ever think I'd say that during a Carini?!) Great part around 8 minutes where everyone syncs up - Page, Trey and Mike all hit upon a repeating motif and jam it out pretty good. By 9 minutes nobody is really soloing on top - they are playing together as one and it's pretty damn excellent. Trey starts playing with his pedal effects and it sounds like he's searching where to go. At 10 minutes it sounds like the boys have reached a typical conclusion and I can guarantee you that if this was any other show, this is the point where Trey would've moved them onto something else. But thankfully instead, he pushes onwards like a good 1.0 jam and keeps it going!!! Some ambience creeps in (bass echoes!!!) and then Fish and Trey start doing a great rhythmic kind of pulse-based jam. Eventually Page takes over the pulse and Trey let's it rip, getting in the first almost-shredding of the night. This goes for a driftless minute or so before the jam dies it's death finally with the usual minute or so of ambience we have come to expect from 2012 jams. This is a weird jam - it's not very cohesive. There is great stuff happening at moments and it feels like they are trying to go "next level" but falling short. Actually kinda frustrating. It's a bit scatterbrained. I don't want to say I'm disappointed by this Carini, but maybe I need to lower my expectations....

>Kill Devil Falls - Did anyone figure out the setlist gag by this point? The song itself is hot as always but Trey sounds a little out of it at times almost having arrangement problems. Not best version of the actual song. I do love the great jamming that starts around 3:45 though when they start "whispering" the chorus and playing at a more subdued pace!! Very cool and dynamic! It allows them to build to a peak rather than "blowing their load", so to speak, right from the start. Great call, guys! By 6 minutes we are into the typical KDF Type I Rage Fest we all expect. And they carry that out to the end. Great version, but like First Tube it's really nothing we haven't heard before. Nothing wrong, but nothing noteworthy at all.

After this there is some nice banter from Page followed by the crowd roaring "WE LOVE DICKS! WE LOVE DICKS! "


You Enjoy Myself - So who the hell expected YEM so early in the first set, eh? I'm sure in person that knocked people out!!!! Trey sounds well-practiced, and I gotta say this YEM has knocked the level of the show up quite a bit from "things seem normal so far" to "ok, something special is going on " For real though, the composed song-portion of this is performed really, really good tonight!!!!! By 12 minutes, this YEM is raging hard as expected. One of the best true bass solos I've ever heard Gordo shred out. And into the Vocal jam at 15:30. As with Drums/Space on Dead shows, I usually always skip the YEM vocal jam unless I have some special reason not to. Tonight's "we all love dick's" series of chants is the reason not to. A little shorter than maybe expected for a YEM, but an absolutely TOP-NOTCH reading of the song!! Absolutely LOADED with piss 'n' vinegar, and a flawless reading of the complicated sections to boot. Terrific!



So far in the show, the first four songs sounded "tentative", so to speak. Nothing poor or anything, but nothing special at all, really, despite Carini trying REALLY FREAKING HARD (A+ for effort on that one!!) and Uncle Pen having some great soloing. The "vibe" was just....off. Not right. But with this You Enjoy Myself, I don't know what the hell happenned, but the VIBE has been fixed and things are as they should be. It feels like a switch was flipped, like they were nervous but have finally settled in and shaken off the nerves. Or something like that. Very interesting. I mean, the first four songs had me going "Oh no, this isn' going as expected". But YEM has totally reversed that. Thank. Christ.


Ocelot - Yes, thank you lord, the "vibe switch" was not a fluke....Absolutely wonderful Ocelot. Very TIGHT and punchy tonight, less overtly bluesy than the St. Louis one a few days prior. But just as I say that, I might as well delete what I just typed - Trey takes it down slow and dirty, coaxing sweet nothings out of his Languedoc, one beautiful, measured note at a time. No shredding yet - this is wonderful patience! The band is having a ball behind him, slowly raising the intensity measure by measure, while Trey still takes his sweet time enjoying this Ocelot for all it's worth. He's making sweet love to this Ocelot (beastiality alert!!!)!!! By 6:30 though, Trey shifts gears into more usual Type I rager territory and starts to shred it out, finally. By 8 minutes he's into full on Rock God mode. Did I hear a friggin' sweep?! No it's not a 1997 Maze volcanic eruption, but I can't think of many other Ocelots that get this melty!!! A+ Ocelot!!!


