1998-04-03 Uniondale, NY

 Island Tour night 2!

Now this show looks like a mother-f'er!!!


Set 1

Mikes Song - Right out the gate with the classics. Nicely relaxed tempo on this one - not the uptempo speedster's of yesteryear or days yet to come. The jam comes immediately, and it's very mellow in a wonderful way. This is what a studio version of Mike's Song would sound like if released on The Story of the Ghost - let's put it like that. Very, very, VERY smooooootttthhhhhh. This is how things go until about 9:30 when the "B" lick kicks in and we head for darker waters. The bass starts a-rumblin' and we are drifting in those not-so-tranquil waters. Trey turns on his octaver and starts to solo it up, Fishman and the boys going nuts behind him. No synth washes here - just dark fire burning!! With every passing measure, Trey's playing gets more and more demented - he's just ripping it up like it's Summer '99 and everyone's probably high as a kite, lol. 13 minutes in and the whale siren is triggered. Only Trey could make such mindless noodling this awesome. The song comes to a weirdly calm-yet-ambient finale leading us into.....

>The Old Home Place - How do you go from that ambient Type II into friggin' TOHP?!?! Only Phish, am I right? And it's great! But, just, like....why?! BECAUSE PHISH THAT'S WHY!

>Weekapaug Groove - And like a train without any brakes, as soon as TOHP finishes, Fishman just launches onward into the WG beat. Perfect! And we still have 16 minutes to go!!! 5 minutes in and we are in the typical Rage Zone. Fishman is really going hard on this sucker. But then suddenly Page busts out some obscenely disgusting keyboard sounds - you'll know it when you hear it!!! - relegating everyone else to being his backing band. At 6 minutes Trey introduces some really pretty chord pattern (is this some tease of something??) for a bit and the jam gets very dynamic. Raging energy, but they are whispering it in your ear for now - porno wah and all! THIS IS FANTASTIC!!! Oh yes, busting out that cowbell!! Really great moment at 8:20 when Fishman just slams on the brakes and Trey keeps going with his wah. This leads to a latin-flavored rhythm coming out and the jam takes on a new tone. Freaking sick. ALL HAIL THE PORNO WAH! I'm sorry what else do you want me to say?! Fishman doing the samba (or something), Page on the funky keys, Cactus bubbling under, and "Crosseyed and Painless"-style vocal jamming. I DONT KNOW WHAT THIS IS ANYMORE AND ITS INCREDIBLE! By 11:05 we are in Santana Land (or whatever). AND THEN AT 12:21 SOME HOW WE TRANSITION PERFECTLY BACK INTO WEEKAPAUG PROPER AND ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD. THIS IS FREAKING INCREDIBLE! THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST JAMS IVE EVER HEARD!!! THIS IS MANDATORY LISTENING FOR EVERYBODY!!! WHAT IS GOING ON!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY WHOLE LIFE HAS BEEN A LIE!!!!!! MAGIC EXISTS AND ITS NAME IS ISLAND TOUR WEEKAPAUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Train Song - Thank christ on a cracker for this...I'm just thankful to get a breather. Holy freaking crap. Oh yea, Train Song is pretty good as usual.

Billy Breathes - You might think "oh, man, 2 ballads in a row?!", but Train Song merely felt like a little transition piece than anything proper, ala The Old Home Place. Billy Breathes is fantastic as always - their attempted harmonies... It's a song I often forget about until I hear it again and then I go "this song is really good!". Great set placement - really loving Trey's watery Leslie tone on this. Can't forget the beautiful piano either. All in all, just excellent!

Beauty of My Dreams - Get it Leo! Harmonies on point! Surprisingly excellent!!!!

Dogs Stole Things - Never my favorite song. I'm fine never hearing it ever again. That being said it's a fine version and it actually fits the flow of the set very well! I was expecting this section of the set to be a derailment, but it's all been very smooth!! Great Page solo on the organ on this. And then of course Trey shows up and just annihilates with his soloing

Reba - Oh yes, my 2nd favorite Phish song that I am ALWAYS down for. I still can't sing the damn lyrics though - how do they sing them so quickly.... Ooh, Trey kinda sloppy on the composed section to begin with but he pulls it together. Most of the composed section is good until around 5 minutes in when Trey just completely drops the ball for a full minute or so. OOF! But that's ok, because into the solo we go!
And, as expected, Trey completely destroys worlds. Inca Roads in an alternate universe. Frank would be proud. I don't have the attention span to narrate this BEAST. Just sit back, let it envelop you and then drift off into blissful heavens of the likes only a '98 Reba can bring you!!!! A+++++++++++++++++++++++++

My Soul - Oddly enough, while I have no time for DST, I can never get enough of the annoyingly-catchy My Soul. Love this stupid little ditty. It's always the same, it always rocks, it always delivers....if Dogs Stole Things was good enough to get highlighted tonight, then goshdarnit I'm highlighting this sucker too. Excellent party-rock closer to one of the most incredible sets of music I've ever heard.


