I've had almost no good free listening time for about a week. Back in
Starbucks for a rainy afternoon once more with Live Phish Vol. 4 lined
up 
I'm no stranger to this gig - I've played it probably 5 times or so.
Definitely one of the best gigs of all time and crazy to think in 2000
they were STILL setting "benchmarks" in their playing....
This is one of those shows where I could go ahead and just list the
entire thing in bold as a "highlight" and not feel bad about it. It's
classic for a reason. If you don't like dark Phish, that's on you, but
this is one of those classic shows that is just X Factor Magic from
start to finish. It's a show EVERYONE can agree on. Overrated it is not!!!
Anywho, on to 6/14/00 Fukuoka
Set 1 -
Carini - Gnarly vibes from the outset. It just gives you "tonight is going to be different" feelings. Also notable for featuring the "ass/glass" lyrics
An excellent Type I Carini rager. Nothing super noteworthy in the grand
scheme of things, but it absolute gets the ball rolling in the best way
possible!!! 
Headbanger heaven!
The Curtain - Actually kinda jarring to get this in the 2nd slot after
that black-hole Carini!!! The dark-to-light dichotomy of the two songs
is like getting a gut punch (but in a good way, lol).
Excellently performed version that is tight and lacking of flubbage.
Feels more like an "interlude" though than anything majorly important.
>Cities - Totally unexpected segue!!! Took my by major surprise, lol. Extra slow and GROOVY
tonight! The dark "vibe" from Carini is back. Listening in these
Etymotics in-ear noise-cancelling earbuds is fantastic - Gordo is ALL UP IN MY BUSINESS! This is sticky, gooey, funky THICK! The
jamming starts right away around 3 minutes with Page honking it up on
his, what Fender Rhodes?? Very midrange, cocked-wah pedal sound!! Trey
is laying back and Gordo is just doing the thickness! This is total late-night groove-fest vibes. Like if they played Moma Dance at 2am as the secret set at a festival or something. Page's domination continues for a LONG time!! Up to 5:30 and Trey is still just quietly vamping in the background. But then they seamlessly head back into the Memphis verse and the crowd goes nuts, lapping it up!!! That first jam was incredibly PATIENT in the best way!! "IT" Chalkdust this was not!!! "Nothing Jamming" done right!!!! At 7 minutes, the back end of the jam begins. Things get very quiet and dynamic!!! Fishman
has started messing around with his cymbal patterns, changing things
up. Trey is doing honky little lead figures. Page has moved to piano and
Gordo is still laying it down. Around 8 minutes Trey hits the first
whale siren and the jam slowly winds down, heading for ambience. Page
still on piano and Fishman still riding those cymbals all the way to the
bank!!! The jam properly "concludes" and comes to a most natural of
endings. I would love it to have gone longer but they killed it at the
perfect spot. Sounded like a studio cut, almost.
Gumbo - Nothing like a jammed out Gumbo!!! If the trio of THICKNESS is Gumbo, Cities and Moma, well, at least we get 2 outta three back to back!!! Good golly miss molly does Cactus sound terrific tonight!!! Just thumping it up!! Right around 4 minutes things begin to go askew. Trey
records a loop with his Whammy pedal and then also signals a repeating
whale siren. Page in on the piano and Gordo is laying it down like Phil
Lesh, playing more lead than anything! Trey is still content to sit back
and let his hombres take front and center. Trey is just along for the ride, probably eyes closed, grin on his face, vibing it out big time. Throughout all this, the jam is very SPARSE!!! Fishman
is quietly keeping rhythm and doing little cymbal fills here and there,
but Page and Trey are slowly introducing some more melodic lines
instead of just "vamping". At 6:48 Trey hits on the Whammy pedal octave
up and starts picking out little lead figures. The whale siren is still
droning on in the background and things are getting darker and darker by
the second. At 7:24 Page re-enters, tinkling out some keyboard hits and
countering them with droning Meatstick-style synthesizer (Yamaha
CS80??). We are in Type II, dark-night, outer space groove land!
