7-3-95 Sugarbush Setlist/Review

Set 1: (1:18)

My Friend* (:7), Poor Heart (:3), Antelope! (:12), Loving Cup!! (:6),
Sparkle (:4), It's Ice (:8), If I Could (:8), Maze (:12), Strange Design
(:3), Free (:10), Cavern (:5)

Set 2: (1:25)

Timber Ho!! (:5), Intro (:3) -> Bowie** (:15) -> Johnny B. Goode (:5) ->
Jam (:5) -> Bowie (:4), AC/DC Bag (:10) -> Lizards*** (:2) -> BBFCFM (:5),
A Day in the Life (:5), Possum (:14), The Squirming Coil (:12)

Encore: (:13)

Simple (:9), Amazing Grace (:4)

* Trey plays guitar using mic stand as a slide
** Bathtub Gin and Soul Sacrifice (Santana) teased before going into
Johnny B. Goode
*** Trey plays "Wilson, Wilson, Wiiilllson" chords instead of "I come from
the land of darkness/" chords, the boys can't recover, Fishman says
something like "Nice work, Trey!" and Trey responds by laughing and going
into BBFCFM

Note: Others may not have the Bowie part of the setlist as I do, but the
intro is definitely not a cohesive part of David Bowie, and the jam
following Johnny B. Goode in no way resembled Bowie, whereas five minutes
into this jam Phish definitely returns to the Bowie ending.

My friends and I got a great nights sleep in our tent just two slopes over
from the stage, and thus I woke up around one, ate some breakfast/lunch,
scoped out the parking lot scene (very mellow) and sat down in front of
the gates at around 2:30. I waited there with about a couple hundred (?),
maybe more, people until the gates opened at 5 and everyone rushed in.
There was chaos for a little as security tried to slow down raucous fans,
but eventually everyone got through and sprinted up the slope to claim a
spot at the rail in front of the stage. Luckily I obtained one right in
front of Mike, unfortunately, we had another 2 and a half hours to wait
until Phish went on. The scene at the front was cool though, people saved
other people's seats so that they could go to the bathroom and buy water.
A few people weaved and pushed their way to the front, but not very many.

Set 1 opened with My Friend, My Friend, a great opener which got the crowd
pumped. At one point in this tune, Trey bent down, and used the mic stand
as a slide on the neck of his guitar while strumming and fooling around
with his MIDI. He seemed to be having a good time. A standard Poor Heart
followed, Mike really got into the singing, and Antelope came next!! The
only other epic Phish tune that I've heard them break out that early is
Harry, when they played it third at the Beacon 4/15/95. Needless to say, I
was psyched and dancing all over the place. Loving Cup followed and I was
ecstatic! This is my favorite Phish cover, not particularly because of the
way Phish plays it (although Page definitely has the piano part down), but
just because it's an incredible tune. Anyone else agree? I'd been hoping
to hear this song for a long time. Sparkle was fine, I normally dig this
tune, but it seemed a little rushed this time, and   that made it hard to
dance to. It's Ice was fine, I saw it at Great Woods, and it seemed very
similar, with the space jam betweeen Trey and Page at the same point in
the song. If I Could I also saw at Great Woods, but this version was a bit
better. I'm really starting to groove the end jam of this song, but I kind
of wish they'd cut out some of the beginning verses ;-) The fourth Rift
song of the first set, Maze, came as a surprise and wasn't nearly as good
as at the second night of Great Woods. Strange Design came next, and I
love this tune. Great lyrics, beautiful piano playing, beautiful singing,
and a fair amount of jamming in between verses. This and the next song,
Free, are my favorite additions to the Phish repetoire this tour. Free was
full of energy and jammed much more than at Lowell. This tune has great
potenial to be stretched longer than it has been (with the exception of
that one 20-minute long version?) A decent Cavern closed the set, and
whoever posted that they've slowed the rhythm on this down a bit is right.
I, for one, like the mellower tempo.

