December '95

[Marmar]

7,200

That's how many of us were in there.

It was cold as FUCK outside this night. I tried working as long as I could outside but it was just too damn cold. Luckily, my buddy Redbeard had gotten passes so we were able to get inside early and hang before showtime. We caught the soundcheck and couldn't get over how dialed in Paul had the place. Fish sounded HUGE, Page's piano had a sparkle to it, Mike was solid, and Trey's guitar sounded absolutely MONSTEROUS in that tiny arena. We milled around inside the arena after soundcheck, feeling kinda sorry for the poor souls freezing outside.

From the opening notes of Suzy, we knew we were in for it. Charging ahead full steam from the opening notes, Page melted faces in that Suzy...then Llama!?!?! PAGE!....Fairly tame Llama, but snot whippin none the less....Checked in on my group when they started Horn, made sure everyone was dosed up and ready to go.....Foam...just the sheer speed that it started off at, my buddy and I looked at each other and were like "here we go!"....I am fairly certain you can hear me yell WOOOOOO many times during Page's break on the official recording......Page owned it, so calm and calculated and sparkly....the L was starting to take hold....I remember how absolutely quiet it was when Trey started his solo, I miss those days...Trey and Mike kinda doing a lil thing which was neat....Trey holds that note sooooooo long....I gotta pick my face up off the floor. MAKISUPA!!!!!! Nice....Col. Qaddafi wtf Trey? MELT- This is some classic tension and release machine gun Trey. But again, maybe it was because we were slightly Page side from center, Page was KILLING it. Trey was eating it up. At one point Trey had this shit eating grin on his face because of how Page was pushing it.....and the false endings were not actually false endings....they were still playing just VERY QUIETLY...that was surreal to see up close. TELA.....fuckin love seeing this song live.....Taste was a break for us. MSO.....was fun...FRANKENSTEIN....Loved it at the time. Thought it was amazing. Page's synth sounded like it was from outer space, and he was just gettin down on it. Finally...we can RELAX.

The L started kickin our asses at setbreak. Stepped out for some fresh air, froze, and came back in only to find my buddy missing. Kinda started freaking out a tad.....

Chess move time.....and WTF.....WTF is he doing on the stage!?!? My acid riddled brain couldn't grasp what my eyes were seeing. Crazy, so my buddy gets to do the chess move. Neat. Now the only reason I say you can hear me on the official release is because that girl you hear yelling "GO DAN!" was his girlfriend Julie.....she was 2 seats away from me....so. THE CURTAIN.....oh, I had a regret....eating too many.....was way too strong....I'm too close....fawk I'm going mad.......TWEEZER....remember thinking how fitting because of the outside conditions....god, Mike is beating me over the head with his thumb hits. Here we go, underwater time....whoa, we aren't going there...Page gets a chance to own it before Trey stomps in....WHOA that was a slam into Timber....now we are gettin down....this groove is SINISTER....again Page shines, Trey looked like an evil nerd while he was adding texture to the mix....ok, my thoughts are spiraling out of control...make it st.....OH FUCK BACK TO TWEEZER!?!?!.. :rawk:..I literally saw people picking their face up from the floor at that move....ok, now they are just fuckin with us....my mind starts going "not CMAC again"... phew...ok we can catch our breath....Keyboard Army was neat...HALLEYS! Man this has an awesome stride to it. Trey is rockin out. That is a great theme he hits around the 6min mark....now WTF IS HAPPENING.... :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: ...I'm scared...this is :evil: ......NICU WTF!?!? This is sick...back to that theme, now they're all in on it....but PAGE.....man he's owning this night.....and it slowly melts, like my brain, into SLAVE! wow...damn....wtf, did they drink the tap water? wtf did we do to deserve THIS....

[susep]

https://phish.net/blog/1607887634/interview-of-trey-before-121495-binghamton-newly-released.html

[Caravan2001]

7,200

That's how many of us were in there.

It was cold as FUCK outside this night. I tried working as long as I could outside but it was just too damn cold. Luckily, my buddy Redbeard had gotten passes so we were able to get inside early and hang before showtime. We caught the soundcheck and couldn't get over how dialed in Paul had the place. Fish sounded HUGE, Page's piano had a sparkle to it, Mike was solid, and Trey's guitar sounded absolutely MONSTEROUS in that tiny arena. We milled around inside the arena after soundcheck, feeling kinda sorry for the poor souls freezing outside.

