1999-07-08 Virginia Beach, VA

 Been 2 weeks since I paused my "no hurry" 1999 listen through. Resuming this morning on my neighborhood walk, lol

Up next was....

7/8/99 Virginia Beach

Odd - on the truck stereo this sounded pretty sub par but listening through high-end in-ear earbuds it sounds TERRIFIC!!! Strange!!!!

Anywho, set 1 gets off to a nice start with a standard hot Julius. Total fire as expected. Awesome.

Out of friggin nowhere, we get probably the first true "What in the love of God is even happenning?!?!?" moment of the tour when they follow Julius with....a nearly 22 minute gosh darn version of FEE. Not Free - FEE!!??!?!

!?!?!???!?!?!?

Fee itself sounds excellent coming out of Julius. Smooth transition and great set flow with that!
---The fun begins at the 5.5 minute mark when the song winds down into a beautiful, kind of swirling piano outro, accented with Trey doing this repeating motif over and over....
----This is absolutely gorgeous!!! This is like the aural equivalent of the sun peeking through the clouds after a rain storm or something....
---This initial phase persists all the way to the 9 minute mark, whereupon the jam begins to increase in rhythm and intensity, slowly and perfectly. What the absolute hell is going on. This is incredible!!!!!
---Over the next couple of minutes they slowly build the jam ever skywards, quickly approximating something akin to a more low-key version of "that" section of the Camden '99 Chalkdust!!!
---At the 12 minute mark Trey hits the pitch shifter and we ascend fully into the clouds!!! We are soaring through the skies!! Twisting and turning and flying with the birdies!!! This is incredible!!! X FACTOR MAGIC, BABY!!!! LETS FRIGGIN GO!!!!!
-HOLY CRAP THIS IS ONE OF THE SICKEST THINGS IVE EVER HEARD!!!!!!!
---Sometime around the 17 minute mark the heatseeking missile jam slowly begins to turn into a more ambient kind of beast. Fishman keeping the rhythm super fast still, but everyone else is slowly turning this into some kind of ridiculous, swirling, vortex of psychedelic ridiculousness!!!!
-WHAT ON GODS GREEN EARTH IS GOING ON THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND!
--Around 20 minutes, 20 light years deep into outer space, the maelstrom FINALLY reaches a sort of conclusion point. Fishman slows down to a lower tempo kind of jungle beat and they end the jam unceremoniously at the 21:30 mark......

The Virginia Beach "Fee", Ladies and Gentlemen.....

 

After an "Ok, thank you..." from Page (as if they didnt just take us to Neptune and back...), they launch into Guyuute! And holy mother again...this Guyuute is FLAWLESS!!! Played at warpseed and with extra mustard, there isnt a hint of flubbage from anybody. This is Dream Theater-level execution on this one tonight. Holy CRAP!

A top tier Dirt is our first cool down of the night. Again, extra mustard all over this one with everyone laying perfectly into their fills and the dynamics of the piece. This sucker is delicate and its an absolute joy to behold. Honestly one of the best live versions Ive heard. Wow.....

A shockingly gorgeous Nellie Kane isnup next. Seriously, this one is actually must hear, imo. Its very nicely laid back and Page SHREDS so perfectly... totally unexpected!

The penultimate song of this nearly perfect set is a 14 minute Stash. Considering the perfection of that Guyuute, its very surprising that Trey is having very sticky fingers with Stash instead. Yucky, this sounds like 2019 Trey! Thankfully the jam more than redeems any flaws in the playing! When I say this version goes dark, I mean.....it goes DARK!!! I mean, this is basically what getting sucked into a black hole would sound like, Id imagine (actually, itd likely be silent but you get my drift!).

Absolutely incredible jam once again and another true must hear piece of music. Wow...Evil Phish at its finest....

Set 1 closes unceremoniously with a fine Cavern.


All in all, this set is absolutely RIDICULOUS!!! Honest to god, it is almost flawless aside from the start of Stash. The X Factor Fee, the all-timer Guyuute, Dirt and Nellie both being legitimately wond, that black hole Stash .... Is this show regarded highly?? Because this is just the first set and I cant imagine the 2nd will top it.

Also worth noting, that vague "drunkenness" or whatever that was going on with the Charlotte gig ain't present tonight, so thats a huge plus!

Jeez......Phish 1.0, amirite???  

