Phish played 3 shows at my home venue- Verizon Amphitheater in Alpharetta on 8/3-5/18. I went to the Saturday and Sunday night shows (nights 2 and 3). Here are some observations and recollections.
The Georgia heat didn’t disappoint. It was hot and the humidity was off the charts. On Saturday night it rained during the first set. Everyone was in a good mood and it was packed on both nights.
8/4 personal highlights included, from set 1, Wolfman’s Brother, Divided Sky, and Character Zero. Set 2 highlights included an epic Soul Planet, smoking hot Possum, and Slave to the Traffic Light. The show ended with a Squirming Coil encore that concluded with Page on stage alone. The band felt engaged, loose, and committed to exploring the terrain. It met a lot of folks who were at their first run of shows along with the obviously many veterans. My buddy Andy also provided me with a set of ear plugs which was key, because the band is playing loud music these days.
On 8/5 I found myself with my first “pit” ticket in many years. I was pretty psyched because it seemed like everyone was repeating the mantra, “Never miss a Sunday show.” Being up close, it’s easier to appreciate the intensity of the band and also pick up on the endless subtleties of personality, technique, and presence. 8/5 felt like a particularly unique show. They opened with a cover of Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” and took it into a Tweezer Reprise. The placement of that Tweezer Reprise made me feel like the band was going to embark on some serious exploration. In some ways they did and in some ways they didn’t. Petrichor, a song that I didn’t even know existed, was a 16 minute avant garde composition that left me marvelling at the fact that Phish has such broad appeal. I also felt real respect for the band for bringing so many people into meaningful contact with art that’s not easy to penetrate and understand. The rest of set 1, ending with Sand, was strong, funky, and dialed in. The 2nd set was… interesting (I’m still looking for a better word). The jam on Golden Age, another song I’d never heard, felt really good to me. Twist, Fuego, and especially Bathtub Gin to close the set, also jammed.
Of all the memories I’ll carry from these two shows, the encore on 8/5 will surely occupy a central place in my heart and mind. The band came on stage and broke into the classic song, “Fee.” Trey botched the words and basically stopped mid-song. He came on mic and said that they’d instead close out the show with a song that everyone knew the lyrics to. Enter 2001. That was something that everybody’d been waiting for. What made this 2001 great was, first and foremost, the fact that it happened. That coupled with the fact that they revisited both Tweezer Reprise and You Sexy Thing, made it, in my mind, a “Miracle 2001.” I’ve got no idea if they ever play that song as an encore, so it was a real treat.
The Phish vibe is strong. Lots of folks from different segments of the population, still primarily caucasian, are checking out the band and appreciating what they’re up to. I estimate that these two shows put me around 20-25 shows in my life, most intensely from 1997-2001. I’m glad to be a fan and slowly coming to a deeper appreciation of Phish’s lyrics, something I’ve always struggled with. In particular, Character Zero and Possum are speaking to me lyrically. I just love the line from Possum, “Your end is the road” and from Character Zero, “Things are true which I forget.”