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R17/W01 1997-07-29 Desert Sky Pavilion, Phoenix, AZ

Started by sophist, January 09, 2014, 12:41:41 PM

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natronzero

Set 1
THEME FROM THE BOTTOM - Good song for starting the show off with a bang. Trey flubs some notes in the ascending part after the 2nd verse, but recovers. The jam gets seriously soaring and a little bit shreddy, and a little chaotic but in a good way. Seems to get the crowd worked up.

BEAUTY OF MY DREAMS - This is the spot for bluegrass, I guess. Beauty's fine. Not one of my favorite bluegrass tunes they do, but it doesn't suck either. Standard version.

GUMBO – Jam goes right into some nice syncopated oxyfunk, morphs into something synthy and weird (Sophist had it on the nose with the Wormtown comparison), gets really dark. Mike with some nicely articulated runs and Fish with the rolls around the 10 minute mark.

DIRT – One of the better ballady Phish songs, in my opinion. I love the guitar solo, and this one is just sloppy/distorted enough. I think this is one of the last introspective Phish songs that doesn't cross into cornball territory. So that's a plus too.

SPARKLE - I like Sparkle. Yeah it's always the same, but it's high energy and quintessential Phish. Fuck the haterz.

GHOST – I've always been hot and cold about Ghost, and rarely seek out versions to explore, but right off the bat this one looks like it'll go in the good pile for me. The energy is there right from the start, feels a little BEK-y at times. I like hearing the "Yeah!"s and the "Oh!"s from Trey so you know he's feeling it... This era they were definitely messing around with the intensity of the jam by bringing it down a lot. Swaggery rhythm starting around 6:35 is fun, but then the repetition starts. Between about 8:00 and 10:00 I'm a little bored, to be honest - repetitive funk is not exactly my thing. Mike brings the popcorn thumbslaps in around there though, and it seems to reinvigorate the whole band. Energy comes back and the jam gets a little Gin-ish around 12:15. They keep the energy high for a few minutes, and then it just kind of peters out. Yeah, I don't know. This one was kind of hot and cold in the same version for me.

SWEPT AWAY>STEEP> - Standard version, unremarkable but fine.

LOVING CUP – Does what Loving Cup does, good-ass arena rock, that's about it.

Set 2
OLIVIA'S POOL – Total throwaway song. I'm glad they turned it into Shafty, and I wish they'd bring that one back around more often.

RUN LIKE AN ANTELOPE> -  I fucking love Antelope. Even the most standard ones are a journey and the exploratory Antelope that breaks out and goes fully Type II is a rare jewel indeed.  Low key, understated intro gets playful a bit before the shift to 2nd Gear. Trey kind of misses that shift because he's playing around (I've never really understood what was so hard about "dunh-dunh-dunh dunh-dunh" or why they miss it so often), but he nails the fast runs at the shift to 3rd so all is well. It's Antelope as usual for a few. Trey's got that dirty, synthy atonal harmony effect on for a few minutes, then gets restless and switches back to a cleaner tone, then gets restless with that and starts playing with the rhythms of his phrases. He kind of doesn't seem like he knows where to go, but they all slog through it, looking for something. After a while, he's back to the dirty tone, then starts layering some feedback loops while Page gets tinkly on the piano. Finally, Mike starts playing a descending theme that breaks them fully into non-Antelope space. This could almost be Disintegration-era Cure for half a minute or so. Repetitive, melodic lines eventually morph into a more assertive, majestic passage that's starting to approach Antelope again. Page is still on the piano, giving everything a more emotional feel than usual. At about 13:15 Trey's playing some Antelope licks again, and by 14:00 they're back. Song continues its climb to the peak as usual. There's a particularly sweet spot around 15:20 or so, a few moments before the drums kick into double time, where Trey's playing this very Machine Gun-like wailing whammy thing that just kills. The band nails the drop, and there are a few seconds of that Could You Be Loved-sounding thing. Seriously jammy and interactive Rye Rye Rocco section! They wrap it up, Page starts the sireny bloops and they go into the next song. Unique version overall. Really, they don't go that far out. My favorite parts are still the standard Antelope parts, but the explorative parts just add extra points.

WADING IN THE VELVET SEA – Loved this song in the late 90s, totally sick of it now. I started to count the number of times they sang "I've been wading in the velvet sea", and lost my will after the first verse (they were up to 30, so I'm pretty sure the whole song was in the 100 – 150 range).