Undermind - Ah yes, let's get the party started!!! Things go as normal until 5 minutes when the X Factor kicks in. Trey introduces this kinda latin-style thing and the band just goes off. It's not far from the usual Undermind motif, but it's definitely something different and by 6:45 we are firmly on some other plane. It's not like we went to outer space or have gone into some crazy funk jam or something, but they have gone down some rabbit-hole subtly that is just different enough to make you perk up and go "oh hold on, what's this, this is unusual..."!!!! Trey is the main soloist for now, but everyone is "vamping" excellently. Love how audible Cactus is in tonight's mix. I can actually hear him for once! By 8:30 we are in the thick of some of the best Type 1.5-style playing I can remember. Everything is clicking. Every note everyone is playing is "correct". There is magic happening. This feels NATURAL, does that make any sense? There is no sense of trying to force a jam here. This is the total opposite of that Carini. Great "dual" soloing by Page and Trey around 9:30-10:30. Things are very blissful and major-key, but there is lots of tension in the music. It's definitely building. Around 10:30 Trey jumps onto his Whammy pedal for some interesting textures. Page is on the piano doing beautiful plonking and Fishman is doing rhythmic cymbal fills out the wazoo. The boys are climbing. Steadily and swiftly! As they slowly build ever-higher with each passing second, Trey starts doing some of those Camden 99 Chalkdust sustained notes (you know what I'm talking about) and we start almost getting Light vibes. Around 13 minutes spends about a minute doing some great trilling-style motifs. Page joins in and Fishman gets in doing lots of snare rolls! By 14 minutes we have reached a goosebump-inducing, 1.0-style rock and roll peak! If only they kept it going! My cheeks are tingling and the hair on my arms is standing up. THIS WAS WITHOUT A DOUBT THE GREATEST UNDERMIND PLAYED TO THIS POINT AND ONE OF THE BEST JAMS OF THE YEAR, IF NOT 3.0 SO FAR!!! ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE, INCREDIBLE, INCREDIBLE!! MUST-HEAR!!!!


By this point it appears people have figured out the gag as they start yelling "F YOUR FACE! F YOUR FACE"