From the opening notes of Suzy, we knew we were in for it. Charging ahead full steam from the opening notes, Page melted faces in that Suzy...then Llama!?!?! PAGE!....Fairly tame Llama, but snot whippin none the less....Checked in on my group when they started Horn, made sure everyone was dosed up and ready to go.....Foam...just the sheer speed that it started off at, my buddy and I looked at each other and were like "here we go!"....I am fairly certain you can hear me yell WOOOOOO many times during Page's break on the official recording......Page owned it, so calm and calculated and sparkly....the L was starting to take hold....I remember how absolutely quiet it was when Trey started his solo, I miss those days...Trey and Mike kinda doing a lil thing which was neat....Trey holds that note sooooooo long....I gotta pick my face up off the floor. MAKISUPA!!!!!! Nice....Col. Qaddafi wtf Trey? MELT- This is some classic tension and release machine gun Trey. But again, maybe it was because we were slightly Page side from center, Page was KILLING it. Trey was eating it up. At one point Trey had this shit eating grin on his face because of how Page was pushing it.....and the false endings were not actually false endings....they were still playing just VERY QUIETLY...that was surreal to see up close. TELA.....fuckin love seeing this song live.....Taste was a break for us. MSO.....was fun...FRANKENSTEIN....Loved it at the time. Thought it was amazing. Page's synth sounded like it was from outer space, and he was just gettin down on it. Finally...we can RELAX.

The L started kickin our asses at setbreak. Stepped out for some fresh air, froze, and came back in only to find my buddy missing. Kinda started freaking out a tad.....

Chess move time.....and WTF.....WTF is he doing on the stage!?!? My acid riddled brain couldn't grasp what my eyes were seeing. Crazy, so my buddy gets to do the chess move. Neat. Now the only reason I say you can hear me on the official release is because that girl you hear yelling "GO DAN!" was his girlfriend Julie.....she was 2 seats away from me....so. THE CURTAIN.....oh, I had a regret....eating too many.....was way too strong....I'm too close....fawk I'm going mad.......TWEEZER....remember thinking how fitting because of the outside conditions....god, Mike is beating me over the head with his thumb hits. Here we go, underwater time....whoa, we aren't going there...Page gets a chance to own it before Trey stomps in....WHOA that was a slam into Timber....now we are gettin down....this groove is SINISTER....again Page shines, Trey looked like an evil nerd while he was adding texture to the mix....ok, my thoughts are spiraling out of control...make it st.....OH FUCK BACK TO TWEEZER!?!?!.. :rawk:..I literally saw people picking their face up from the floor at that move....ok, now they are just fuckin with us....my mind starts going "not CMAC again"... phew...ok we can catch our breath....Keyboard Army was neat...HALLEYS! Man this has an awesome stride to it. Trey is rockin out. That is a great theme he hits around the 6min mark....now WTF IS HAPPENING.... :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: ...I'm scared...this is :evil: ......NICU WTF!?!? This is sick...back to that theme, now they're all in on it....but PAGE.....man he's owning this night.....and it slowly melts, like my brain, into SLAVE! wow...damn....wtf, did they drink the tap water? wtf did we do to deserve THIS....

Funny that you know Bingham Dan/Mammy Dan.  He's my homie.  Anyway, this was a great show in a week of great shows.  I haven't been keep up with these show reviews/recollections, but I have been listening to all of them on their respective dates, so there's that.  I think the fact that Page chose this show as the first LP release pretty much indicates that the band agrees that this show is fire.  Still holds up 25 years later and is one of my favorites from the tour and near the top of all time shows for sure.

[Marmar]

Danny and I go WAY back...like middle school....I used to travel with the 3D's...Danny B, Danny M, and Damien C.....and Ditz....sometimes....oh then there was Slow-Bart

[anthrax]

PHISH, FRIDAY 12/15/1995
CORESTATES SPECTRUM
Philadelphia, PA
SET 1: Chalk Dust Torture > Harry Hood > Wilson > Maze > Ha Ha Ha > Suspicious Minds > Hold Your Head Up > Cars Trucks Buses, Bouncing Around the Room, Free > Possum[1]

SET 2: Tweezer Reprise > Runaway Jim > It's Ice > Bathtub Gin -> Rotation Jam -> Mallory[2] > Also Sprach Zarathustra > David Bowie, Sweet Adeline

ENCORE: Good Times Bad Times -> Tweezer Reprise

[1] Oom Pa Pa, Simpsons and All Fall Down signals.
[2] Debut.

Trey teased Lazy (Deep Purple) in Chalk Dust. Possum included Oom Pa Pa, Simpsons and All Fall Down signals and a Voodoo Child tease from Trey. Trey mentioned that he saw his first concert (Jethro Tull) in this very venue. Mallory debuted at this show.

180 miles south and we're in Philly.  After last night, what could they possible still have left in the tank.  Plenty!  On paper, this looks like a super fun time, but in a completely different way than the previous night.  18,645 paid $22.50 to find out.  That's more tickets than Halloween or MSG a few weeks later.  It was most likely the highest grossing show of fall tour and in Trey's "home" venue no less.  Dude had to be riding high for this show. 