A few guys to my left, in the second or third rows in front of Trey, held
up a green street sign that said Timber Ho Ave.(or maybe Dr.) at the
beginning of both sets. Trey came out, saw the sign, heard the guys
yelling "Timber Ho!", ignored me yelling "Tube!" and went into Timber Ho.
Another treat to hear a long-retired tune and it reminded me of Camel Walk
the night before. I really liked this tune, and hope they don't put it
back on the shelf for the fall tour. Next came the intro. to David Bowie,
which I recognized right away. They seemed to play it a little longer than
12/29 at Providence, and then went into a smoking Bowie. After about
thirteen solid minutes, Trey played the riff to Bathtub Gin a couple of
times, and I was excitely waiting for the rest of the band to follow.
Instead, Trey broke out of it and then proceeded to tease the Santana tune
"Soul Sacrifice." I didn't recognize this at first, but a friend clued me
in after the show. From here it not so neatly segued to Johnny B. Goode,
which Mike seemed somewhat shocked to find Trey playing. This is purely
conjecture, but Mike didn't seem that psyched with the move. It was a
tight Johnny B. Goode with some great, straight-forward, guitar soloing by
Trey. This segued into a jam that at first I thought was a cover or a tune
I didn't recognize, but then they started jamming on it, and eventually
went back into the Bowie ending. Overall, from intro. to ending, the Bowie
was 32 minutes long. Whew!! A great, long AC/DC Bag came next, which
segued nicely to a Lizards which I was really pysched to hear. For some
reason, I was very much looking forward to Trey's beautiful guitar solo
towards the end, but unfortunately it never came about. Trey blatantly
shanked after the second or third verse, and the band seemed dumbfounded.
They tried to recover for a couple of seconds, but couldn't, and Fishman
says something like, "Nice work Trey!" Trey than looks at Fishman, laughs,
and goes right into BBFCFM. This got the crowd excited even though they
seemed amazed and amused (I know I was both) at Trey's error. Mike was
really into the lyrics this time, and the entire front section yelled,
"Why Mike? Why?" every time he asked "Why do I try to kill you?" At the
crazy jam part, Trey came out in front of his monitors and put his guitar
around this George Jetson doll and had him play a little. The crowd ate
this up. Then Trey threw some box from on top of his amps into the crowd,
and then he picked up his and Mike's cups of water and Fishman's bottle of
water, and doused the front few rows of the crowd. At first I thought that
it was really cool because the strobe lights were going and the water
droplets looked crazy, but then after getting a shower, I was cold _and_
wet, which was not that much fun. A great rendition of A Day in the Life
followed, which I hadn't heard before, but really enjoyed. A long Possum
was a big surprise for this late in the set, and it jammed, but not quite
as much as the one Set 2 of 6/30 at Great Woods. A predictable Squirming
Coil ended the set, with yet another outstanding solo by Page. Just a
great way to close a set.

The Encore absolutely rocked when they came out with Simple, a song I get
the feeling that they _really_ enjoy. I was trying to figure out why they
get into this song so much, and I think it's because, as I read on the
phish.net a while back, the song is written about the bandmembers. Cymbals
being Fishman, Saxophone being Trey, Bebop being Page, and Skyscraper
being Mike. They sing, "We've got, skyscrapers, and it seems a pity too,
'cause every band needs skyscrapers too!" I'll agree that every band needs
Mike Gordon :-) They came out for a final a capella tune and although a
bunch of people yelled for Freebird, I knew that they would close the tour
with Amazing Grace. They stalled a little and listened to the crowd's
requests, Trey pretended to throw Fishman's goggles, and then Fishman into
the crowd, which everyone in the audience loved. Trey then picked up a
hackeysack from the stage and proceed to hack almost ten times off his
foot. I was impressed. This guy yelled, "Trey, you're the man!", but some
girl next to me said that he was just showing off. I've already explained
why I think the band loves Amazing Grace so much, so I won't go into it
again, but I was really glad to hear this end the tour. It seemed perfect.

Altogether, another phenomenal show with an incredible second set. I'm not
sure why I still preferred the second set of Sunday night's show, but if
anyone else agrees with me, maybe you can explain.

Hope everyone had a great time at all of the Summer Tour shows, and lets
get those 95's spinning!

Zach

--


Kim Hannula
kim@pangea.Stanford.EDU

Sugerbush Reviews

I don't remember the details of each show well enough to do a
song-by-song review, but I'd like to give you who weren't there a
taste of what the festivities were like.

I dumped my sleeping s.o. in the truck and headed out of Foxboro, Mass
at 7 am.  Four over-the-speed-limit hours later I was on Rt 100.  Got
lunch food in Warren and headed for the lot, praying that the north
lot wasn't already full.  Traffic on German Flats Road was backed up
nearly to Rt. 17 and wasn't moving.  I turned off the ignition and
read for about an hour and a half.  Finally traffic started to move
around noon.  You could smell overheated engines everywhere as we
creeped up the mountain, stop and go.  They had stopped checking
tickets when we reached the Sugarbush North access road and were waved
up it (success!  No buses for us tonight!).  We parked near the
entrance and watched the rest of the world set up camp.  We seemed
like the only people who weren't going to spend the night.