All in all....yea the reviews don't lie!! THIS SET WAS ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING!! The Mike's>TOHP>Weekapaug was beyond insane (Even for 1.0!!!), the "come down" songs following that were all performed excellently with extra mustard, and the Reba was 10/10 magical beauty.
And we still have another set to go. Holy crap.

 

 Set 2

Roses are Free - Ok! A 27 minute, all-time-legendary beast I get to experience for the very first time right now! To begin with, the actual song is a red-hot rendition just oozing with all the strength and heat of a good Free! Really, really, REALLY powerful version of the song!!! See Horn from 4/2/98. Going by the LivePhish release and "separate" jam track, the jam begins out of Roses as a pounding hard rock smasher, ala BBFCFM or Free. This goes for several rocking minutes until about 3 minutes in they stumble back into the funk. Fishman and Cactus are keeping the intensity high while Trey and Page are providing textural support with the keys and wah pedal. Cactus pretty much gets a solo spot for a minute or two, actually. The guys start tossing in some "woo woo" vocal jamming and we are into 70's Porno Funk Paradise once more!!! This is really Full Band playing at it's finest!!! This is INSANE!!!! They rage onwards like this until about 8 minutes in when the mood shifts and things start getting more chill. Late-night funk jamming now. Shades of '99, ya dig? In come the synths!! Porno wah still raging, Fishman keeping the cymbals in check throughout. By 12 minutes Trey starts to play some more melodic passages and chordy stuff, causing yet another shift. Page picks up on this and him and Trey share a cool back-and-forth for a bit. We are slooooowwwwwlllllyyyyy drifting towards dreamland, it feels like. Sick. Throughout this there is a weird hissing noise for a bit. Not sure if its a sound issue or Trey signaled some loop. Lasts about a minute. Anywho, by 14 minutes the funk is mostly gone are we still slowly moving further and further away from Earth. But things are getting darker and darker - heading away from the bliss and towards some gray skies!!! Trey's playing gets more "random", the beat falters at times....but throughout Page has been playing some beautiful piano work giving a great contrast to the brewing darkness. The budding storm cloud thankfully recedes and we emerge on the other side in Blissville. Page, Trey and Mike all attempting to play together melodically. Awesome stuff!!!! I guess "slowly" is the word of the night, as they are taking their friggin' time moving from section to section in this jam. Bear with me overusing that word!!! From here, by 18 minutes, things start to slowly (!!!) build again towards the next climax. Considering I can look at the setlist, you can hear the upcoming Piper coming from a mile away, though at this point they also could've easily (and awesomely!) steered straight into a Free if they wanted to and noone would be the wiser! By 20 minutes Page and Trey seem to be messing around some arabic sounding scales, with Trey absolutely going MENTAL just tearing it up all guitar-in-a-blender-like. The beat is gone, the piano is a splattering of stray notes, and feedback is blasting from Trey's amps!!! MELTDOWN! And then BAM into Free, right? NO! Things are swirling mess of sound and feedback and ambience. Very unusual!!! And would you believe it the jam actually comes to a proper close!!!!

Ok, I know that was lacking ALL CAPS for you trainspotters out there, but that was a journey. I tried not to defile the beautiful majesty and insanity of that magnificent piece of music!!!