[Marmar]

so heres this:

[Marmar]

So...this right here is a prime example of why these guys were such a force of cosmic magnitude....The very next night after a barn burner, we get treated to this. Just look at that opening sequence. From a nearly continuous second set the night before, they just kept it going. Energy was super high in the building. We were straight back, one section up from the rail to the floor. Not an ideal spot for viewing, but an AWESOME spot in the Spectrum sound-wise. Made friends with our neighbors who were from Arizona and shared many bowls with together.

The Chalkdust > Hood > Wilson > Maze was just NUTS. Trey and Page were just taking turns bitch slapping us all. They were locked together as one right from the get go, carrying the singularity forward to this night. Yeah, we had just had the doppler Maze a mere 6 days prior, but in my mind this one was just way more locked. Listen to Mike take the theme Trey presents and just mutate it into the some low end evilness as Trey just goes OFF firing round after round of machine gun licks before screaming at the top of the mountain and throwing us down to the depths below.....we literally had to catch our breath after this one.....but no, Ha Ha Ha, the joke is on us...My buddy Slow made the comment that this first set was like being tied to the bumper of a car and sent down the highway. I couldn't agree more.

Set 2....That Tweeprize to close out what felt like a continuation from the second set of Binghamton to here.....it really did just feel like 12/14 set 2 > 12/15 set 1 was a continuous thought. Jim was Jim...standard fare.....Ice....wtf....the middle section had us jaw open in awe. Wtf is going on here?!?! They ALMOST wanted to do Rock N Roll Part 2.....The Gin was good, nothing mind blowing. We took the Fishman joint to the bathroom and made sure we flushed....The Bowie cemented the thought that Fishman is just one of the greatest rock drummers alive. His snare work had me shaking in my boots. I remember looking at Slow when they did the breakdown and he was dancing like an angry yetti at a buffet.....I hadn't laughed that hard in a while.....

We left after Adeline to get a head start on the crazy drive ahead of us.....10 hrs of some of the most sketchy driving we encountered the entire winter.....you'll see......

[susep]

so heres this:

Listened to set II last night, love the It?s Ice, perfect tune for then and now.  First super cold day of Dec in my neck of the woods.  Trey sounds Les Claypool esque with his growly vocal shenanigans.  Also dig the latter half of the Rotation Jam.

[rowjimmy]

Had a good time at this show with Igbo and our girlfriends. Mine was pregnant at the time. We were straight back, above Mar's seats. Raging show. This one gets put down as bottom of the barrel for December '95 but 3.0 ain't got nothing on this shit.

[anthrax]

so heres this:

Sweet!  Rotation Jams are always better to watch...and Mallory...well, Mallory.

[anthrax]

PHISH, SATURDAY 12/16/1995
OLYMPIC CENTER
Lake Placid, NY
Soundcheck: Dog Log > Poor Heart, Funky Bitch

SET 1: Buried Alive, AC/DC Bag > Taste That Surrounds, Ya Mar, The Sloth, Divided Sky, Dog Faced Boy, Julius > Suzy Greenberg

SET 2: Sample in a Jar, Reba[1], Scent of a Mule, Cavern > Mike's Song > Simple -> Weekapaug Groove[2] > The Squirming Coil

ENCORE: Fire

[1] No whistling.
[2] Unfinished.

Reba did not have the whistling ending. Weekapaug was unfinished.

We're almost there!  We just have to go 400 miles north after going 200 miles south the previous day...in winter...in the mountains..when the days are at their shortest.   

One of the greatest tours in Phish history has pulled into its final stop.  An 8,500 seat arena in Lake Placid, New York.  I'm sure the thought was for the end of this tour to be a "hometown" 2 night stand, but Lake Placid?  In a tour of odd stops, this one fits perfectly in its oddness.  I wonder how many of the towns/venues on this tour would never be visited by Phish again?  At that time, it was absolutely unheard of for any band, let alone an unknown one, to be able to nearly sell out 7 arena shows in the state of New York and 4 arena shows in the state of Massachusetts in a month!  They were truly in a unique moment in time that wouldn't last. 

In '96 the tours would be different as would the sound.  Enjoy this historical run!

[susep]

Nice job anthrax!  Its been fun re-listening to these shows, I dl?d the Dec. 95 torrent at etree.  The only show I upgraded was 12/11.  Keep it going when the 95 NYE run starts.  Read through the tour archives at phish.com last night for added insight.  They definitely raked in some ca$h this Run as well.

[Marmar]

My view of Lake plACID....I think the picture speaks for itself.....

[anthrax]

^^^  that is fantastic!!

[Marmar]

Oh....and STAY OFF THAT FUCKING BUS