Shuttle buses carrying the unfortunates stuck in the outlying lots
didn't start to arrive until 4 or so.  We went into the venue when the
gates opened not much after 5 and planted ourselves in front of the
taper section.  The slope seemed to fill up faster than last year.  I
hope that was because folks got on the shuttle buses as early as
possible to avoid missing a set.  Before the show started people
started climbing over & under the blue plastic snow fence that marked
the back of the "venue".  With only one security person back there,
there wasn't any real effort to stop them.  I can understand not going
through the effort (or the violence) to force them to stay out, but I
_don't_ understand why people with tickets cheer when people break in.

The show started late as usual.  I don't remember the details of the
first set very clearly.  Sample opened energetically.  Divided Sky
reminded me of Red Rocks, except that the sky was framed by green
trees instead of red sandstone.  Gumbo without horns clued us in to
not expect guests.  Ok with me -- I like it with horns, but I'm also a
fan of Page's stride piano playing at the end.  The Curtain followed,
ending with a quick jump into a joyful Julius.  Then, the evening's
surprise for setlist watchers everywhere -- Camel Walk.  I hadn't
heard this before, so I can't comment if it has changed.  Reba came
next -- I can't remember how far this wandered from the theme.  It
ended rather abruptly, with no whistling.  I Didn't Know, with
Henrietta on vacuum, was great fun.  After Rift, Trey told the crowd
he was happy they were all there, and asked those who hadn't paid for
tickets to the show to donate to the King Street Youth Center (a
Burlington organization that the show was a benefit for) during set break.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps closed out the set.

It was dark when the second set began.  Runaway Jim has turned into
the latest experimental lauchpad, I guess.  This is the first
experimental Jim I've heard.  It wandered pretty far from the song
structure.  When it was perhaps too far to call back, Trey walked over
and whispered something to Mike, and they slowly pulled the jam into a
reggae feel for Makisupa Policeman (the segue wasn't spontaneous, but
it wasn't stop & start either).  The Makisupa jam got pretty far out,
too, and eventually changed into bluegrass for Scent of a Mule.
Page's solos are starting to sound like piano concertos.  After Scent
ended, they began Tweezer ("That's the rest of the set" says my s.o.).
But it was actually a short Tweezer for these days.  It only went
through one spacy-jammy transition before seguing into Ha Ha Ha.
Great segue, by the way.  Ha Ha Ha sort of segued into Sleeping Monkey
(they never stopped playing, but it wasn't really a transformation).
Sleeping Monkey and the following Acoustic Army settled us down.  Page
and Fishman look more comfortable with the guitars now -- they looked
up occasionally rather than staring intently at their hands the whole
time.  Slave to the Traffic Jam -- oops, I mean Light -- was an
absolutely beautiful, soaring close to the set.  Bubbles floating into
the spotlights above the crowd look amazing.  They encored with
Halley's Comet (almost commonplace this tour, but hilarious all the
same), which segued into the last Tweezer Reprise of the tour.

A DJ from a local (? but I don't know it) radio station announced (as
he had several times through the night) that they weren't exactly
prepared for the number of people who were at the show, and that no
one would be rushed out of the venue, and to just relax and be
patient.  The buses looked better organized than last year, with
clearly different loading areas for the different lots.  The biggest
slow-down may have been the hordes of people hanging out in the road
(which was quite narrow for buses to pass one another as it was!)
Lots of people were walking.  Many begged us for a ride, but we were
going the wrong way and didn't want to add to the buses traffic
problems more than necessary.  Got home at 1 am (after the 45 minutes
it always takes, concert or none).

Monday we got up early again in hopes of scoring a spot in the north
lot again.  No such luck -- they weren't letting any new, non-camping
people into the lot.  We parked in the south lot beside a scalper who
wasn't having much luck.  Buses didn't seem to be running yet (at 11
am), so we walked to the north lot.  Nice walk.  Took about an hour.
The north lot looked like a refugee camp that had just gotten a
donation from The North Face.  We parked on the hillside close to the
venue to eat lunch and read for the afternoon.  Buses started running
steadily between the lots by 1 pm.  When the gates opened around 5 a
lot of people were ready to go in.  Contrary to rumors, they did check
and rip tickets.  More people crowded in long before the show started
than the day before.

