2021-09-29 Pittsburgh, PA - J.F.A.T.

 Onwards to the first actual "Jon Fishman's Almost Tab" show, lol


After a surprise acoustic show in Columbus on 9/28/21 while Trey got stuff sorted out, we get Jon in to save the day for the rest of the tour.

9/29/21 Pittsburgh

Set 1

46 Days - Um, a 21 minute version to open the show?! Ok! Ultra red-hot until around 5:30 when things go Type II and get whacky! Ray and Trey are playing around with blip-bloop delays and stutters, feeding off of each other. Extremely cool and "goopy" sounding again (my new favorite word, lol). Fishman and Dezron are keeping that damn groove going almost better than if Cactus were playing. This is incredibly sick. You've never heard 46 Days GROOVE like this. Around 8 minutes, Ray starts doing extended holds on the organ and the vibe gets dark. Trey breaks out the RoboWah5000 and honks it the hell up for a long time. Dude, this is already one of the greatest versions of this ever played. This is incredible.
Around 9:15, he sets a cool loop of his wah pedal playing then proceeds to use the RoboFrogDeluxe on top of it, so you get this water, wacky "wobble" sound on top of his already-going robot looper!!! Trey then moves on to doing textural sustains and holds atop all of this. And the GROOVE KEEPS GOING!!! Around 11 minutes, Trey loops this new sound, then returns to his normal clean tone to solo on top of it. At 11:30, everyone syncs up onto a new pattern!!! God, I love live music for moments exactly like this.
Around 12 min, Ray begins a cool descending organ motif. Trey latches on and jams this new pattern. This sucker is growing and evolving and moving! Around the 13 minute mark, Fishman is switching up his drumming, adding in new fills and beats, giving some more "oomph" to this already-red hot rocketship. By 14 minutes, Trey is back on the RoboWah and this jam is getting HEAVY! It's still grooving like a mother, but it's developing a WEIGHT to it! Let me put it like this, you will be headbanging......
Around the 15 minute mark, Trey discovers a new motif and this leads the whole jam back into a kind of "raging Type I" area once more. His guitar tone is clean - no wah, no Robot, and he's just tearing it up all over these disgusting grooves. But then at 17 minutes, he kicks back on the robohonker and EVERYONE starts playing together on the motif once more. The wah comes back at 17:30 and it sounds like this thing is heading for liftoff. Fishman is ANNIHILATING the kit.
By 18:30, the delay pedal returns and we are flying through outer space on a funky, 1973-style rocket ship to the stars. Then at 19 minutes, Trey sneaks in the 46 Days lick and leads the band seamlessly back into a reprise of the song, bringing this incredible, must-hear, MASTERPIECE of a jam to an incredible, hose-peak, EXPLOSION of a finale!

 

I had to take a breather after that opening 46 Days. Literally one song into the show and I needed a break!

Picking back up....


Set 1, Continued:

Blaze On - 31 minutes. Longest version ever. Dude. What. The jamming begins with some vocal scatting from Trey before Ray jumps on the piano and lets loose. Absolutely wonderful latin vibe on this. That is always "implied" in Phish versions, but with the extra percussion and whatnot, the guys really lay hard into that latin-jazz thing and it elevates the song MAJORLY. Around the 6 minute mark, the jam gets super low-key, with a TERRIFIC section of Ray and Trey bouncing back and forth between the two of them. Call and response awesomeness.
Also, why is Trey's playing SO good in these shows when it was, honestly, lackluster for a lot of the summer? WHAT DID HE CHANGE?! Love the percussion in the background during this. Fishman syncs up with it and plays off of it. Great stuff. So by 8 minutes, the jam is starting to get very quiet! Ultra-laid back and groovy. Everyone is locked in together TIGHTLY!!!! Playing off of accent notes and listening to each other.
Check out the section at 9:35!!! Trey introduces this jazzy little motif and everyone instantly grabs ahold of it!!! WOW!!! The jam is slowly moving away from the super-chill into more of a "saturday afternoon at the local jazz fest" kind of feel. Not sure how else to explain it. They are making such great use of so "little"!!!
At the 11 minute mark, Trey starts to rock it up a bit more doing chord hits and slashes. Dezron and Fish pick up on this and the jam starts to get more uptempo. My legs are a-tappin' and my head is a-bangin'!!! LET'S DANCE!! So with the new template laid down, Trey moves over to the RoboWah and the heat begins to build!!!!
Now we are slowly heading for a mid-70's, classic rock, "Frankenstein" type of jam!!! Then at 12:45 the whole band picks up on this runaway groove and the gauntlet is thrown down!!! Trey begins those extended sustains followed by flurries of notes....This sucker is ROCKING now!!!! LET'S FRIGGIN GO!!!!
So from here, by the 14 minute mark, we are firmly in "this is what we expect from a red-hot Type I Blaze On at a Phish show" territory. Everyone is still jamming off of that ascending motif from a few minutes ago (you will know it when you hear it).
But then, SUDDENLY, at 15:30, the jam DIES RIGHT DOWN!!! Trey is whispering "Blaze on....." all smooth and sultry-like, while the music gets uber-funky and low-key!!! LATE NIGHT BLAZE ON!!!
At 17:40, Trey starts doing some new chordal vamping, if you will, with a different feel, and the jam moves into a more "feel good" type of area. Dad-Rock Blaze On? Wonderfully relaxed melodic soloing ensues for a couple awesome minutes. Check out the way Dezron so flawlessly plays along with Trey! Around the 20 minute mark, Trey begins a new descending motif. They jam on this for a good long while, and Trey even gets one of his patented Super-Sustained notes around the 21:40 point. Divided Sky would be proud!
Around 23:30, this building heat subsides, and a more "heavenly bliss" feel begins to emerge! Ray moves to the organ and Trey does a loop on top of which he busts out the RoboWah. But he's using it patiently and subtly, not going ham on it. They vamp this out for a good long while (several minutes), just sitting in this interesting new area. Very feel-good vibes. By 28 munutes, this is still going. This feels a lot like one of those, say, 1999 Phish jams where they just get into a "zone" and you sink right in, just surrendering to the flow, letting it wash over you....minimalist but still interesting. Just sink into the chair and let it take you over.....Wow....
And with that being said, at almost exactly the 30 minute mark, on the dot, they bring the jam to a conclusion.


