From KAZDEYNA@aol.com Sat Sep 12 23:35:41 1998
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 07:43:31 EDT
From: KAZDEYNA@aol.com
To: dan@archive.phish.net
Subject: Prague reviews


----------
Phish - Sunday, July 5, 1998
Lucerna Theatre
Prague, Czech Republic

Set 1:

Birds of a Feather    8:25pm
Taste
Cavern ->                 8:40pm
Reba
Fee ->                      8:54pm
Jam ->
Water in the Sky      9:10pm
Lawn Boy
Chalk Dust Torture    
                                9:23pm


set 2:
Bathtub Gin ->           10:05pm
Jam ->
(BEK->) 
MoMA Dance
McGrupp & the Watchful Hosemasters ->
Jam(s) ->
Axilla ->                  
Harry Hood ->              10:45pm
Rocky Top Tennessee  10:58pm
                                  11:01pm

Encore:
Funky Bitch   
                                  11:10pm


   
  The Lucerna Theatre is in the basement of what seems like a residential
building on Stepanska Street off of Wenceslas Square in the New Town.  The
large building has stores on the first floor and actually is a covered walkway
("ground floor mall") in between two somewhat parallel streets (Stepanska and
Vodickova).  Three flights down is the floor of the theatre which looks like
any other old theatre; two floors of small balconies lining the perimeter of a
rectangular open floor (where seats use to be) with the stage at one end, and
the bar at the back end under the balconies.  There was also a bar on the
second floor.  The place was packed tonight and very smokey, giving it that
stinky sauna feeling.  The theatre itself is of tan, beige color with fixtures
of "gold" and copper.  One could get a floor position (which was a couple of
steps down from the sides) or be on the sides in little alcoves under the
balconies (which were supported by large columns, thus providing alcoves),
also the right side of the first balcony was available for concert goers the
left reserved.  Third balcony wasn't used unless somebody happed to wander up
there.  The sound was actually better from the alcoves then the floor, but
quite good both nights.  The place was filled with approximately 90%
Americans, mostly of college or post-college age (more on this later in review
of the second night).  Finally a film crew (one guy with camera) was filming
the entire show, and from what I heard the entire tour for the "Phish Movie".
I guess this has been going on and off since last August's Great Went shows.

   Set One started with a rather ambitious beginning in the form of Birds of a
Feather.  This song shouldn't be a show opener unless the band is ready to
roar from the start, and it was evident from this version that the band
wasn't. The song was slow to get going, and wasn't played with enough of the
energy it demands (not like the only other time I heard it at Nassau in
April). Therefore leaving it with a standard solo by Trey that was just a
repetition of the chorus.  Similar comments can be made about Taste.

  The show oddly enough got going with Cavern.  Here the band and the crowd
began to pick things up.  A standard version of Cavern, but good and healthy
singing of the "Give the Director..." portion of the song by Trey with which
the band brought out the energy within the crowd, and the band itself.

  Reba was good, and well placed in the set to keep the crowd levels high,
Page is distracted throughout the song talking to the monitor guy.  I am not
one of these fans that enjoys picking out every flub or mistake Trey makes in
his playing (this actually seems to be the number one trend amongst fans, to
say how poorly Trey played the night before, it seems like we have a lot of
music majors in the crowd these days, but funny how I never seem to hear about
the mistakes of Mike, Page, Fish......oops sorry for the commentary, back to
the review), so I wouldn't know if this version was musically flawless, it
didn't sound so, but a nice version in it's own right.

    Fee was flubbed by Trey :) in lyrics and playing, asked Page for a long
piano solo, Page gave him a short one, Trey looked confused.  Then he
proceeded to flub the lyrics, mumbling them and then jokingly saying to the
crowd "you know how it goes......" Looked almost as if he was going to abort
the song totally but then the band went into a jam with Trey just picking away
on the guitar, Page on the clav, and Fish clopping along on the drums.  This
jam proceeded into....

 Water in the Sky!  I really liked this song in the past, knew it had
potential, and now hearing this version I love it!  It's a little faster, nice
singing, and a sweet "raining-like" solo by Trey.

