12/30 - Madison Square Garden - New York, NY - Post-Show Discussion

[susep]

30Dec.2011 - MSG


I

PYITE - a repeat of last year's NYE opener, bored w/ this tune.

Caspian - '95 style in terms of placement, decent version.

BDTNL - they should revisit Spac '09 for inspiration...more trilly Trey.

Nellie Kane - 4 songs in no meat.

Divided Sky - bringing the Holiday vibe, this is their New Potato Caboose, composed yet etheral, they've done a fairly good job w/ this tune in 3.0, aquatic break near 4:17, Trey quick to get back in, beautiful music underneath, crowd erupts during the "note", 2nd wave of cheer, good sound/mix, Page comp ascension near 8:30, signaling charge, Trey hitting some nice Sky peaks, nice Page, nice re-entry by Trey near 10:14, Trey begins steep ascent near 11:37, pulling out all of the stops in his bag of tricks, slight flubbage near 13:05, nice Sky builds towards outro solo theme, kinda weak sustain before chord break, overall solid version, awkward ending.

"Mike, I see you got my Xmas present!" from the crowd...

Sand - Tab style open, harmonic series by Trey, he leads in near 3:48, funked up Mike, much more varied lines then say '99 or '00 where he rarely deviated from Markellis's riff, funked up Page on the clav, Trey trill leads continue, Fish responds w some trill rolls near 5:30+, ascending trillage Trey, Mike holding it down nicely, rock peak Trey(is that all he can do improvisationally?), Machine Gun Trey, ripchord near 7:57, weak version, crowd loves it...

Vultures - Trey flub at 2:06, gets it right at 2:26, appropriate for the state of their improv., not sure which is worse, the whale or the trill?, 1 nice peak near 5:06, into

Rift - better flow, really all set w/ tunes like this, into

Joy - I like this song, a little bit. 

Quinn - Quinn'd out.





II

scratch,

Wilson - Trey has become his own Wilson, botched first lead, 12/30/1994 set opening Anniversary, "hendge-ssssssshhhhhhh", tease?, into

Axilla - ouch, yikes Trey, meh, wish they played the old school '94 pt. II two chord outro vamp, into

Piper - jam drops near 2:37, fairly straight ahead out of the gate, nice Page accentuating Trey, Trey funking it up near 5:10, Page responds on the organ, switches back to the ivories then to clav, slight Hampton '97 Halley's outro vibe for a moment, more decent funk 6:25+, ambient thrust recedes, Page takes off, interesting jam heading into 8:00, Trey mostly muddy throughout, Fish and Mike holding on, jam drops into mellow space, ambient jam spawns, more thrust from Page, burst from Page near 12:00, whale like calling, great Fish underneath, classic watery/psychedelic Phish jam, nice NYC style siren effect/playing, nice

Twist - jam drops near 2:49, type I, Mike reminding of last jam, more 3.0 rock

Julius - yawn at the rock peak

Golgi - more first set songs, where's the meaty set II improv horses?

2001 - tease?, nice Page on the clav, UM Trey, Trey sounds better on rhythm,

Horse - "oh sorry"

Silent - yawn.

Bowie - slight Digital Delay Loop Jam teases in intro, Mike weaving a serene undercurrent, trippy intro, scratch at 1:49, jam drops at 5:34, more 2 chord vamping from Trey to open, playing w/ Mike early, tease?, playful melodic variation, Page already there, Mike and Trey go back to previous melodic phrase, continues upward, Fish experimenting w/ a Weekapaug reprise 27Nov.1998 style snare rhythm, jam loses steam, everyone playing full on, Trey sharks out in front, shrieky sounding Trey before peak, more beta Trey, this jam started out nice but like many jams from this Run, did not evolve or regressed as it went along.  crowd loves it.

Coil - end of set,


E


Boogie On -

GTBT - too many covers, how about Free Man in Paris?




Overall: check out the Sky and Piper, leave the rest. 

[whatapiper]

thanks for sharing that Piper, easily the highlight of the run.   I'll keep that one in my itunes library.

[VDB]

It was a little disjointed at first, but once the Piper dropped into melodic spaciness things took a turn for the excellent. I believe they could jam just about every song like this if they wanted to.

Twist usually doesn't do a lot for me as it mostly seems to be Trey noodling, but I did hear some good interplay between him and Page in this version. They can and do sometimes still listen to each other quite well. Decent little rock peak at the end and then, as usual, Trey came back in for the vocals just a touch too soon.