RIDESHARE: Phish - 12.29.98

awesome new feature!

to "celebrate" my new job/teaching gig in richland (i refuse to call it tri-cities because you can't be in three places at once), i've decided to institute a new feature on the blog.  all summer, i've been carrying out the slow, agonizing, but largely work-un-intensive task of converting all my CDs to digital files, for easier sorting, storing, and backup.  just to give you an idea of the enormity of this task: so far i've ripped over 18,000 tracks, and i'm not even close to 1/3rd of the way through all the CDs.  it's insane.  part of the insanity is my realizing that i have at least 100 live shows on CD that i've never listened to before.  this dovetails nicely with the fact that i'm now spending about 10 hours a week in a car by myself.

so...i'll be listening to tons of phish, wilco, and RA shows (big surprise!) over the next few months and i figured i'd do short write-ups on each show as i listen, so that later when i have everything stored digitally, i can remind myself what's worth listening to again and what's not.

let's start with the only full show i got through last thursday: part of Phish's '98 NYE run, a soundboard tape from 12/29.

here's the setlist and link from etree:

Set I
Rock and Roll, Funky Bitch, Punch You In the Eye, Horn, Ginseng Sullivan, Split Open and Melt, Brian & Robert, Guyute, My Soul, Freebird*

Set II
Free, Limb by Limb, Also Sprach Zarathustra**, Boogie on Reggae Woman, You Enjoy Myself E: The Divided Sky

full show rating: ****
***** - that puddle looks a lot like my face...
**** - i'd rather listen to this than do most things.
*** - good.
** - most shows are better, but there are probably some high points.
* - i'm now actually dead from having killed myself from having listened to this.

the show starts with "rock and roll", which i have to admit that i'm partial to lately because it's a song that's been rocked out to the extreme at 2 of the 3 phish shows i've been to.  plus, it's just a great opener.  this version starts by following the original song quite closely for the first few minutes, and then explodes into a lot of blistering soloing...it's a lot shorter and less exploratory than the versions of the song phish has been playing lately, but it's a great start.  it segues into a solid "funky bitch" and then "punch you in the eye", and doesn't really let up until "horn", which is a great song, but hey, it's still "horn" and there's nothing new here.  i don't normally like "ginseng sullivan" that much, but maybe it was the driving-through-farmlands i was doing and maybe not...this particular version is really jumpy and yet the playing is really clean, and it's just a damn fun tune at this point in the set.  the middle part of the first set is also all solid, but just solid.  the set closes with a stellar "my soul" and the always-hilarious a capella version of "freebird"  there's not much in this set beyond the first three songs in this set that jumps out, but i really really liked the whole thing...i think part of the greatness comes from the entirely wacky selection of songs, and part comes from the fact that though this show comes from the funk "era" of phish, it's packed with a lot of great blues and rock jams in the first set.  it's a truly unique sounding show if you put the tape on expecting it to be a typical '97-'98 show.

the main draw (for most) of the second set will be the YEM set-closer and the following "divided sky" encore, comprising about 45 minutes of music between the two of them.  each is (again) a solid version of the song, and i remember how at one point in my phish fandom the idea of these two songs back-to-back would have, by itself, made this show a must-download.  however, the real draw for me here was the "also sprach zarathustra", which is the only real moment of space-funk in the entire show, but it's a doozy.  things start off very atmospheric and out-there and only get...umm...spacier as time goes on.  this performance, combined with the straight-out rock of "free", which is a song that rarely gets jammed out like it does here, makes this second set worth listening to.

all in all, this is a great show for the variety in the setlist, the fact that there aren't any real duds at any point (though i don't like "boogie on reggae woman" myself, the song is performed well here), and for a few very high points.  if you're looking for a truly transcendent show, keep looking, but you could do much worse than this one.