TWIST> - Awesome, exploratory version that drifts into some dark ambient space. I love the energy in these early versions of Twist. Trey really gives it a little extra oomph in the verses. After the verses, it drops right into a mellow jam that explores quiet space. Trey sounds like his guitar is made of springs. Speeding up around 7:30, syncopated, still in that quiet space though. The quiet jamming in this song leaves lots of room for dynamics, and it feels as though the song is breathing. Abrupt shift around 9:00, atonal, then suddenly a fast boogie rhythm, immediately falls apart and gets chaotic, then back into some synthy pitch-shifted stuff with a weird, uncomfortable urgency. Stays that way, but at the same time constantly changes, for several minutes, building tension. The tense scratching starts around 14:00, with plodding bass underneath. After about a minute, this turns into pounding, but still soft, atonal guitar, then dissolves into a beautiful melodic passage, which dissolves after about another minute and a half into harplike piano runs and shimmery guitar harmonics. I feel like this performance recalls the turn-on-a-dime jamming style of '94, but in the dark ambient space of post-Europe '97.

TASTE – Fucking shreds balls. Absolutely one of the best versions of Taste I've ever heard. Thrilling.

SAMPLE IN A JAR> - Whatever. Good excuse for a rock guitar solo I guess.

ROCKY TOP – Rocky Top is pretty much always welcome. Placement seems a little odd as anything but a set closer. Of course that's probably the plan, so you're not expecting...

THE SQUIRMING COIL – Strangely, in about 20 years of loving this band, Coil has only really started to click for me within the past 2 or 3 years. I guess sometimes it just happens that way. Beautiful rendition.

POSSUM – Decent, typical Possum. Nothing special.

Some really sweet spots in this show focusing on dark, spacy, ambient jams. Antelope and Twist>Taste are the highlights for me. I'm not totally sold on the overall flow of the show. I guess two deep jams in Set 1 and two deep jams in Set 2 is pretty notable, it just feels like there's a lot of filler breaking it all up. Distilled down to the really hot parts, I'd give it a A-, as a whole show I give it a B.
I'd rather dwell in some dark holler where the sun refuses to shine, where the wild birds of heaven can't hear me when I whine.

sophist

Quote from: Caravan2001 on January 13, 2014, 09:39:16 PM
Leaving Wednesday morning for.......Phoenix.  Also just hooked up a new pair of Etymotic ER-4's so looking forward to some concentrated listening.  Will rock this show in transit.  Is there a specific AUD source I should grab?
I really don't think there is a bad source for this show.  I have the source from the spreadsheet. 
Can we talk about the Dead?  I'd love to talk about the fucking Grateful Dead, for once, can we please discuss the Grateful FUCKING Dead!?!?!?!

Caravan2001

Quote from: sophist on January 14, 2014, 09:47:18 AM
Quote from: Caravan2001 on January 13, 2014, 09:39:16 PM
Leaving Wednesday morning for.......Phoenix.  Also just hooked up a new pair of Etymotic ER-4's so looking forward to some concentrated listening.  Will rock this show in transit.  Is there a specific AUD source I should grab?
I really don't think there is a bad source for this show.  I have the source from the spreadsheet.

That's what I grabbed....Will listen tomorrow or today.

emay

so yeah I am def getting to this tonight.

THis is off to a good start  :wtu:

pcr3

Sorry for the delay, I've been fighting a nasty flu for days.  I lost a few pounds and may have quit smoking, so at least I have that going for me.  I haven't read any reviews, so apologies if this is a restatement of others' opinions.

Probably because I didn't see any shows that summer, I haven't listened to many summer '97 shows.  I know I've heard this one before, but I definitely did not pay as much attention as I have for this review.  The first thing I noticed is how jarring the audience is at the beginning.  Perhaps I should listen to more AUDs...

Theme
I love this song.  Perfect for an opener during a summer show.  Nothing earth-shattering, but just right.  The show has started, and I'm sure I've seen something I'd like to try.

Beauty of My Dreams
Page is just ripping.  This seems fast.  I like it that way.  Trey's solo is concise shred.  Perfect.  Nailed ending.  Cool start to a show.

Gumbo
I'm feeling the flow with this song choice.  Feels like summer to me.  Seems like fun.  Then Trey starts toying with those rapidly picked notes around 4:45.  Then they all seem to lock in at 5:20.  Off we go.  Sounds like pass the hey around 7:45.  It's interesting, I'm digging this groove, even though very little is occurring.  Sometimes I forget that a lot of the awesome of 97 is in the deliberate journey to get there.  They don't seem to be in any rush, just throwing random colors out there, not shifting the loping groove all that much, just feeling the place out.  They sound really comfortable with who they are and what they're doing.  Woah, shit's getting a bit weird around 11 minutes.  Page's slow drone in the background is tripping me out, and I'm sober as shit at my desk at work.  Cool little fade out.  That was a nice pleasant surprise jam for the audience.  They are fucking lapping it up.