>Piper - Again, SLOWLY, the band starts to piece together the Piper sequence from the ashes of that monster Roses. This might be the slowest Piper build I've heard yet and it's genuinely a thing of beauty!!!! Seriously, this opening section is just downright awesome tonight. I mean, crap, it takes a full three minutes of buildup before they are even approaching "normal" speed!!! Gah, Page's piano is just hitting all the right spots tonight - it cuts through the mix so well....4:03 and the vocals begin!!! And for the next 3 minutes we get the usual 1.0 Piper explosion you expect. Then SUDDENLY at 7 minutes they shift gear so FAST (There had to a preplanned cue, no?) and go into a much more calm area. Huh? How did we get here?! According to .NET, the jam on this is based on the coda of early versions of Piper. Let's go with that, shall we? Just lovely! ArouCarnd 9 minutes in Trey introduces some loops, giving some Brian May-esque harmony sound to things. Cactus and Fishman latch onto a rhythm together (is this the aforementioned coda?) and we get an extremely weird (but incredibly cool!!!!) jam that just builds and builds out of the marching drum beat. By 12 minutes in, Fishman is still laying waste to his drums, and Trey introduces some scary feedback squalls into the mix. Page jumps on the piano and throws in some minor key action to solidify this change in direction. From the most beautiful bliss to some anxiety-inducing "Cave Jamming" (as I'm now coining it!), this is among the most incredible group improv I've ever heard the boys lay down. This is mandatory listening! This should be taught in schools and to everyone who dare to call themselves a Phan! THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!!!! FREAKING HECK YES THIS IS TERRIFYING AND BEAUTIFUL AND ALL KINDS OF INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, this 4/3/98 Roses>Piper is MANDATORY listening for everyone! If you haven't heard this 43 minutes of insanity THEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?!?!?!?

>Loving Cup - So that jam ended with Page doodling on the piano, and good lord if you wanna talk about greatest segues ever....this was one of them!!! Sent chills down my arms when he launched into the piano lick for LC. And holy crap what a Loving Cup it is!!! A+ It's ALWAYS great but this one DEFINITELY has that extra x factor mustard sauce going on. It's just stupendously perfect and strong!!!!!!!!

Run Like an Antelope - "Don't let Carini get you!" Don't know what the banter in the intro is about but it's funny. Ok. You narrate this one - I have no words.
WORLD DESTRUCTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then into a weirdo funky reggae jam. What.

Carini - Wacky short Carini with botched vocals and a whole lot of fun. Nothing special and kinda unexpected. Also, is Trey playing the riff in the wrong key??!!

Halley's Comet - See Carini. Fun, expected and great as always.

Tweeprise - Oddball inclusion to end an absolutely outstanding show.


All in all...yea, just look at the review.

1998-04-02 Uniondale, NY

 4/2/98 Uniondale

I've actually heard this show once before as a new fan checking out highly recommended gigs, but remember nothing about it, so this might as well be my real first listen

Set 1 -

Tube - Immediately, like, within seconds, this is funkier than every single 3.0 version I've ever heard. How do they do that, haha. And that friggin Clavinet (what else is it?) solo from Page around 2 minutes in is just nasty!! I'm talkin' 1970's porno nasty!!! Dang! 4 minutes in now and the whale siren has begun. Page has shifted back to piano and Trey slides on into the jam. Things are getting classier now, haha. 6 minutes now and things are edging themselves towards Type II before Trey breaks out his wah pedal and returns us to 70's Porno Funk Town. And back into a proper Tube jam we go. Jeez....how the eff did they do this....A+++++ 10/10 TUBE!!!

My Mind's Got a Mind of It's Own - In no proper world should we be able to go from funk supremacy to bluegrass lunacy like nothing, yet here we are. Since I'm sure I'll ending highlighting the rest of this show, I'll make this the sacrifical lamb for the review gods. Great version. Every sounds great. Etc Etc

The Sloth - A little unsure sounding tonight. Just a very nice little Sloth. Always welcome but nothing special.

NICU - Ah yes, here we go. Great as always but again didn't feel that special.

Stash - What the hell is going on?! This is some black-hole Carini wormhole stuff. Or Dark Star, Miami 1989 stuff, if you prefer The song slowly just dissolves into a gooey, ragey, atonal, abstract mess of noise and insanity. What. AND WE ARE ONLY HALFWAY DONE! It's 10 minutes in and at any second I'm expecting them to launch into BBFCFM - let's put it like that! By 12 minutes we are heading back into demented Stash territory again, but....how do you begin to describe this?! It's like Trey has taken his wah pedal and strangled it around the throat, making it fight for life. Picture a literal aural struggle between a man and his pedal. Yo, this is disgusting. But then somehow at 13 minutes we transition into some late-3.0 bliss ambience outta nowhere. Ok, I guess, lol. Some really, really nice jamming evolves out of this. Very mellow but still rhythmic and dynamic. Reminiscent of Theme From the Bottom or a jam that could build into a Free, perhaps. But the jam ends up slowly dying a beautiful death. I'm pretty tired today - this is a very restrained review of this from yours truly. This was definitely an all-timer.

