12/29 - Madison Square Garden - New York, NY - Post-Show Discussion

[runawayjimbo]

Set II + encore - huge cup of meh for me.  


12/28 was much, much better in my book.  This was phoned in 3.0 in my book. 

Did you forget to listen to the Mikes > Chalkdust > Hydrogen > Weekapaug?

I listened to it.  It was garbage.  The segue into Hydrogen is laughable.  Mike, and Page are in C, Trey's in D.  Horse force to the extreme.  The Mike's is over before it even begins.  The Chalkdust is good, but again, it gets aborted for Hydrogen.  The Weekapaug is good.  No doubt on that.  But 7 minutes of good jamming in weekapaug doesn't save the set.  How many times are they going to play Cross Eyed the same way?  Very weak simple.  Lifeboy is misplaced.  Guyute is flubtastic.  Show of Life is badly misplaced.  And the Character Zero is RAWKtastic.  

Not my cup of tea.  It's what I hate about 3.0.  Looks epcot on paper, but its a spiraling mess of forced pseudo-magic.   

12/28 smokes it. 

Couldn't agree more on the transition to H2, I'm still tasting the vomit in my mouth from that one. But I dug the Mike's, liked the curveball with CDT, and the Paug was the shit. I also would have scrapped Guytue for an extra 10 mins of jamming for the C&P > Simple, there was a nice ambient groove building at the end of C&P. Loved the Lifeboy and the 3.0 fake out I could do without (although an extra 15 mis of show shouldn't bother anybody).

Overall, this show gets much higher relistenability scores from me. Save 90 secs on the Cities, the first set on the 28th might as well not have happened. The highlights in the second set on the 28th were higher, but on the whole, this show smokes it IMO.

This show reminds me of the first set of SBIX 3: it wasn't flawlessly executed, but it was more consistent and there was some risk taking even without breaking out of the structure of any song.For the first time in a while, I'm hopeful it can carry over (fuckin' jinx).

[mistercharlie]

Listened to the Mike's Groove and YEM so far. Weekapaug was nice, good to see them giving Paug a chance to run. And I think I heard Trey teasing Alive Again during YEM.

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

[gainesvillegreen]

Listened to the Mike's Groove and YEM so far. Weekapaug was nice, good to see them giving Paug a chance to run. And I think I heard Trey teasing Alive Again during YEM.

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Do you have a timing on that Alive Again tease?

[rowjimmy]

Listened to the Mike's Groove and YEM so far. Weekapaug was nice, good to see them giving Paug a chance to run. And I think I heard Trey teasing Alive Again during YEM.

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Do you have a timing on that Alive Again tease?

Right after Trey went all "tweedle whaaa dweeduh duh dweeduh duh whoomp".

[runawayjimbo]

Listened to the Mike's Groove and YEM so far. Weekapaug was nice, good to see them giving Paug a chance to run. And I think I heard Trey teasing Alive Again during YEM.

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Do you have a timing on that Alive Again tease?

I didn't hear that but I did pick up a brief Suskind Hotel tease from Mike about a minute into Antelope.

[mbw]

Listened to the Mike's Groove and YEM so far. Weekapaug was nice, good to see them giving Paug a chance to run. And I think I heard Trey teasing Alive Again during YEM.

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Do you have a timing on that Alive Again tease?

I didn't hear that but I did pick up a brief Suskind Hotel tease from Mike about a minute into Antelope.

i heard that.  it was right before trey was all like, "dee dee doooop deee doopa dooooo"

[runawayjimbo]

Listened to the Mike's Groove and YEM so far. Weekapaug was nice, good to see them giving Paug a chance to run. And I think I heard Trey teasing Alive Again during YEM.

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Do you have a timing on that Alive Again tease?

I didn't hear that but I did pick up a brief Suskind Hotel tease from Mike about a minute into Antelope.

i heard that.  it was right before trey was all like, "dee dee doooop deee doopa dooooo"

Exactly

[blatboom]

Listened to the Mike's Groove and YEM so far. Weekapaug was nice, good to see them giving Paug a chance to run. And I think I heard Trey teasing Alive Again during YEM.

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Do you have a timing on that Alive Again tease?

Right after Trey went all "tweedle whaaa dweeduh duh dweeduh duh whoomp".

lol

[Augustus]

The 3.0 train rolls on... :|

[VDB]

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

It sounded good when Trey was incorporating the H2 melody in Chalkdust, then it kind of fell apart and they stumbled into H2 proper. Pretty much what's been happening more often than not when a great segue appears to be in the offing. Someone gets overly excited (usually Trey), someone gets spooked (usually Fishman) and we tumble into the next song.

[mistercharlie]

Listened to the Mike's Groove and YEM so far. Weekapaug was nice, good to see them giving Paug a chance to run. And I think I heard Trey teasing Alive Again during YEM.

Also, I kinda dug the hydrogen force. I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Do you have a timing on that Alive Again tease?

Not off the top of my head. I was listening in the car so I didn't write it down.

[whatapiper]

The 3.0 train rolls on... :|

Sad but true.   At least we can stay home and watch all the big shows from our couch with a real beer.  Paying $15 to watch a show is sweetness. 

[phg]

Lol well I wouldn't say its sad phish is playing. Uic and  dicks were awesome, and a long time coming. Can't expect to get in that groove rite away after 3 months....which is obviously part of the problem. How is it that Phil lesh is playing double the shows phish has the past 3 years.

Anyway that's another topic....last nite was def a set back and offered zero new music/new direction/interesting music. Just one nite though....its a lot easier to judge and be critical from a couch, I've found. Also makes missing the shows way easy to get over.

[Gumbo72203]

listening to YEM....  its...  well, they're out of practice is all.  And that kind of flubbing is okay with me.  Part of Phish's appeal is the gall and aloof stoner-ism of them to book and sell out MSG for 4 straight nights, knowing that they have shit as hard as YEM to play, and then kind of just ignore it and get onstage and try to go for it.  Its almost like they leave it up to the gods whether they'll nail it or not, and that kind of unknown suspense is EXACTLY what ALL of us are here for, to begin with.  Yes, granted, a flawless performance would be fantastic.  But they do so many other things with their music, and taking into account so many other factors, I can forgive it.  I really don't care; i'm not going to let it wreck my enjoyment. 

Although, in the haterz defense, this YEM *did* come quite perilously close to true-PH-fuck-up level with the pre-Nirvana ending, and just a lot of jagged botched chording.  But jesus christ, they've got 100 songs to play this run, and they can't JUST concentrate on YEM. 

PLUS, I guarantee that no matter how much they pratice it, getting out on-stage in a completely different environment with different mitigating factors and variables is going to render any practice worthless.  Unless they practiced the song with tons of people around (ie: touring, which they haven't been doing lately).

OH MAN PAY JORGAN WUDMTF START!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  HOLY FUCK!!!  that was totally awesome.  Really short organ/drums segment it seemed like.

I really like that they seem to sink deep right after Trey comes back in with guitar.  OH MAN PAGE RHODES!!!!!  YEAHHHH!!!!!

[Augustus]

  But jesus christ, they've got 100 songs to play this run, and they can't JUST concentrate on YEM.

I agree.
There are 99 other songs they need to half-ass.
They're only professional musicians, guys.