re: Official 2013 Phish thread - Fall Tour starts Oct. 18th

Anybody have a link for last night?

Lol @ Mike's hair

3 year anniversary of the most fun I've ever had at a show. Great times in Alpharetta

7.4.10

Set 1: The Star Spangled Banner, Punch You In the Eye > Colonel Forbin's Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird, Camel Walk, Ocelot, Heavy Things > My Friend, My Friend > Lawn Boy, David Bowie, Gotta Jibboo

Set 2: Down with Disease > Piper > Ghost > Waste, Julius > Mike's Song > Tela, Harpua > Killing in the Name > Harpua > Weekapaug Groove

Encore: First Tube

So they lazily segued it into another standard fricking Phish song, Runaway Jim (I know, how original. They're really expanding out of their comfort zone and trying new things!) which, in turn, segued into Stash. Stash has had some of its good moments in the past. This was definitely not one of them.

The set was boring until NICU - now don't get me wrong, this song was just as boring as the three before it, but I noticed something very interesting. After Trey had finished singing the verses, his opiate-crackled voice let out an ear-piercing shrill and he hollered, "PLAY IT LEO!!!!!" This was clearly the impossibly old fossil's cue to play something cool and "groovy," but the decrepit, hunchback, balding neanderthal must have completely forgotten who Leo was (or where he was, for that matter,) because he didn't do anything. Nothing. Sure, he mashed his bony taquito fingers into the keys of his piano a few times, but there was no life in that solo. There was absolutely nothing. It was made clear that Page's skull at that exact moment was nothing more than a vast, open ended wasteland. Completely empty, with perchance an occasional thought of the episode of Matlock he had waiting for him on the DVR of his hotel room - but other than that, the man was nothing more than a vegetable neatly propped behind a piano.

From that point on, it was evident that the set had become little more than a game or the boys to play. A game called "let's see how awful of a set we can play to open up an entire tour, and if our fans will still revere it like the second coming." I could hear screams of terror from all directions when they busted into a carbon-copy rendition of Rift; I saw somebody practically choke on a goo ball when Trey attempted that part in Theme (and ultimately failed;) but the true joke came when Mike's Song began to transcend into the "jam." The "second jam" that all of the fricking 3.0 noobs were so excited to hear. "OH MY GOD, TREY'S GOING TO DO IT!!! HE'S GOING TO RAGE THE SECOND JAM SO frickING HARD BECAUSE WE TOLD HIM TO!!!"

After Trey struggled to sing with the finesse of a black man to absolutely no avail, he said "frick it, let's hit them with a Twist." If you know anything about music, you know it does not get any more simple than the chord progression for Twist. Trey could have been on copious amounts of every drug under the sun (which he probably was) and even he could still struggle through his arthritis and miserably strum out that chord progression. Which he did, for far too long. That's when it happened.

Strumming in the key of G. "No," I said to myself. But he didn't stop strumming. Just that G chord over and over. "NO," I repeated to myself, and I saw audience member's heads turning and looking at me like I'd gone mad. But if they'd only known...I was the only one who realized what was about to happen. I wanted to give them a warning, but there was no time. Trey was still strumming that G chord, and I swear to God if I could have I would have told all of those wooks to get out while they still could, but I only had time to muster up one single syllable, and the shite was about to seriously hit the fan. I raised my hands to the skies, tears swelled up in the corners of my eyes, and with every little bit of breath in my lungs, I screamed:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!"

But it was too late. It was Backwards Down the Number Line. This is not a joke, reader. Oh frick, how I wish it was a cruel, twisted joke. Trey had already shot this second set point-blank in the back of the head with Golden Age, and now he was just pissing on its corpse, laughing, clapping his hands and singing about his birthday.

I collapsed to the ground. I sobbed. I could hear screaming and chaos emitting from every head around me. I tried to warn them, but I just didn't have time. And when they segued into Ocelot, I cursed his name. I cursed his fricking name last night. I clasped my hands together in prayer and begged for the sweet kiss of death right then and there, but God never listens to what I say. Somewhere up there, that sick bearded frick was laughing at me and every other member of the audience. I could almost hear him whisper: "You deserve this."

Not even a Velvet Underground cover could save this set. Not even a segue into an incredibly boring rendition of 2001 could save this set. Oh, they tried, but they lost my trust long ago. I could barely hear their uninspired interpretation of Cavern over the sounds of crying wooks which honestly sounded like an entire zoo filled with animals being hit with tear gas. I pressed my hands onto my ears, just hoping Antelope would end, but NO, Trey was milking every opportunity he had to make that ear-piercing whale call.

And when it finally ended, that was that. The entire crowd was quiet. You could hear a wook dropping his Bic lighter it was so silent. I looked around, and everybody had the same expression as me. Slack-jawed and dumbfounded. Every mouth in sight hung open. Not even Antelope Greg was moving a muscle, and they'd just fricking played Antelope.

The encore break felt like an hour of absolute stillness. It was beautiful, in a way, in comparison to what we'd just witnessed. And when the band came back out for Hood, nobody cared. A few people started walking away at first, then a dozen, and exponentially the number of people exiting the venue grew. As the "jam" began to peak, so did the audience members' movement. By the time the band was singing the "Feel good about hood" refrain, people were running with fright. It was almost ironic - nobody was feeling very good. But how could they?

And yet I stood there, observing the chaos on stage, feeling people rushing by me at either side, absolutely amazed - because never before has there been such an awful performance on any stage in the history of the world. Period.

And as the band members played nonsense on their instruments at the very end of the tune, Trey stepped up to the microphone, a devilish grin on his face. And when he stared right into my eyes, he said "Thank you so much for having us, we love playing here." And I saw him laugh. I saw this aged, pale ginger, seemingly possessed by the devil himself, channeling his energy as his rusted, copper hair stood upward toward the sky, laughing hysterically. Of course they loved playing here. I'm beginning to think they love the sight of their fans running. I'm beginning to think they still tour because they actually receive pleasure from giving their fans pain simply through music.

Let me end this review with a quote. I believe it was Bob Marley who once said "One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."

Clearly, Marley has never listened to Phish.

I give this show a 2/10. Highlights: Tremors 4 was playing on the TV back in my hotel.

anybody got a password?

Fixed Link

I might join you. I Get off at 11. What time are they starting you think?

Sweet, I'll head that way