R10/W05: 09-26-1991 State St. Theater, Ithaca, NY

[khalpin]

Jenny 867-5309  :-D

[sophist]

I'm going to listen and review this today. 

[mbw]

R10/W5: 9/26/91 State St. Theater, Ithaca, NY

my notes are sparse, so i will not be doing a song by song.
everything is played tight to begin, llama and sky especially.

page seems to not quite have the lyrics down for ice yet, but hey, second time played.

gotta give props to fish on lizards for keepin the beat while trey and the audience try their best to fuck him up with off time guitar and clapping respectively.

the bowie is tight.  loved the riff treys comes up with in the breakdown.  "Drums is like learning to ride a bicycle built by Dr. Seuss." - Jon Fishman

some more 'new' ones with brother and sparkle.

i too wouldnt mind if they put pyite away for a tour or two and played some full on landlady's. or, why not do both?

the mikes groove is nasty with trey in pure shred mode in weekapaug, and two songs later in chalkdust.

---------------------
good times.  fun hearing trey talk about new songs like brother, ice and sparkle.
i wish he's say "heres a new one" nowadays without it sucking.

thanks for the listen.

[khalpin]

i wish he's say "heres a new one" nowadays without it sucking.

:hereitisyousentimentalbastard

[Superfreakie]

i wish he's say "heres a new one" nowadays without it sucking.

Summer '89 whips it out and pisses all up in your face.

[WhatstheUse?]

i wish he's say "heres a new one" nowadays without it sucking.

lol

[sophist]

Alright.  Some OG Phish huh ?!?! 

I don't usually venture this far back on my own (I know, I know, blasphemous listening habits on my end), so it's cool to visit a show like this and hear the band before improv became the main philosophy of the band.  I can dig how some of y'all love this era of Phish, but it's not my cup of tea.  I want that crazy, almost never ending improv (I guess you can call me the antithesis of Pie-Guy Phish  :wink: ).  I will comment that to hear the band in this tight a manner is quite refreshing, especially Trey.  It kind of shocked me how much better he sounds in 91 than 94 onward.  It's a "oh fucking wow" difference. Alright, since a lot of this songs were so straight forward, I didn't take extensive notes for this show.  So my review is brief. 

Right from the get-go of set one this show is tight and full of energy.  The llama just explodes out of the recording, and Trey brings the A+ shreddage.  As others have mentioned this show is very tight, and at the same time very condensed and non-straying versions of the songs.  Pretty cool to hear a 6 minute Mike's Song that doesn't suck ass or sound half ass.  Overall I'd give both sets a solid B+/A- and the show overall gets a B+ from me.  If it had a tad more jamming I'd bump it to a A. 

[pnchundi]

Its been too long since Ive listened to an early show, shame on me. 

Llama- is super fast and super tight
Bouncing- im picturing a tiny club just jumping up and down
Sky- Goddam.  Im glad trey figured out how to get back to whale calls in 3.0, because its a huge part of whats Sky Sky.  Early sections are elegant and the tension release is fantastic.
Fee- needed a cool down for sure
ITs ICe- a little rocky, but fun to hear this in the early stages
MY Sweet One- big smiles
Guelah- great tune. I guess this one doesnt translate as well to arenas?
Lizards- I love old lizards.  Page and Trey are so tight
foam- lots of heat from everyone.  builds really well
bowie- hint of darkness early on.  Like the intro and the jam rages

golgi- good version
coil- lots of energy
brother- this rips
sparkle- how it should be done
landlady- i miss this little one as a stand alone
destiny- love it.
mikes- crackles with fire.  trey is killing it
h0-
groove- mike's turn but everyone is kicking it
lawnboy- much needed cool down
chalkdust- another barn burner.  Is fish playing this a little faster than usual?

memories-
poor heart-
sweet addy-  Justjezmond got it right shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh woooooooooo shhhhhhhh

Great show.  These were the kind of tapes that got me hooked in the 11th grade; different styles of songs, intricate playing, and some flat out shredding.  Its a lot harder to be subjective and assess a grade to early shows because they are usually all awesome.  The band is still so raw but very much playing together as one unit.  Trey has not learned out how to pick out the notes, so instead he crams in an extra 30 or 40 to find the one he wants. But thats just genius!