>Horn - Didn't see that segue comin'!! Freaking AWESOME when Trey kicks in his distortion and they just SLAM into it like it's Free or something. WHAT GIVES?! IVE NEVER HEARD A HORN ROCK LIKE THIS?!?!?! IM LITERALLY HEADBANGING TO HORN. WHAT. From there it goes to normal Horn territory, but that opening minute or two was sick!!! Really, really, awesome Horn!!!!

Waste - Not crazy about the set placement, but my favorite Phish ballad (and maybe top 5 favorite P song!) is ALWAYS welcome no matter where it is! Especially if it's got that 1972 Rolling Stones vibe like tonight. Other than Trey SHREDDING inappropriately, haha, this sounds like a cousin of Loving Cup tonight. GREAT!

>Chalkdust Torture - EVEN BETTER - HOLD ON TO YOUR FREAKING SEAT HOLY CRAP! SHOT OUT OF THE GATE LIKE A BULLET FROM A GUN!!! GET YOUR SEATBELTS ON, IMPACT IS IMMINENT!!!! From that Horn to Waste and then BAM into this, I feel like I just took a sucker punch to the face out of nowhere! Also, fastest friggin' CDT I've ever heard. Did they need the bathroom or something? As expected, Trey wastes (see what I did there? ) zero time getting down to business. As with Stash, this is "Guitar Mutilation 2.0". I don't know whether to be terrified or to headbang!!!

And with that....set 1 comes to a conclusion.

My brain has turned to mush. Please send help!

This set in a nutshell:

https://i.imgur.com/CwQOLex.mp4 

Ok, let me put my dislocated jaw and shattered face bones back together after that kick in the face that was set 1.
First thing to note - my favorite song opens the set. That's always good - and the only song I'm not a fan of is Sleeping Monkey. This all bodes very well for me.

Here we go...

Punch You In the Eye - It's great. Nothing to say. Didn't hit me too hard. Just a fine PYITE.

Simple - Absolutely beautiful. It doesn't end up going anywhere unexpected, but it's just simply gorgeous.

>Birds of a Feather - "Guitar Mutilation, Vol. 3". 'Nuff said. It's BOAF. It's Phish 1.0. For a debut rendition, they annihilated it. Didn't really impress me that much if you can believe it, but it was still hot as hell!

Wolfman's Brother - Your standard, perfect Wolfman for the first 7 minutes. Just perfection. Then for the final few they start heading for jam land, weaving in and out of Type II, teasing us whether they are going to take it further or not. Absolutely fantastic version though!!!

>Sneaking Sally - Ok, forgoing a jam to segue perfectly into Sally is allowed. Around 4 minutes the Wolfman's-Jam-That-Didn't-Happen appears and we are off to the races. By 8 minutes, things are still funky, but we are slowly creeping towards ambience. Thankfully we don't drift into the ether, but things get silky smooth and we are just riding the chill train to chill town. Fantastic.

>Frankie Says - They were heading towards it, but Trey decided to cut to the chase and ripcord into Frankie. I love this song and this is a great version. Great stuff!

Twist - Starts off with the usual rocking bit. By 7 minutes things get decidedly more uptempo, yet at the same time also get more chill. Trey doing some cool rhythmic stuff with Page doing synth/key washes beneath him. We are entering The Zone! By 10 minutes we've dissolved into Type II Land with Trey doing ambient note sustains on top of Page's synth washes and the uptempo rhythm set by Cactus and Fishman. Trey busts out his wah pedal to do so "porno scratching". This remains the sound and style for several minutes until around 14 in when the blissful synths turn into darker storm clouds of impending doom! This just went from "ooh, floating on a cloud" to "oh crap, turbulence up ahead!!!". Extremely freaking cool jam. 18 minutes in and it sounds like we are heading straight into outer-friggin' space - surely this will result in an epic 2001!!!

>Sleeping Monkey - ....alas it is not to be....WELL KILLING THAT TWIST FOR SLEEPING MONKEY WAS A FREAKING SIN!!!!!!!!

Rocky Top - YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guyuute - I freaking love Guyuute. In an encore slot?? Hmmm. All in all it's a keeper though and actually works in a triumphant finale kind of way. Great version! Extra tight! Good stuff!!


All in all, set 1 blew-my-friggin'-mind. Set 2 left me underwhelmed. The Wolf>Sally>Frankie was great, but nothing too special. The only REAL MUST-HEAR for me in set 2 was the absolutely out-there Twist. THAT was nuts!!!!!

Still, totally glad to have had a proper listen finally and the other 3 shows are coming your way, guys