Onwards with 1997!
Super excited for these 2 Amsterdam gigs. They are some of the last major "classic" shows I have yet to hear.
7/1/97 Amsterdam, HOL
Set 1
Ghost - Well hot damn! An epic 22 minute version to open the
show! Slow and sludgy on the playing of the song itself. Of course it is
also ridiculously funky in a way that current Phish just couldn't make
it. Everyone laying back and laying it down thick. Somewhere around 5:45
mark, roughly, Trey begins to "vamp" on the wah and the jam starts to
take off. Around the 7 minute mark the jam gets a little heavy and we
begin to move into a rockier direction, but still with the heavy funk
underlay. Trey then proceeds to just tear it up on the wah while the
rest of the band groove hard beneath him.
----Around 9 minutes, Trey and Fish start howling "WE'RE ON THE BACK OF THE WORM!" and the jam starts to get psychedelic!! This is INTENSE!!! This is swirling, ridiculous heat! They
rip this hard until around 10:50 when everyone lays back again and Page
takes center stage on the piano, delivering wonderfully jazzy leads
atop the crazy funk.
---Suddenly around the 12 minute mark Trey starts to repeat a little
melodic motif. Slowly the rest of the band catch on and begin jamming on
this chill little figure. By the 13:30 mark they are still jamming
along in this more melodic vein, hinting at a more blissful side of
things, but the energy is slowly increasing once more. This goes all the
way about the 16:30 mark.
---The building bliss slowly subsides and a more "tense" kind of feel
starts to appear. Trey is still noodling repeating motifs and Page is
still on the piano. This goes until about the 18 minute mark when Trey
jumps back on the wah, doing lots of scratching and inserting himself
more into the jam. The heat and funkiness are making their glorious
return! By the 19 minute mark we are almost into a kind of latin-funk
type of jam!!! Very powerful and angsty!
---Somewhere around the 20 minute mark the fire subsides and they band
go into a terrific "stop/start" jam, bringing things back on down in
such a smooth way. These section transitions are SMOOTH!
And with that, the Uber-Ghost comes to a perfect conclusion. Holy mother
WHAT A FRIGGIN JAM!!!!!! This song keeps getting stronger and stronger
with each rendition! My god what a start to the show! ESSENTIAL
LISTENING!
Horn - is Horn. I guess after a 22 minute Ghost ya gotta take a break! Strong little version but Horn is Horn.
Ya Mar - A terrific version just loaded with extra mustard all
over. Pretty long as well, reaching the 10 minute mark. Wonderful
jamming with a heavy emphasis on the drums and the rhythms. A+ Ya Mar!
Limb By Limb - Holy crap, a 13 minute Limb By Limb! Trey's
background noodling during the "taken far away" part is so choice! This
thing rages hard. It's just an exceptional Limb in every way. Somewhere
though, around the 8 minute mark, Trey begins a little motif and the jam
starts to slowly stray sideways in the slightest of ways. They proceed
to remain inside the Limb structure, but are pushing and pulling it in
every little way, making the absolute most of what they are working
with. They play around heavily with dynamics, bringing the song down to a
literal whisper while Fishman proceeds to accentuate his drums. This is fantastic!!!! Talk about a unique version!!!! Then,
around 10:30, the song at a whisper, they kinda dissolve into a murky
soundscape. Trey is doing rhythmic time keeping while Page carefully
picks his spots to insert a piano note or two. Fishman gently tapping
his rims. The bottom completely fell out! Around 12 minutes Trey comes in with some terrifying feedback-type notes and we are officially IN THE BLACK HOLE!!!! WHERE DID THE SONG GO?!?!?!?!?
YO THAT LIMB IS ESSENTIAL!!! TOTAL DECONSTRUCTION!!! HOW DID THEY DO THAT?!?!?!?!?
>Ain't Love Funny - And into the 2nd version of ALF we go! Starting extremely dark and scary!!! What the corn is going on! What a dumb little cover but it's fun and sounds great!!!!
Saw It Again - And the strangeness continues with a move into
SIA. Bass FX right off the rip on this one. This is basically just an
excuse for the guys to lose their marbles and go ape$hit for 7 minutes.
Absolutely glorious meltdown of a track.
Dirt - Yet another standout from this show, this is a wonderful
rendition. Ever so slightly more mid-tempo instead of "slow", you can
really feel the emotion this song conveys. Sick. Trey's soloing is
excellent.