Runaway Jim - And if the greatest Undermind ever played wasn't enough, here we go into a 20 minute Runaway Jim. The boys waste no time getting down to business. The jamming begins around 5:30. Fishman is going absolutely bananas, playing more in 30 seconds than Neil Peart does in an entire Rush album! (That's a compliment to both! ) At 7 minutes, Page starts doing some piano noodling that acts as a "signal" to lead the boys into another direction. And by 7:30 it's clear that we are taking this Jim for a walk off the beaten path! A darker, slightly funkier vibe starts to happen - almost a sped-up Twist kind of feel. Lots Trey vamping and Fishman annihilating the cymbals. By 8:30, ambient keys have crept in, but Fish and Trey start jamming rhythmically, turning us more towards a Taste-type of feel. Actually, if they wanted to, this would've been a perfect chance to jump into that song!! 9:20 and Gordo latches onto Fishman for a repeating motif before Trey takes back the spotlight for a spot of soloing. Things start getting darkly nasty around 10 minutes, with Trey doing lots of sustained feedback and guitar squealing, ala Fall '97. It's not that volcanic yet, but we are definitely heading out there. And FAST. By 10:30 I'd say Runaway Jim is firmly a thing of the past and we are into Type II for real (if we haven't been for several minutes already!!). At 11 minutes, a full on rhythmic funk jam happens, guided by pulsating pounds from Page on the piano and Trey on the wah pedal. Unfortunately, as with Carini, this jam is very disjointed in a bad way and takes a while to coalesce. Finally at 12:30 on the dot, Page jumps to the clavinet and Fishman finally finds his new rhythm. Hot and tight, the boys do an awesome stop-and-start jam. We spend quite a while at Page's House, with Trey content to let Leo lead while he does the vamping. By 14 minutes the keys become very "aquatic"-sounding and Trey messes with his delay a bit. Gordo comes more to the fore and somehow we QUICKLY (and seamlessly!!!) shift into a very ethereal-sounding vibe!!! Very late 1.0 vibes. By 14:45 Page returns to the piano and the "stomping" rhythm begins to build the jam again slowly like in Undermind. Trey takes this time to jump back to the front, throwing out those 1999 sustained notes again. By 16 minutes, the boys are back into a good "straight ahead" rhythm and Trey is just carefully placing notes on top the explosive backing his bandmates are providing. It's like Trey is in his bedroom, practicing over a backing track, taking his time with his playing. All throughout, Fishman is just annihilating the kit. By 17 minutes we've arrived in Blissful Peakville, smiles and sunshine included!!! The bliss subsides a tad by 18 minutes but not completely. Trey has reverted to rhythm "slashing" on his axe. Nobody is soloing really, unless you count Trey's noodling over this ambient outro. God, the boys really loved their ambient outros in 2012 - someone compile me a mixtape of them, NOW! The jam winds it's way down less-than-perfectly. This wasn't as "magical" as the Undermind and had more in common with Carini, if anything, but I mean, a friggin' 20 minute Runaway Jim is absolutely nothing to slouch at. Fantastic in every way, just not "magical", so to speak.


Farmhouse - First cool down of the night and well deserved, I must say! Terrific version of the song, check out the friggin' "Divided Sky" sustained note Trey hold for like a minute straight. Killer. Also, Gordo is taking this friggin' Farmhouse out for a WALK. By 6 minutes, the song comes to an abrupt end. But this is not just another Farmhouse outro. We go full Type II, 1999, Whale-siren, outer-space!!! AND NOONE IN THE CROWD WILL SHUT THE F UP! WHY?! STOP TALKING YOU IDIOTS! THEY ARE MAKING SWEET MUSICAL MAGIC! SHUT THE F UP!!! At 9 minutes, something that should never happen in a "typical" Farmhouse happens. Out of the dark, jungly ambience we have slowly drifted into, Trey starts doing some wah-infused playing around. Have you ever heard the U2 song "Zooropa"?? Picture the intro of that song as played by Phish. Or something like that. What. But the drums never begin yet and we are just drifting slowly and tensefully through this dark swampy ambience. What. If this was any other show, I guaran-friggin'-tee the boys would've launched into 2001 at this point. But instead....


This was incredibly weird. The actual ambient jam wasn't anything special musically, it was just ridiculous that they did it out of a friggin' Farmhouse. I'm not trying to be a snarky hipster, but the "trying too hard" vibes are shining through this one. But I mean, A++++ for effort and actually trying to so something awesome, so I can't fault them. If there was ever an "unnatural" Phish show, this is it, so they get a pass, ya know?

>Alaska - Out of that totally-out-of-left-field-and-not-really-great-but-must-hear-for-being-unique-Farmhouse-meltdown, we head into Alaska. Probably the last song anyone wanted or expected at this point (nothing against the song, just saying!). This Alaska is great. It's basically Part 2 of that magical Ocelot we got earlier in the show!!!! There's not much to say - it's Alaska, it kills like every other version of Alaska, haha.

