Phish: 7/13/2019, Set II: A Microcosm of 2019 Jamming

A Breakdown of Set 2 at Alpine Valley

(Blog Note: I think I’m going to post longer pieces I’ve written on Saturdays and Sundays during this six-week writing schedule. Some of these will be focused on topics you don’t care about. Like today is a detailed analysis of a phine set of music by my favorite band, Phish. If you don’t care, don’t read it. But if you do, and if you like what I’ve done, somehow let me know, either by liking this post, commenting on it, or reaching out to me on social media. This is all a part of me trying to find the best niche for me to focus my writing on over the next few years. Thanks in advance! – Bryan)

Well, all that’s left of summer 2019 for Phish are the annual three shows at Dick’s in Colorado on Labor Day Weekend. But just because the 21-show summer tour is over doesn’t mean we have to stop enjoying the music, does it?

Certainly not!

For the past eight years I’ve had a habit of listening to every note of every show and continued that this tour. So I’ve heard it all. But with five shows a week for four weeks and each show lasting 2 1/2 hours or more, just keeping up is a task so there hasn’t been much time to go back and appreciate what happened. (Though since writing this first draft a few weeks ago, I’ve managed to listen back to some of it.)

Thus, over the summer I’ll likely single out sets that I think are worth diving into and will post some of those findings here (I’ve also got some Disco Biscuits content coming). I will focus on 2019, but I may also do some older shows, too.

Phans everywhere know that the tour closer, Sunday July 14^th at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin, was an all-timer, an “instant classic.”(Read this excellent review by Brian Brinkman of the GREAT Beyond the Pond podcast, the person who actually inspired the post you are reading!)

Fortunately, because of a Monday holiday here in Japan on July 15^th, I had the rare chance to watch a Sunday show live. Even more fortunately, the stars aligned and kept my family members reasonably busy so I could behold that epic show with some concentration.

All I can say is: Wow. How lucky we are as phans to have a band that is still so willing to take chances, still evolving and can, yes, still jam a tune for 38 minutes!

Yet today, I want to dive into the night before. I’d heard from the previously mentioned Brian Brinkman of the Beyond the Pond podcast that the second set of the 7/13 Saturday Alpine Valley show had a real nice flow and highlighted some spacious playing. As I’ve settled into middle age (I’m 46 now), I appreciate more and more that kind of playing. Leave the ragin’ for the young bucks!

So I listened to that set closely, took some notes and want to share those with you today, okay? Okay? I can’t hear you! That’s better … let’s dive in.

“Halley’s Comet” opened the show and when I was watching live I thought, as I always do when they play this tune, “let’s take it for a ride,” remembering the glory days of 1997-98.

But alas, just past six minutes the tune came to another early end.

Fortunately they struck up a song that has really grown on me in the past year or two, “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing.” And from here on out, the set is a doozie.

“A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing” doesn’t look like much on paper, a mere eight minutes, 45 seconds. Yet the song proper ends at the two-minute mark and then there’s 6:45 of ever-evolving, spacious jamming. The first three minutes stays in Type 1 territory but then a keyboard wash from Page at 5:00 takes the band into Type 2 space with Mike fading to silence, Fishman tastefully treating the cymbals and Trey experimenting with his effects effectively.

Keyboardist Page McConnell has done a great job utilizing his various keyboards in 2019.

All the while Page stays on those lovely keys, leading the jam for two minutes and just after 7:00 his keys begin to float between the left and right speaker (great on headphones!) until the final minute of the song when he switches to the “circus organ” and the jam loosens as it prepares to launch into “Runaway Jim.” This 6:45 is a wonderful microcosm of Phish’s summer 2019 jamming style.