Reba - 17 minute Reba!!! The composed section is played at
lightspeed as usual. Unfortunately, Trey has a very, VERY rough time
during the technical portion, at one point missing darn near 30 seconds
or so of playing! Trey tries to recover but kinda threw himself off and
he slips in and out for the rest of the section - this is one of the
worst composed Reba section performances this side of Coventry. Yucky! And then he comes and slays the next portion like he didn't just F up for 3 minutes straight. 90's Trey was crazy, eh? 
The
guitar solo/jam is wonderful. Almost immediately it drops down into a
very ethereal area. I mean, it's Reba, but it's EXTRA chill! The solo is
one of the nicest I have ever heard - just phenomenal in the way the
whole band participates, building and then collapsing....Love Page's
subtle use of synthesizers! From here it builds to the expected Reba
solo peakage. This solo section is one of the best, most perfect,
most awe-inspiring versions I have heard. My goodness what a PERFECT
Reba solo!!!!!!!!!!!!! MUST HEAR!!!!
Dogs Stole Things - closes the set. Dogs is dogs....
All in all, what the hell do ya want me to say?! A ridiculously
good set - the opening Ghost, the Limb By Limb>Ain't Love Funny and
the Reba are the "must hear" material, but almost everything is strong
as can be and worth a highlight. This did not exceed my expectations -
it delivered exactly as I had hoped it would! WOW!
Set 2 - TAKE TWO....excuse the brevity. I just typed
a masterpiece of idiocy and then accidentally deleted it so I gotta
rejigger this from memory..... 
Fish keyboard jam>Timber - The set opens with a super strange and
dark little jam that sees Fish playing the keys while the rest of the
band slowly join in one by one creating a strange, wacky kind of
soundscape for several minutes. Suddenly Trey begins the Timber lick and
they proceed to turn in a barnburner, A+ reading of said song. Great
stuff.
Bathtub Gin - Superb slide right into a 14 minute Gin! An absolutely stellar version, this one is all about the FEEL! It's
like they are exploring every inch of the box they are playing the song
in without ever moving outside. It perfectly sounds like a drunk
stumbling his way out of the bar at the end of the night. The jam is
very cool - they go "ROCK BAND" on it and turn it into a slightly
strange, kinda heavy feel. Very unique!!!! The outro sees the jam slowly
getting slower and slower and slower until they are creeping along like
a snail and move into Cities. This Gin is phenomenal. It's just PERFECT in every way. Exceptional.
>Cities - 24 minute Cities>Outer Space Odyssey! This is
likely the single most unhinged, extreme, strange, wacky and downright
ridiculous jam I have ever heard. This is not an exception. This is the
stuff legends are made of. Cities, coming out of the Gin outro, is
played at, like, 1/3 tempo. Extremely SMOOTH, the jamming eventually
dies down to totaly silence. Eventually, one by one, everyone creeps
back in and they go into this super dark and strange zone. Twenty Years Later could only dream of producing a jam this dark. It is DARK DARK DARK DARK DARK DARK DARK. Everyone
is doing strange noodling, yet it holds together somehow. After almost
10 minutes in the outer space black hole they move back into a slightly
more upbeat-yet-still-strange area. This turns smoothly back into
rocking out before morphing into a SICK funk jam to close out.
^^^^^I am making the bold claim that the above piece of music is
now the greatest jam my ears have heard. Ridiculous does not begin to
describe it. It's STRANGE and WEIRD yet somehow never falls apart
(despite completely deconstructing itself!!!!).
Loving Cup - Picks us up from the ashes of that scorched earth jam
and lets us rock out carefree. Wonderful type 1 version that just
annihilates.
Slave to the Traffic Light - See Loving Cup. Absolutely magical. I rag on 3.0/4.0 Slaves all day, but when you hear one like this... I understand what the fuss is all about.
When the Circus Comes to Town - As the encore?! What the hell?!
Maybe better in person, and it's a fine version, but it's just awkward
as hell to me as the encore. Huh.
All in all....IF ONLY I DIDN'T FRIGGIN DELETE MY FIRST DRAFT!!!! GAH!!!! 
Seriously though, WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS SHOW?!?!?!?!? I mean that in
the best way possible!!! Europe 1997 has been as strange as you can
imagine on the jamming front and I can't imagine anything topping that
Cities. That's gotta be, like, a top 10 Phish jam of all time!!!! This
show was remarkable and deserves all the praise it receives. Classic
doesn't begin to convey how amazing it is. This. Show. Blew. My. Mind.
Honestly, this is the best show of 1997 to this point I think. I don't
feel that's controversial to say.
Essential listening. Why the hell did it take me 6 years to finally hear this masterpiece..... 
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