Chalkdust Torture - The song portion is absolute balls-to-the-wall-1996-fire-in-your-ears-insanity like we are back the the Clifford Ball. Headbanger's Paradise!!! At 7 minutes they guys hit upon an, i'm assuming, pre-planned transition and launch us into the extended jam we are now expecting at this point in the show. Uptempo and funky, great rhythm work on the cymbals by Fishman. Trey is vamping it up again with Page while Gordo seems to be trying to solo unsuccessfully. Finally around 9 minutes he kicks on the effects to start jamming it up, only for Trey to step all over him and take the solo spot instead, haha. Poor Cactus, give him a hug, please! At 10 minutes Fishman returns to a more straight ahead rhythm and it almost sounds like we are going to go back into CDT proper, but instead Trey leans into the bliss and we start heading elsewhere. We have returned to the land of Sunshine and Daisies. Page is playing nice background leads on the keys, Trey is soloing it up sweetly and Fishman is still exploding behind the kit, haha. Around 12 minutes there is a PERFECT moment of synchronicity where EVERYBODY hits upon a motif and "syncs up" in unison for a while! It's awesome!!!! From here we just start peaking forever. Page sounds like he's trying to steer us in different directions at times, only to be "denied" by the others. Lots of building upon motifs at this point, just soaking it all in and vibing ourselves to the heavens. By 14 minutes, if you don't have a smile on your face from such major-key playing, well, I don't know what to tell you! By 14:30 Trey is vamping a nice little repeating rhythm figure again and the other guys start to build upon it again. This is like having Bob Weir as lead guitar instead of Jerry, lol. But then just as I thought the guitar solo-proper had left the building, Trey returns to the front and starts almost-dueling it out with Page. It sounds like a peak of sorts starts to happen around 16:30 when Trey starts a repeating descending lick. This signals a change in sound. Trey starts playing with his delays and everyone gets a lot more aggressive with their playing. Lots of "Star Wars Sound Effects" going on from Trey! But Trey lets this fizzle out into the expected ambience once more. Page is playing quietly on the keys and Fishman finally drops out completely. A quick and unjust death for a monster in progress.....Great jamming but definitely felt like there was more to the "story"!


Emotional Rescue - In all seriousness, what did everyone friggin' expect? Esther at this point?! A GREAT choice of song to play that gets the party GOING again!!! It's only 6 minutes?!?! BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY NO JAM!?!?!?! What was here was excellent!

>F Your Face - The F Your Face everyone was surely expecting at this point! And it destroys. As expected. What else is there to say?

Grind - Any other show and it wouldn't be noteworthy, but in context it's just hilarious they actually did this. They friggin' played a set that spelled F YOUR FACE, followed by the song F Your Face itself, followed by a song whose title alludes to oral sex, followed by a song called....Meatstick. Like. Dude.

Meatstick - And of course, the one, the only. How could they NOT?! Meatstick is Meatstick. Perfect closer to the show.



All in all....I'd say this show mostly performed to my expectations. For sheer BALLS and effort-taking, this is definitely worth the high ratings. Musically, many of the jams felt forced (which I mean, is expected, considering they needed to extend the sets) but they certainly tried their darnedest.

In my opinion, here's the real shortlist for this gig:

You Enjoy Myself
Ocelot
Undermind (Jam of the show for me, bar none)

Of course the 20 minute Jim and CDT were nothing to slouch at, obviously, but while the song portion of CDT felt like absolute perfection, the jams in both felt they were having to work at the jams, so to speak, rather than them being super natural (does that make any sense? Am I just crazy?).

In conclusion, this show is legendary for a reason. If you just shut up and listen without trying to over-analyze everything (like me), this show will blow you to hell and back. As for being an "outlier" in 2012, I'd actually say, song lengths excepted, it's very representative of the 2012 sound and style. Like most 2012 shows, every friggin song ended with a damn minute or two of ambience that goes nowhere, the jams consistently were full of energy but Trey still sounds very unsure of himself at times (or he's trying purposefully to hold back), and while the songs are played terrifically, the jams often were not as "natural" as they need to feel yet.

These are not knocks, don't come hating. Just observations after playing through the year to this point.

So glad to have this one under my belt finally!