so after my near-transcendent experience with the '94 shows, i decided to bounce around a bit, and first went back to '96 (i also listened to an '02 show last week, but misplaced the last disc, so i'm sort of waiting to find it before i write anything). this '96 soundboard is a "page show"...you know, one of those shows when, time and time again all of trey's guitar pyrotechnics are completely overshadowed by page just ripping off one absurd keys solo after another. i like these kinds of shows, but if you're one of those fans who only enjoys hours of guitar noodling and nothing else, you probably won't like this one.
sEtlIsT
usually, a show opening with "split open and melt" is not a good omen for me. i don't know what it is about that song, but i've never really enjoyed it. the hook repeats too many times, and the jam at the end is usually too structured to really break into anything interesting. that said, this was a decent version (i.e. better than bad, at least) and the segue into "poor heart" was pretty unexpected and hilarious. this was page madness moment #1. "runaway jim" and "funky bitch" were par for the course, which is to say, awesome. then there was "theme from the bottom", which was page madness moment #2, followed indirectly by "scent of a mule" in which entire warehouses of keyboards and pianos must have been melted to fine ash. the first set closed with a pretty by-the-books "highway to hell", which prompted a horn jam by yours truly.
part of the draw of this show for me comes from the fact that billy breathes has some of my favorite phish songs on it, and here you get to hear a number of those songs in early form, before years of touring sort of formalized the jams that build around them. "theme" was one of those, and the second set brought extremely raw versions of "waste" and "character zero". they weren't the best versions i've ever heard, but it was interesting to hear them so differently. the second set had few standout-type moments otherwise, but was overall a great set of tunes. the show closed with page rocking one more time on "ya mar", and then a cover of hendrix's "fire" that had trey sounding more like '92 or '93 phish than '96.
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