This is the kind of jam you put in your earbuds, close your eyes, and
just let the sound wash over your, taking you away.....At 8:52
the jam makes a SUDDEN left turn! Fishman introduces a new, more upbeat
pattern, which in turn leads to Trey starting to add in melodic lead
lines. Page is keeping it heavy and dark on the synthesizer, hitting
sustained chords and just letting them hold. Fishman turns the heat up
even more and we head into an uptempo funk-rock vibe, ala Fall 1997 or
something. By 10:30 we are slowly lifting ourselves out of the murk and heading for a Jimi Hendrix-style rock jam!!!
Trey is doing the "backwards guitar solo" thing, and the other guys are
vamping it out hard - Page back on piano and organ - as if we have just
left a Birds of a Feather or something!!!! Actually, this would be the perfect spot to launch into a Llama or BOAF if they wanted to!!! OH CRAP I DIDNT EVEN LOOK AT THE SETLIST AND FORGOT THEY PLAYED IT AT THIS SHOW!!! HOW PERFECT IS MY FORESIGHT?!?!?!
>Llama - WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!
I seriously forgot they played Llama at this show and seriously didn't
see it before playing today, so how freaking perfect is this?!?!? When
all is said and done, it's a killer little Llama, but like The Curtain,
it's not really anything that noteworthy. Cool as always to hear Trey
and Page going absolutely BANANAS together, haha. Killer.
Fee - Extended intro due to some major feedback issues (I'm assuming the megaphone?). As always, Page's piano playing is just effing exquisite! Lovely Type I version that ends in one of those patented "2012 Ambient-style" outros.
Heavy Things - Heavy Things is always just Heavy Things, but I've often said it's hard to find truly great live versions. The tempo/rhythm has to be just exactly PERFECT otherwise it will immediately sound "off". This
is one of the best live ones I've ever heard - comparable to the album
version, for real. I mean, it's a 10/10 version. For real. Just A++++
for the PERFECT performance. No, Heavy Things is not a
COMPLICATED song, but the subtleties are VERY important - if they aren't
nailed it's not great. When they nail it, they NAIL it! Does that make any sense? 
Crap, this version is so good they could've released it as a single if
they wanted to and I bet it might've had legs - similar to say, Paul
McCartney having 2 versions of "Coming Up", ya know?
Split Open and Melt - Oh yea, Carini and Melt in one set!! You know they are thinking "sideways" tonight! And the song portion is just about flawless. An absolutely terrific reading of the song!!! Right
around 5 minutes, the jamming begins. And as expected it's dark from
the outset. Page keeping it classy on the piano, front and center. Trey
is noodling around and Gordo is keeping the ship anchored. Around 5:50,
Fishman, Trey and Page all "sync" up for about 10 seconds very nicely,
listening to each other. That's always cool. The jam is just grooving
along in great Type I fare. Dark and brooding. Very slowly the jam builds intensity. Around 7:30 we begin to "turn the corner" into Type II. Things
are getting "wacky" for sure. Steady rhythm still, but Trey is being
very angular and jagged in his playing. Gordo is doing a nice repeating
motif on the bass. Lots of tension - I'm getting anxious listening to this!!! By 10 minutes, the maelstrom is brewing!! Things
are getting dark and NASTY!! This sounds like a hurricane on the high
seas and we are the ship heading right for the vortex!!! Definite "dark
storm" jamming! Around 11 minutes the Split pattern is STILL
hanging in there somehow (thank you Page!) but the guys are just
molesting the hell out of it. Trey doing his best 2003/2.0-style, rough
and ready guitar squealing and whatnot. By 12 minutes, you could say we
are firmly back into Melt, but we are also strongly riding the outskirts
of the song, slowly reapproaching home base with each pass of the
theme. INCREDIBLY COOL how they "return" slowly back to the song so SEAMLESSLY!!!! And with that, they bring it to a perfect close and Trey announces set break...
Wowzers!!! That was a BLAST!!! I LOVED being able to listen
"properly" to this for the first time!!! What a terrific set - damn near
perfect in vibe and song choice, balancing later-era songs with a few
very early songs, several absolute standout renditions (Melt, Gumbo, HT)
and THICKNESS for days.