Dirt
Nice little reality check.  Was probably weird to go from a rarely jammed-out oldie to a new song.  Trey's tone is gorgeous.  Short and sweet.

Sparkle
I'm tempted to go to the bathroom as I sit at my desk.  Fighting the urge...

Ghost
Ha.  If you timed your pee break as you should, you were rewarded.  As the song is new, it sounds like they are still working out the vocal parts.  Someone sounds like my imitation of whale mating calls.  Fish?  Eh, who cares.  It's not like the vocals are what brought me to Phish.  This kind of chugs along, I like how they pick it up a bit at the 8 minute mark.  Oh, and Trey on the wah at 8:30?  Always a good sign (at least back then).  So, again, it seems to chug along, not bad for a new song, but nothing mindblowing, though I do love me a nice melt into...
Swept Away>Steep
I like this combo.  Nice placement.  If I had been there at the time, I woulda been all  :-o  :crazy: after my piss break.  Love the scream ending.

Loving Cup
After Trey just scared the shit out of me, this would have been a nice warm embrace.  Standard version.

So, a nice first set.  Looking at the set list and song times, I thought I'd love this.  Having listened, I very much like this as a first set, but I don't LOVE it.  Seems kinda short.  Real nice flow, though.  Onward.

Olivia's Pool
Huh?  Who are these guys?  What is this?  Eh, I guess I didn't follow the Europe Tour and am just an oblivious fool.  This is fun, and should be longer.  Kind of a tease.

Antelope
Can't complain about the placement here.  I love where the song is around the 7 minute mark.  Chaos.  Sounds coming from all directions.  I love the layer of sound that is under everything.  And then the drop into the darkness around the 8 minute mark.  Interesting that Excel just crashed on my computer.  Either it was a function I did or the music just seeped in.  I'm going with the latter.  Shit seems to be working it's way back to "normal" at the 15 minute mark, but this is still hectic.  Oh, whatever Trey did from 15:20 to 15:30 is cool as shit.  Mindfuck here.  I keep thinking they'll drop into it, but they keep going further out.  And boom.  Wow, that was 10 minutes of why I see Phish, but instead of it being spread among 5-6 songs (3.0 style), it's continuous.  Ahhh, the good ole days.

Wading in the Velvet Sea
Another new one.  I love the Antelope siren still going off.  Quite the contrast between that and the gentle lyrics/music of this song.  What else can you say?  Trey's tone is great.

Twist
Again, I'm trying to put myself in the mindset of being there at the time.  I would have been totally WTF once this started.  Vocals sound good first time through, but rough as all hell the second time.  Keeping the theme going from the first set with the Ghost in that regard.  So the twist begins in earnest around the 6 minute mark.  Within a minute, it seems they have their parts carved out.  Shit starts to melt around the 8:45 mark.  Whoa.  Good thing I'm reviewing this at home baked out of my gourd having just tried a new vaporizer for the first time with my first wax purchase.  Each minute seems to get deeper down the rabbit hole.  I think Trey found something at the 11 minute mark.  Amoebic jam.  I fucking love this stuff.  Trey's doing some twisted Doppler effect thing at 12:45.  And the wah returns.  Finally at 16:20 they have landed in a pocket of beauty that could never be replicated.  That place.  But then that place slowly becomes obscured by darkness and fades into

Taste
The rolling start to this flows really nicely from Twist.  I am reminded how much I really liked this song when they first started playing it.  Fish's vocals sound awkward, but you quickly forget that once they start running through the crack part of the song.  The accelerando is awesome, as it seemed to be every time they played this for the first few years it was in the catalog.  Machine gun starts firing up about 6:30 in and is in full effect by 7:30.  And about 4 minutes later, all I can envision is Marty McFly after Johnny B. Goode.  Also, I'm pretty sure Trey came at some point there.

Sample
"Oh, you want us to throw you a bone with one of the classics?"  This is an odd choice.  Oh right, we ceded control of the situation a few songs ago.  They are in control.  Then this totally makes sense here.  Crowd goes nuts at 3:45.  Not sure why.  Delayed reaction from the Trey explosion?

Rocky Top
Huh?  Cool, the mindfuck continues.  Leo gallops through a solo.  Barely time to catch your breath before

Squirming Coil
Perfect.  There is good placement as far as point in the set and there is good placement with regard to working with the flow of the set and the music that has transpired to that point.  This one nails both, IMHO.  It's cathartic, even if it's not a standout version.  Tension>Release.  Trey>Page.  I hear a DEG from Page during the outro, didn't see it on the setlist, so maybe it didn't happen.  Doesn't matter.  Great way to end that set.

