Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 17:23:19 -0500
From: Jeff Walls rdbinsurance@hotmail.com
To: dws@gadiel.com
Subject: review of 10-28-1995

Hey all!

This is a review 6 years later.  I still go back and read reviews when I'm 
thinking about pickin' up a show so I thought I would add a review for those 
seeking a wild show.

Well, it will be short. The first set was average, nothing worth collecting 
unless your someone who is a huge Mound fan like me.  Hey, that's what 
fillers are for! Actually, the Timber Ho was pretty great also. It was 
spacey for those days.

What I really want to add here is that at the time, this show was my 4th 
show.  My first in 94'(Vanderbilt), and 2nd at DeerCreek, and 3rd the night 
before in Kalamazoo.  So I hadn't truly seen Phish indoors at a large venue. 
  Wings Arena was sooooo small and the Vanderbilt show, forget about it. 
VERY small.  So for this show I wanted to take a little trip.  Do any of you 
touring Fall 95 remember the Flying Pyramid!??  Well, my 2nd set was the 
most frightening out of the 49 shows I've seen since.  That 
Maze>Theme>Mule>Y.E.M was to this day one of the darkest, nastiest segments 
of Phish I have ever heard.  Each song seemed to plunge deeper and deeper 
into the depths of the Palace.  I think from the reactions of those around 
me that they didn't know what to think.  I know this.  Not one person walked 
out without giving their sanity a double check.  I would strongly suggest 
this 2nd set to those with a great stereo system and just let the fear take 
over.  Unfortunatly I can't give you a low down of the rest of the show 
because I lost my sanity for the one and only time and ran out of the show 
plugging my ears.  I laid in the back of my buddies truck and cried until 
the show was over.  My buddy said, "Man you should have hung on because they 
played Strange design after Y.E.M.!!  Page was saying everything would be 
o.k."  Man, do I wish I would of heard that.

A great dark set.  Highly reccomend it.

Jeff Walls
aka Shaggy Dog

From: Darius Zelkha sdz2483@ALPHA.cc.oberlin.edu
Subject: 10/28/95 Review

I went to this show, so this is a live show review.  It was my 5th phish 
show - I've been going since early '93.  On to the review...

10/28/95        The Palace, Auburn Hills, MI

I:      AC/DC Bag, Mound, Timber Ho!, Uncle Penn, Sample in a jar, 
Lizards, Billy Greeds, Acoustic Army, Prince Caspian, Run Like an 
Antelope
time: about 65 minutes.

II:     Maze, Theme from the bottom -> Scent of a mule, You Enjoy 
Myself, Strange Design, Space -> Frankenstein, Chalkdust Torture
time: about 80 minutes.

E:      While My Guitar Gently Weeps
time: about 5 minutes.


And some comments:

Set I: AC/DC bag: Nice opener, got the crowd dancing well.  Trey built
the solo from next to nothing very slowly and deliberately, using alot
of textural stuff, not so much the "machine-gun" effect.  Cool, 
well-played, but I'm not sure how well the textural stuff works on this 
tune.

Mound: Standard, I don't really care for it that much, but well-played.
Not sure how it fits as a 2nd song though.  I was really happy to 
hear...

Timber Ho!: Nice placement, it was the first time I had heard it but I 
liked it ALOT.  Very cool jam, again very textural, with lots of chordal 
and "spacey" stuff.  Very nice.

Uncle Penn:  Kind of out-of-place, pretty whatever.  Seemed almost
"token" - OK lets do the bluegrass number.  Not a favorite of mine, but 
well played.

Sample in a Jar:  After Penn, i wanted something with alot of punch,
like chalkdust or PYITE - something that rocked.  This was good, nice
solo by trey, but not what I was looking for.  Crowd dug it though.

Lizards:  Nice choice, again a very "light" tune.  Fun to dance to, and
Trey waited a while before coming in with the final guitar line.  Very
well-played.

Billy Greeds:  Mellow, very beautiful, but again, after all the "light"
stuff, I wanted something that had POP!  This was nice to hear, but it
took me a while to get into it.  I wish they would jam the end out, I
really like that.  Great vocal harmonies.

Acoustic Army:  Again, a mellow tune - most of the set, as you can see,
was very light.  Nice though - the crowd was a bit loud, which annoys
the HELL out of me!  Give the guys some quiet!