A+++++++++
Set 2
Back On the Train - Set 2 begins with, I'm assuming, Trey messing
around doing squiggling on the keys (or is that some weird guitar loop
he set up?). Terrific Type I as usual, comparable to how good Heavy
Things was. This is the BOTT equivalent of that HT. It takes a very long
time for the jam to start to "stretch" out. We finally see hints of a
budding journey around 9:30 or so. VERY SLOWLY the band
works on changing up the scenery. It's still Type I, but new sounds and
patterns are being crept in, bit by bit. And it basically rides out like
this to the end. You'd never call this BOTT Type II, but they
definitely stretch the boundaries and come close to "launch" at a couple
points. Instead, they decide to keep it simple, not mess with a good
thing, and just give us one of the best BOTT's ever played. It's doing
Type I - it knows it's doing Type I. And they COMMIT to it hard, haha.
Great BOTT!!!!
Twist - BRING IT ON!! Immediately, the jamming begins with
a shift to a more quiet, jazzy mood (as expected), with Page hammering
his piano and Trey signaling a whale-siren loop at 2:55. By 4:45, Page
and Trey have fallen into a nice section of "call-and-repeat". Kinda
soloing off of each other, if that makes sense. Around 5:30, there
is some little change that happens and it signals us to begin heading
towards more blissful ambience. One of those "blink and youll miss it"
little things that can just turn the course of a jam on a dime.
By 6:30, the jazziness of Twist is slowly being left in the rear view
mirror. Page is still sticking with his piano, and Trey returns to
"echoing" Page's motifs. At 8 minutes they all sync up and start ramping up the rhythm out of nowhere! This
lasts about 10 seconds, and then we recede back into Twist-like
territory. The blissful ambience that was budding is now kinda turning
back towards slightly jazzier areas. Page is still on piano - not a
synth in sight! And Fishman has been keeping the Twist rhythms going
this whole time (basically), inserting appropriate cymbal crashes when
needed. Around 9 minutes, Trey begins doing cool sustained notes,
sounding like a bird in flight! This helps to bring a cool
quasi-ambient vibe, but we are still stubbornly holding onto the last
morsels of Twist for all it's worth!!! By 10:30, Trey is still
playing with his gorgeous "Divided Sky" sustained notes, while the
others fill out the rest of the soundscape as best as they can. Extremely cool section - you could edit this into a "track" if you wanted to! By 11:30 Trey is STILL doing his "sky sustains", but Page begins to introduce his Clavinet with wah pedal into the mix!!! Finally!! Fishman
and Gordo sound like they are trying to properly re-establish the Twist
theme, but suddenly at 12:25 the bottom drops out and we are into
ambience! Trey doing his high-pitch whammy pedal noodling, looper
still going strong. Page starts to fiddle with synths. Fishman is only
hitting an occasional cymbal or rim shot, etc. By 13:20 it's FULL
AMBIENCE. Good golly this is lovely!! This isn't dark like I thought it would be! This is actually very "positive" sounding!!!! Like
we are just calmly breathing in and out, letting the blue skies and
warm sunshine wash over us, cleansing us of our sins, haha. This is some
"Massage Session" ambience! By
15:30, slight "weirdness" begins to creep in. Trey is ramping up his
loopers and Page is leaning more into the synth textures. But then
at 16 minutes, Trey goes "enough!" and slowly builds back into the
Twist riff!!! And with that we are back into Twist proper! And at 18 minutes, the "Massage Session" Twist comes to a proper close with some ambient looper-ing to close it out....