   Lawn Boy was it's own self with Page dipping into the crowd to shake hands,
and the Chalk Dust Torture to end the set had a very lackadaisical solo
similar in style and sound to BOAF, which I hope doesn't become a trend.

  In between sets, I was fortunate enough to meet up with Dave Paisley,
knowing he would be on the tour I spotted him in the floor crowd, and spent
the remainder of the Prague shows in pleasant conversation with him especially
his thoughts on Copenhagen amongst many things.  It was definitely good to see
Dave again, it's been a while!  Plus I also think I was introduced to Saul. 


  Set Two started off with Bathtub Gin which was quick and proceeded into a
jam that had Mike in complete control of the situation.  Page was afraid to go
to the keys and just remained in a diffident state throughout the song
(commentary number 2:  I haven't seen any shows in 1997, but the four shows I
have seen this year Page just seemed completely out of it, maybe it's just me,
but he seems very lackluster in his playing lately, never taking any
initiative, only when called upon to solo does he still seem to provide
something worthy.  I hope it's just a slump and not something much worse.).
However Mike shined in this solo! The jam became funky towards the end, and
then proceeded into Black-Eyed Katey, which was played for a long time, or
should I say is now a very long introduction to the first new song I was
exposed to......

   MoMA Dance, which basically is BEK with lyrics, but if you didn't know this
you would have listed this as BEK->MoMA Dance on your setlist.  The music is
funky, with mainly Fish singing, and Mike repeating the words "MoMa Dance, the
MoMa Dance" in the chorus.  My first thought on the lyrical arrangement was
that it sounds a lot like something in style to the Doobie Brothers way of
singing, at least that's what it reminded me of.  Trey's solo was Frampton
like (a description for the sound which I have used in the past), and at one
point a member of the crew came out to change Trey's mic, so if you hear
applause on the tapes in the middle of the jam in MoMa dance, that's what
happened.  This was the best song out of the new three songs that I saw, and I
was told that it had already "come a long way" since it's first versions in
Denmark.

  McGrupp featured a long Page piano solo in the middle of it (not as long as
at the end of Squirming Coil but in the same vein), which seemed to be of
Trey's asking, and was very well done.  Then a jam continued through the song
which again was very "cloppy" in playing by Mike and Trey and then Trey
playing a type of marionette march in the middle of it.  Maybe the influence
of Prague's marionette theatre and all the marionettes on sale through out the
city brought this out, maybe it just brought it out in my review but that's
what that piece of the jam seemed to me. This followed into a screechy jam
which went into Axilla, which had the original lyrics, or part I.  Which then
went into Harry Hood.  About four glowsticks made it around the crowd and
actually hit Chris K. who threw the glowstick back into the crowd
(unfortunately this amazing song now has become a glowstick launching pad with
glowstick reviews leading the charge when reviewing this song, therefore
somewhat diminishing it's status as a Phish classic, IMHO, that was commentary
3).  Always nice to hear Harry Hood, and being so close to the stage you can
hear Trey "talk" his way through the entire song.......I really want to know
what he says to himself during the  "Mr. Minor" repetitive jam portion, they
can probably become additional lyrics to the song.  Standard version, nothing
standing out.  Rocky Top was well done to end, I like this
song............"corn from jars" always cracks me up!

The encore featured a very lively, well Jammed out version of Funky Bitch!  I
was told it was VERY lively played in Copenhagen, but this version was good
too, especially Page's organ solo.

Highlights:
Cavern
Jam out of Fee ->
Water in the Sky (first star)
MoMA Dance
McGrupp -> Jams
Rocky Top
Funky Bitch


Tourist highlights included:
St. James Church with it's large pipe organ and hanging shrivelled human hand
(only in Europe!) warning the fate of anybody who tries to steal the jewels
off the statue of the Virgin.
Charles Bridge.
The unfortunately painted over John Lennon wall.
Municipal House (Obecni Dom).
Museum of the City of Prague.
Kampa Island.

Review of night two soon to follow!

Thanks for the time,
Peace,
Kaz

Kazdeyna@aol.com