I don't know what was missing from the first set.  (My Friend, Poor
Heart, Antelope, Loving Cup, Sparkle, It's Ice, If I Could, Maze,
Strange Design, Free, Cavern).  Lots of stuff from Rift.  Even the
songs which could really take off didn't entirely (I actually took out
my contacts during Antelope, which would normally be physically
impossible because I'd be involuntarily dancing so hard).  There was a
large inflatable Moose being tossed around towards the front.  During
If I Could (after a toss perfectly synchronized with the "flipping
backwards through the doors and through the windows" line), one last
toss had it land in perfect sitting position, facing the audience, on
Page's side of the stage.  The feat got more applause from the
audience than the music did.  My s.o.liked the Maze jam (which he usually
isn't into) a lot.  Strange Design is amazing as a return to reality after
a really crazy jam (at SPAC and 7/1 Great Woods) (I think the point of the
"buzz kill" songs is to let everyone figure out where they put their brain
before it gets melted again.), but the energy wasn't there to need
releasing this time.  Free is still a great song, but again
it didn't reach its full potential.  All in all, an example of why one
should not judge the quality of a set based on the number of songs played
(eleven).

Set break consisted of trying to convince people that there really
wasn't more room somewhere up front.

I don't know what happened between sets, but somehow everything cut
loose in the second set.  It didn't hurt to start with Timber Ho.  In
all honesty, it wasn't the musical peak of the set, but I think it
started a trend of risk-taking that payed off big in the later jams.
Timber Ho was followed by the David Bowie-signalling high hat, with
a long, spacy introduction.  The jam headed out fast.  Trey teased
Bathtub Gin, and they played briefly with the theme before moving on
to other unexplored themes.  The jam had a lot of variety to it --
different drum beats, different playing styles.  It got far outside
the Bowie theme without ever getting lost in itself (the hazard of
spacy jams).  It segued into a rocking Johnny B. Goode, which segued
back into improvisational mystery land.  There were a lot of teases in
here, I think, but I didn't identify them.  Then again, they may have
been entirely new riffs.  Eventually the jam returned to David Bowie
and ended.  The AC/DC Bag that followed picked up the jamming ball.
It was a more experimental (for lack of a good word) AC/DC Bag than
I've heard before.  It segued into Lizards.  Suddenly, at the
beginning of one of the verses, only Page (and Mike?) are singing.
Trey tries to pull it together (while still playing Lizards) (my s.o.
thought he said "Helping Friendly?"), but the words just weren't there.
Fishman says "I need to talk to you about this, Trey".  Trey responds
by starting Big Black Furry Creature from Mars.  What a tension release!
Instead of flinging his guitar around, Trey picked up a very large doll
that someone had thrown on stageand flings it around, then grabs a cups and
throws water out onto the audience (which looks wild with the strobes
going), then throws some pasta (?) onto the audience as well.  Phew.
When BBFCFM ended, they started up A Day in the Life, which stop/start
fast segued into Possum.  Possum was again on fire, and contained
another Bathtub Gin tease.  Squirming Coil ended the set with more
composing from Page.  Simple was a perfect encore.  This one was pure
celebration -- this is what we love to do and we're doing it!  I like
the Leslie effects on the guitar in this.  And to finish the tour,
they came out front to sing us Amazing Grace.  I'm surprised they
didn't collapse into a group giggle fit before this started.  The
audience was rowdy.  After several attempts on the pitch pipe, Page
turned and threw it to the audience.  Trey threw something small
(guitar picks, maybe?) too.  I thought Fishman was going to throw the
crowd his dress.  Trey mocked throwing Fishman to the crowd.  Finally
the crowd and the band started to settle down and they sang nicely,
almost in tune most of the time.

"Waterloo" by Abba was the immediate post-show music -- a request to
keep everyone's sense of humor while waiting for the buses?  In the
lot, the DJ kept the bus-waiting crowd calm and partying at the same
time (or at least it sounded like he was trying).  The disco bus
provided a party lower in the lot.  The stars were out, and it was
chilly, so we decided to walk back to the south lot.  I think a lot of
people who did the walk weren't too keen on it, but I preferred the
stars and the exercise to the hour spent sitting in the Great Woods
parking lot two nights before.  We got home at 2 am -- only an hour
later than we got in at Great Woods (and the post-lot drive was 45
minutes longer!).

Amazing four nights.  I am struck by how consistently _good_ these
guys are.  I mean -- my mood creates much more variation in my show
experience than the playing does.  *I* have more off nights just
*listening* than they do playing.  I just hope that irresponsible
fools don't destroy my chance to continue hearing this stuff.  I don't
think Phish should return to Sugarbush -- not because it is a
logistically hellish venue, but because security is impossible to
enforce (without causing traffic jams or resorting to the kind of
violent crowd control that many of us came to Vermont to avoid dealing
with).  I am very afraid of what rumors of mellow, successful gate
crashing will lead to next time.  Unfortunately, patience and a sense
of humor can only go so far in keeping a crowd from getting out of hand.

a long-winded Kim