Prince Caspian:  Interesting choice, another light,
not-mellow-but-not-kick-ass song.  Seemed to be the theme of the set.
Trey seems to really like this song, and I do too, even though it's
rather repetitive.  Miles better than when I saw it at Red Rocks this
summer.

Antelope:  Cool, rather standard set-closer.  The jam was very
dissonant, textural, not very clean or clear.  It was cool, but not THAT
great as Antelopes go.

Set 1 comments:  All I can say about this set is "Average."  Very
song-y, with alot of songs but no real jams or segues, which was a
bummer.  Very happy, light set, which is cool, but i would have liked to
hear some variety in the mood.  Pretty average overall.

Set 2: Maze:  I'm not a big maze-fan.  I've seen Maze open a set 4
(count 'em, 4) times, so I wasn't that happy to see 'em play it, 
especially to open the set.  Very nice Maze though, built slowly, very 
spacey, very dissonant backing stuff by Trey. VERY long 2nd solo by 
Trey, which was cool.  It set the tone for a "dark" set, so I was 
interested to see what followed it, which was...

Theme from the bottom:  I love this tune.  VERY well placed, it was the
perfect contrast and compliment to Maze.  GREAT jam, very textural
(again) and gave you the feeling of swimming underwater.  Seemed very
long too.  I like this tune ALOT, so i was really happy.  This ended up
going into..

Scent of a mule:  I was REALLY happy to hear this as well.  I had heard 
that the trey/page duel was getting crazy, and this was NUTS.  Page took 
an AMAZING solo, and all the while trey was slapping his guitar and
walking back and forth conducting and smiling and moving. very cool
stuff.  Then trey stepped up to the mic, and, for 5 minutes, did this
great scat-guitar combo that just KEPT going.  Awesome.  Then page did a
similar thing on the piano that had trey doing more of the conducting
bit, and after the fiddler on the roof jam, mike's lead-in went on
forever!  He was scatting/singing/yodeling for a very long time, much of
which was REALLY cool.  Great tune - might have been the highlight of
the show.  Then came...

You Enjoy Myself:  Great choice, this set just kept getting better.  I
was really happy to hear this.  Tight beginning, and when they reached
the middle spacey part, trey did more of the singing/scatting bit, which
was VERY cool.  The jam was great as well (even though trey and mike
messed up the trampoline bit), very textural and it kept building and
building, and when it cuts to just the bass and drums trey started
playing his little drum kit and then started using his pedals, and
streching his arms to fit the sounds coming out.  Very hard to explain,
incredibly cool to watch, pretty cool sounding.  Vocal jam was long,
moaning (sounded like they were in a cavern) with great lights.  I was
interested to see what would follow, and was happy to find...

Strange Design:  Perfect placement after the scary vocal jam, because it
calmed people down - very reassuring.  Cool, page sounds GREAT.

Into Space:  They built a feedback beginning, much like that of down
w/disease, so i thought they'd play that.  After a while, trey went
around to all the members and said something, and they played...

Frankenstein.  HUGE surprise to all, which made it really cool.  
Well-played, fun.  Then came the closer, which was...

Chalkdust:  Interesting version.  Very spacey solo, textural, which I'm
not sure works for this song.  Cool though, rocking, and it ended the
set VERY nicely.  In my eyes, the second set had completely redeemed 
them.

Encore:  While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Perfect tune for the occasion - 
it really continued the mood that was set by the 2nd set.  Standard, but 
great none-the-less.

Overall:  Cool show - much better 2nd set.  They seemed to, throughout
the show, basically toss out the setlist, because after every song they
would have a little meeting, and then play the next tune.  I would say a
5.0 1st set, very average, but a 7.0 2nd set, which was KILLER.
Overall, a nice contrast between the sets, the 1st being so light and
song-y and the 2nd being sort-of dark and jamm-y.  Cool show.

The crowd was WEAK - lots of people sitting down and yelling during 
Acoustic Army, etc.  Lots of first timers, which is cool, but it also 
seemed like there were alot of people that didn't have anything else to 
do on a Saturday night.

One more thing: During the set-break i turned to the guys behind me and
asked if they'd seen phish before, and they said no.  I said "So what do
you think?" and one of them simply said "I like pot."  End of
discussion.

- Darius