Set 2

Set 2 begins with a fantastic 19 minute Birds of a Feather. The 7/23/99 Columbus rendition is my go-to, so I'm all about some '99 Birds! The song has barely even entered the "type 1" portion of proceedings when already, around the 4:45 mark, hints of "drifting" begin to appear. In other words, they are announcing they are subtly letting us know they will be taking it for a ride.
---Around the 6 minute mark, Trey and Mike begin to play more "in sync" with each other in a more rhythmic kind of fashion. Around 7:30, just as it sounds like they are going to drift off into the sky, Trey finally manages to begin to solo properly for the first time since the song began. Very interesting how he "delayed" his initial round of soloing and instead focused on building the jam together with the boys. Great stuff!
---Sometime around the 10 minute mark, Trey's soloing starts to go mightily askew. He begins playing with feedback squeals and the whole jam (still rocketing at 90mph, thank you) starts to get that crazy kind of "falling apart" vibe going on. Gordo and Page soon link up with Trey on a repeating back-and-forth motif (you'll know it when you hear it) and the jam starts to move into another area slowly....
---By the 12 minute mark the jam begins to quickly quiet down bit by bit. Fishman is still going nuts, but everyone else is playing as quietly and delicately as possible. This is pretty disjointed! If only we could anticipate the ridiculousness about to hit us!!!
--- Trey very soon starts to play the "If I Only Had a Brain" melody from the Wizard of Oz. He full on lays into it, playing it over and over and over again, FOR OVER 5 FRIGGIN MINUTES, until even Fishman gets in on the vocal action.... It's incredibly odd - the jam basically proceeds to "deconstruct" istelf to the tune of "If I Only Had a Brain" and ultimate concludes at the 19 minute mark....

Ok, all that being said, that was obviously must hear for the strangeness factor. I wasn't blown away musically like I hoped I would be though - honestly, that jam wasn't a patch on anything in the first set and kinda just sounded like Trey got high during set break and decided to play around, lol.

Your mileage may vary. Very fun but if I'm judging it's musical "greatness"?.....Yea, it's cool but not really anything mindblowing.

So with that being said, the Wizard Of Oz comes to a close and Trey leads us perfectly into Caspian. This one DRAGS big time like they trying to haul a log up a hill while fighting sleep. Good lord, boys! What happenned?! Wake up! Thankfully they lean into this excellently and Caspian has a wonderful outro solo with a bluesy tinge to it. This Caspian is 10 minutes, but somehow doesn't feel like it despite the tempo and feel. Just accept the vibe and sink down into it!

The bluesy outro solo of Caspian leads them to segue perfectly into a giant 12 minute Jesus Just Left Chicago! This sucker is MUST HEAR! Trey absolutely goes OFF!!! This is pretty much one massive guitar solo shredfest. Not much to say, it speaks for itself. Absolutely spectacular version!!!!!

The oddball set choices continue when the show moves onwards with Saw It Again. Not much to say at all, it stays type 1, doing it's gnarly, destructive thing, Trey just melting faces and the whole thing coming crashing down etc etc etc. Good stuff.

A very rare performance of Sleep gives us a nice cooldown afterwards. It honestly fits very well with the vibe of this set and the flow into felt great to me! Sounds good!

Up next is Meatstick. Hey, if we are just gonna throw caution to the wind with these song selections, why not Meatstick, eh? Trey does his usual Summer '99 "Meatstick Dance Public Service Announcement" as usual. Solid jamming, perfectly enjoyable, but nothing to freak out about either.

This "perfectly-enjoyable-but-is-it-really-going-anywhere??" set picks up some WELL needed steam with it's final two numbers:
Tube is pretty solid with nicely slick jam, running about 6 and a half minutes. Right away the jam dives into that "late-night" 1999-style of playing. Trey sets his whale-siren looper and that sound appears. Heck yes. Slowly and patiently they work their way through this thick groovefest. Gordo and Fishman keeping that beat on LOCK while Trey layers his vibrato notes atop. Just awesome. Unfortunately this is as deep as they take it and around 5 minutes in, Trey begins vamping, returning the song to the bluesy B section and out to finish. Up against the clock or something? That sucks! They were GOING FOR IT and then just "nah, no more jam". Bummer!

The set proper concludes with a very nice Simple. Very odd choice for closer but it fits the "we don't know what to play" vibe of the set so, hey, why not! The song proceeds beautifully as usual until around the 8 minute mark everybody slowly leaves the stage one by one until Page is left alone by himself to play out the show as if this was a Squirming Coil closer!!!!! Wonderful!!!

The encore consists of the injoke of Terrapin (because they played Terrapin Station HAHAHA at the 1998 show) with Character Zero to close.


All in all, this was certainly a highly enjoyable show. I one hundred percent enjoyed the first set more in almost every way, but it's not like set 2 was bad or anything, it just seemed to struggle to get it together at times. The song placements/selections felt "grasping at straws" and the jamming felt underwhelming, though still enjoyable. It's as if.....let's say the second set felt enjoyable but a tad undercooked. Whereas set 1 honestly felt like damn near perfection from start to finish. That might have been the best set of the summer so far!!!!

A very good show, definitely in the upper-tier of the 6 I've played so far! Probably an underrated show on the whole. Obviously Fee, Stash, Birds and that JJLC are all must hear. But seriously, that first set was just PERFECT!