 

Ok, sorry about that. That Blaze On Super Odyssey was even better than the 46 Days that opened the show.

Two songs, 51 minutes into the show.....

Review of set 1, PART three!

9/29/21 Pittsburgh, PA

Undermind - Awesome little version. Inspired playing from Trey! Only goes about 10 minutes but crushes from start to finish. Seriously, when is the last time Trey was consistently playing this invently and strongly?! And where was this Trey during the summer 2021 Phish shows?! Around the 5 minute mark, things heat up considerably when Fishman takes front and center for, basically, an in-song drum solo, while Ray shreds up the organ. Wowzers. Serious heat. Then at 7 minutes Trey busts out the RoboFX and IT'S ON!!! Holy crap, check out that spectacularly perfect Undermind-motif bass fill at 7:20 from Dezron! The whole band drops out and he goes "do do do do do, do", then they launch right back in with Trey doing the dying robot stuff. Insane. After this several minutes of insanity, Trey returns to the vocals and they ride the song to it's conclusion.

Yo, what the hell was that. That had no business being that incredible.

Ghost - And this mammoth, four song first set concludes with Ghost. Check out Rays spooky organ playing during the verses!! Gives it a totally colorful vibe!! Right away, the jam gets going good with Trey doing patient and perfect lead lines on top of Ray's spooky background organ. Very powerful. Those keys are really adding a new feel to this!!! Trey proceeds to let it friggin' rip on this sucker, going all psychedelic meltdown peak on us!!!! Good lord! Trill city!!! By the 7 minute mark, the fire is RAGING and this thing is about to explode! Impact is imminent!!! Check out the insane, volcanic meltdown peakage around the 8 minute mark! There wasn't anything approaching this all summer with Phish!!! What is going on!!! Where did this come from!!!

ALL HAIL THE UBER GHOST. MAY WE BOW AND ASK FOR MERCY, FOR IT REIGNS SUPREME!!!


And with that, the set is over. Guys, you can just call that the damn show. If they ended it right there, nobody would complain. This was even better than the Charlotte and Asheville gigs that I so loved. If you are a Phish fan, you NEED to give this a listen. I am not exaggerating. This is mindblowingly great stuff....

Playing set 2 while running errands so you guys get a break from my super lengthy ridiculous for a set

Party Time - A raging, robotic, Type 2, 20 min PT to open. Immediately planting it's flag at the summit of "Greatest PT Ever Played" peak. First 15 min or so are insane robowah Type 1, then it begins to deviate greatly from there, going Type 2 into RobotDarkBliss or something until its conclusion. Robot FX loops, late night jazz vibe, percussion all over th place ..Incredibly unique, freaking awesome, and must hear!!

Up next is a 13 min Ocelot. Ultra FUNKY tonight!!!! Ray's keys add a totally different field of color and sound to this!!! Good lord this is terrific. Stupendous soloing from Trey with the perfect amount of RoboFX to give it color but not go overboard. As with Party Time, you aint never heard Ocelot like this!! Wow!!!! Extremely wacky!!! Robot meltdown finale! Wtf!!!

Jibboo up next. Love the percussion on this! Kinda sloppy overall surprisingly. This one takes a long time to get going - not until about the 8 min mark or so. Then, just when you are about to write it off as rote, everything slips into place. The energy SKYROCKETS and they Type I peak this sucker to oblivion. This was the first "low" of the shows so far and it still ended on a massive high. This wasnt essential, but that last couple minutes were FIRE.

Up next we get round two of slow/dark Plasma. Red hot, machine gun Trey type 1. Terrific on the whole, but not the psychedelic beast from the other show. Still, you need to hear Trey absolutely STRANGLING his poor guitar on this!

Lonely Trip follows and is the breather we needed. Very nice as always.

I Never Needed You Like This Before gets us up and rocking again. And jesus friggin christ on a cracker this is 10 min of full blown fire from the sky machine gun Trey insanity. If you want to hear Trey obliterate his guitar, you NEED to hear this! MUST HEAR!!! OH MY GOD!!!

No acoustic encore tonight. Instead, Twist kicks off proceedings. Fishman providing vocals in the chorus makes Trey bust out laughing - "Thanks Fish!". Hilarious. Not anything must hear, but its fun eithr way. Lots of great robo FX.

First Tube to close. Interesting to hear it with a more funky, latin vibe. Basically apply what I said about Twist to this.

All in all, a another strong set, but a massive step down from the first and, easily, the least-incredible of the three shows so far. A terrific gig by itself, the surrounding competition is just so insanely, unfairly great! The Party Time, Ocelot and INNYLTB are all must hear, but the rest of the set is merely average-great.

What in the hell was that first set though! There was no way the 2nd set was gonna top that!