Possum
Another great selection.  This one feels restrained for some reason.  Never seems to really open up.  Would I have cared at that moment?  Not a bit.

So I went into the second set thinking I liked it on paper.  I kinda loved it after listening.  Will definitely re-listen to the Antelope and the Twist.  I may just throw the whole set on to make that easier on myself.

Overall, I'd give set 1 a B and set 2 an A-.  Nice flow throughout, show gets a solid B+.  You know, average/great.
"I'm singlehandedly responsible for poisoning the entire local ecosystem with all my fluids spilling onto the ground." -birdman, while plowing

"Mushrooms were a good idea!" -wtu

http://phish.net/myshows/prizzi3

WhatstheUse?

Bring in the dude!

emay

07/29/1997
Desert Sky Pavilion, Phoenix, AZ

Set 1:
Theme From the Bottom - cool opener, nice and chill.

Beauty of My Dreams - energy starts to rise. love this 1-2 right outta the gate.

Gumbo - summer 97 funk starting to birth outta this gumbo. mike mvp on the jam. great jam.

Dirt - little breather after that gumbo! love this son, helps me to think abnout all my phriends that passed.

Sparkle - tension > energy builder

Ghost - Nice start, def seems like they are excited playing this new tune at the time. jam gets going mike still mvp. Trey seems to be holding back a little this show but not in a awy thats bad. He is doing everything right. Nice peaked theme jam at the end.

Swept Away > Steep -  fuck yes ghost > swept away > steep is blissifull phish right there. Reminds me of how amazing the ghost > FEFY was in asheville 09.
this is why I love phish, dark and funky ghost > underwater blissful swept aawy > steep.

Loving Cup - Nice. Solid set closer.

set 2 after work!

pcr3

"I'm singlehandedly responsible for poisoning the entire local ecosystem with all my fluids spilling onto the ground." -birdman, while plowing

"Mushrooms were a good idea!" -wtu

http://phish.net/myshows/prizzi3

WhatstheUse?

Bring in the dude!

twatts

Flu has been killing me...  I feel better but have no energy except to drool in front of the TV... 

Kick me out, or let me turn in my reviews in a couple of days...  Whatever...

Terry
Oh! That! No, no, no, you're not ready to step into The Court of the Crimson King. At this stage in your training an album like that could turn you into an evil scientist.

----------------------

I want super-human will
I want better than average skill
I want a million dollar bill
And I want it all in a Pill

justjezmund

Quote from: twatts on January 18, 2014, 09:47:29 PM
Flu has been killing me...  I feel better but have no energy except to drool in front of the TV... 

Kick me out, or let me turn in my reviews in a couple of days...  Whatever...

Terry

pretty sure this edition of show club has no rules. get well.
Quote from: Augustus on September 29, 2013, 09:26:46 AM
It's like BJ Galore over here!


Quote from: rowjimmy on May 13, 2013, 09:36:00 AM
I use records for that and don't have to justify it to my friends.

pcr3

Quote from: justjezmund on January 19, 2014, 10:37:31 AM
Quote from: twatts on January 18, 2014, 09:47:29 PM
Flu has been killing me...  I feel better but have no energy except to drool in front of the TV... 

Kick me out, or let me turn in my reviews in a couple of days...  Whatever...

Terry

pretty sure this edition of show club has no rules. get well.

I can just post a new show and we can move Terry to the end of the line. Ramz?
"I'm singlehandedly responsible for poisoning the entire local ecosystem with all my fluids spilling onto the ground." -birdman, while plowing

"Mushrooms were a good idea!" -wtu

http://phish.net/myshows/prizzi3

mbw

Quote from: pcr3 on January 19, 2014, 04:11:52 PM
Quote from: justjezmund on January 19, 2014, 10:37:31 AM
Quote from: twatts on January 18, 2014, 09:47:29 PM
Flu has been killing me...  I feel better but have no energy except to drool in front of the TV... 

Kick me out, or let me turn in my reviews in a couple of days...  Whatever...

Terry

pretty sure this edition of show club has no rules. get well.

I can just post a new show and we can move Terry to the end of the line. Ramz?

I don't think he even understands that he is supposed to pick/post a show....

Augustus

I almost feel like I need to intervene here.
Or teach a class or something.

GBL

Quote from: Augustus on January 19, 2014, 05:13:58 PM
I almost feel like I need to intervene here.
Or teach a class or something.

Saw this coming from a mile away..
If this is love, I'm never going home..