>Fukuoka Jam #1 - So Twist came to a proper close. Hissing,
steam-like ambience at the outro. The guys, I guess, realize they don't
want to stop and instead begin to introduce more synthesizer layering
and cymbal rattling to keep the weirdness afloat!!! Pure, unadulterated, weirdo, outer-space ambience. This is NOT what you play for a first-time Phish listener! Very quickly, by 2 minutes, the jam has descended into full blown panic-attack-inducing darkness. This sounds like the jam we DIDN'T get in that opening Carini!!! All
whale sirens from Trey and synth sustains from Page. Gordo is holding
down the fort, just hitting a 2-note pattern over and over, keeping it
steady like in Sand or something. Fishman is going bonkers on the kit,
still doing his cymbal rattling, ala a psychedelic David Bowie/Maze
intro or something. By 3:36, Trey is still laying back, Page is hitting
those synths, and Mike has begun to "expand" the bass pattern he was
doing. Very slowly, things are maybe turning musical again, haha. By
5 minutes this is still continuing except Fishman is ramping up the
intensity. Trey is doing occasional "squiggles" and Page is doing synth
"stabs". At 5:35 we shift magically into an INCREDIBLY COOL funk base!!!! THANK
YOU MIKE AND FISH!!! Check out that effing funky bass line and drum
pattern. This is the kinda groove you sample and let loose on a hip-hop
track or something. By 6:30, the ambient squiggling is still going on full-force on top of this funky ridiculousness. I
have never heard anything like this (even though I've heard this
before, lol). SERIOUSLY, CHECK OUT THAT EFFING BASS GROOVE. HOLY
FREAKING HELL. By 7:45 Page is still going nuts with the synth
and Trey re-enters on the guitar, doing his best 1997 porno-vamping.
Slow-tilting wah pedal. Tasteful as hell. Page takes the cue and shifts
back to piano. We are finally in a proper, musical, jam once more. 1997 ain't got nothing on this!!! By 9 minutes, Mike is STILL
holding down that simple-yet-amazing bass motif, letting Page and Trey
slowly eek out ideas on top of the base. Fishman begins to introduce
accents along with Mike's groove (no pun intended!!!). Trey is doing
slow wah-pedal BURSTS that are freaking awesome. Guys, has anybody here NOT heard this yet? This is one of the best jams of all time, no cap, fam At 10:30, Trey starts mangling sustained GROANS out of his guitar. The tempo is slowly increasing and the funk jam is now walking instead of crawling. Everyone is in their element, just riding this wave that Mike created!!! ALL HAIL CACTUS! MVP OF THIS JAM!!!! This
is perfect tap-your-feet, zone out and jam to the groove music......By
12 minutes, things are still ultra-chill but also full of energy. This is "jazzy restraint" of the best kind. Just floating down the river of the jam.....By
13 minutes, the jam approaches something similar to the sounds of
Steam, if more uptempo (though still shuffley). Page starts playing the
piano more properly, adding in chordal stabs. Trey carefully let's
loose, picking and choosing his leads with the utmost aplomb. At
14 minutes Trey hits upon a motif and the other guys latch right on,
building the jam even further!!! ALMOST sounds like we could head back
into Twist if they wanted to. The drums are still too much of a
shuffle, but that's the direction we are building towards. At 15 minutes
Trey hits the distortion and gets my head a-bangin'!!! I'm sitting here in the middle of Starbucks, headbanging along with this jam, looking like a jerk. AND I DON'T CARE!!! By 15:30 the jam has turned into a sludgy, slow-build, heavy-metal STOMP!!! You
can hear the budding Walk Away coming from a MILE away!! THE BUILD UP
IS ONE THE GREATEST THINGS IVE EVER HEARD!!!! And the crowd seems to
pick it out well-ahead of the transition as well!!! Incredible!!!
BEFORE WE
CONTINUE - I MUST SAY - I AM NOT ONE TO JUST LISTEN TO JAMS. BUT THIS
SUCKER IS IMMEDIATELY GOING ON MY SHORTLIST!!!! THAT WAS ONE OF THE MOST
ABSOLUTELY PERFECT AND ENJOYABLE AND NEAR-FLAWLESS PIECES OF MUSIC I'VE
EVER HEARD!!!! I'M NOT RAVING ABOUT THIS HARD ENOUGH! THIS JAM DESERVES
5 MILLION EMOJIS AND CAPITAL BOLDING BIGGER THAN THE SEARS
TOWERS!!!!!!!! ABSOLUTELY MOTHER EFFING MUST HEAR!!! But you already
know that 
>Walk Away/Fukuoka Jam #2 - AND THE CROWD GOES NUTS! Love the slow-stomp, "Black Sabbath" kind of sludgy vibe to this one!!!! Oh golly does this sucker STOMP!!! This
Walk Away is like a steam roller. It's definitely "too slow", but
coming as part of the "context" of that jam, that is not important in
the slightest. What show had that "heavy metal" Wilson? Was that
Big Birch or something? This is like the Walk Away equivalent. Trey
doesn't even really shred it up or anything! The whole band is just
CRUSHING Fukuoka like Godzilla on a rampage!!!! Very cool final 30 seconds of ambient jamming with drums and piano keeping us grounded. At
this point we turn the corner into "Fukuoka Jam #2". This was not
"separate" like the Twist>Jam, so I prefer to think of this as a
jammed out Walk Away instead. I will refer to track times for FJ#2
though for the sake of simplicity. So by 2 minutes in, there is
no drumming or keys. Barely some bass "tapping". Trey is doing some
lovely CLEAN melodic chording!!! Very upbeat!!! The friggin' whale siren
looper is still going hard in the background. We are in full BLISS SPACE. We
are back to the Massage Parlor or something. Around 3 minutes Trey hits
upon a "bluesy" chord and the feeling changes. Page re-enters quietly
and carefully on piano, slowly placing notes as needed. Trey is letting beautiful feedback just squeal out of his guitar like Jeff Beck or something. I never thought moaning guitar feedback could be so RELAXING!!!! Wow. This is freaking NICE! The feedback slowly ends, the looper is still going, and Fishman is doing occasional tom-tom "rumbles". Tribalism reigns supreme! Page introduces some hissy synths (or is that Mike doing that?) that sound, yet again, like, well, steam, lol. Trey
is just laying back, letting quiet feedback fade in and out of the jam,
until Fishman starts rattling those cymbals and doing his best "Money For Nothing drum intro" fills. The intensity is picking back up and the feedback cries are becoming more and more labored. At this point the disc fades out....
>2001 - And into 2001 we go!!!!!!! Talk about a damn set-up for it though! Mike is doing great, keeping a steady one-note rhythm going yet again. Trey is noodling it up as usual for a good 2001 intro. The
intro jamming is so nice and when they finally build to the theme/peak
at 3:30 it's like the greatest "exhalation" ever. After all the building
up of the insane jamming, it's like the ultimate RELEASE! Like, "ok the, serious stuff is out of the way, let's just party the F out, yo!" . Fantastic! The Great Went "2001" will forever be among my top 5 favorite jams of all time (certainly favorite 2001!) but this one throws it's hat into the ring along with the Memphis '99 version as "best-ever/go-to" renditions for me! This
jam is outstanding!!! On the surface, it just sounds like "every other
great 2001", but if you really listen, there are a million little
awesome subtleties. LOVE the stop/start rhythm jamming that begins around 7 minutes. Check out Gordo take center stage just BOMBING it up! Also, you NEED to listen to this in headphones - the room AMBIENCE on the recording is like * chef's kiss * This
is one of those jams that sounds composed - everyone is in such perfect
sync, it's like they practiced this jam ahead of time or something.
They could easily release it as a standalone track if they wanted to. The
return to the 2001 theme near the end is one of the greatest build-ups
EVER. JUST SO FRIGGIN OUTSTANDINGLY PERFECT!!! It's like the ultimate,
perfected example of releasing tension!!! Ugh, just must-hear 2001.
Outstanding.....
>Sleep - A rare Sleep in the encore spot, by request. Very nice and good lord did we need the cool down!
The Squirming Coil - And here we go back to the "old songs/new songs"
theme! Not a terrific version. Trey is flubbing the hell out of it. But
hey, we all love a good Page solo to end an incredible night, so I can't
knock it TOO much - it was 2000 after all
All in all....no words. I knew it was going to be amazing, you know it's amazing. Read the damn review - or don't I don't care! This is hallowed ground. If you don't dig this show, I don't know what to tell you.
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