“Runaway Jim”: After the song proper ends at 3:24, the band tastefully jams in Type 1—Page on the baby grand piano, trading licks with Trey while Fish continues the shuffling “Jim” beat and Mike explores his fretboard. About one minute later, Trey starts in with the echo effect he’s employed throughout 2019 and which I am a big fan of. At 5:27 it almost sounds like Trey is ready to abort but Page shuns that idea by chipping in with an eerie, moonlit-walk-in-the-Transylvanian-woods keyboard and Trey returns with some more echoes at 5:51 as Mike plays the top of his board with a droning pattern. This awesomeness continues for about two minutes when Trey begins to soar and Page leaves Transylvania for the glamorous halls of Catherine the Great’s St. Petersburg royal court and then drives down LA’s womanly night time highways as Fish begins crashing a little harder on the skins. This blissful blast keeps things beautiful for the final two minutes of “Jim” until 10:35 when Trey strums out some chords, Page hops back on the baby grand and somehow Trey and Fish mind meld into the always rhythmically joyous “Undermind,” a personal favorite.

“Undermind”: Do yourself a favor: Just focus on Fish for the full 7:54 duration of this tune. When you are done, try telling anyone around that he is not the greatest rock drummer of the 21^st century with a straight face. I’ll wait…

Couldn’t do it, could ya? Yes, we are blessed to have such a master back there holding things down.

Fish is the Man. Nothing more to be said.

Now, re-listen to the tune and appreciate how Mike somehow is able to compliment Fish, how smooth and effortless he makes it seem. Meanwhile, Page throws a killer organ solo from 1:57 to 3:13. The point is: Anyone who thinks Phish is Trey and three guys is an ass, an idiot, or both! Of course, Trey doesn’t want to be forgotten so he immediately follows Page with a very creative, well-executed solo from 3:14 to 5:45 when the song returns.

But is it over? No, because as we hit 6:20 we get about 90 seconds of Fishman drum fills where it’s clear the band wants to showcase their octopus of the skins. Wow. The crowd, often noticeably absent on the Live Phish SBDs, becomes audible just before 7:00 and the cheers intensify especially around 7:20 when it’s 30 seconds of pure Fish Love Fest.

“Ghost”: I do miss the build-ups “Ghost” used to get in the late 1990s. Oh, well, it gives a reason to throw an old show on the “turntable” from time to time.

So at 19 seconds, the song starts with that groovy, heavy beat supplied by Fish and Mike all while Page cackles on the clavinet. At 2:30 before the breakdown it sounds almost like Trey plays with the “Hold Your Head Up” riff that Fishman loves (ha, ha) and then “Ghost” returns.

At 3:18, the jamming begins. It takes less than 30 seconds for the usual Type 1 “Ghost” fire to subside and we find the band, again, entering spacious goodness. At 4:11, Mike throws on that heavy effect I love so much and uses it to trade licks with his bandmates for the next minute or so. Page hops back onto the baby grand around the five-minute mark and Trey soon follows into the stratosphere before crashing into some fiery chords. This jam explores and is endlessly creative, you can just hear them listening to and interacting with each other. This is jam rock at its finest, er, phinest.

Trey’s playing in 2019 has been otherworldly, to the point where he drools sometimes.

Around seven minutes, Trey playfully adds a bouncy chord pattern and that leads him to climbing his fretboard as Page plays off his lead on the piano. At 8:30 it sounds like they could end it but they manage to find a rather epic closing pattern that all four join in on. The crowd seems to let out an appreciative cheer around 9:30 as the train barrels into Blissful Station until 10:30 when it calms down and transitions into “Golden Age.”

“Golden Age” clocks in at 9:41 which on paper seems set up to disappoint but has any of this disappointed yet? One of the reasons I love this cover is the rhythm track—Mike’s stuttering rumble is complimented by a drum track that I can’t comprehend but which I can always get my boogie on to. Another reason I dig this tune is because of the positive, spacy lyrics—our modern world seems to have a lame cynical default setting where we believe we are devolving into dystopia. However, I think it’s more fun, healthier and possibly even more accurate to imagine the future is ripe with possibilities. One of those possibilities that I love to play with is that, as the song suggests, we really are on the cusp of a Golden Age, an age of miracles and sound that’s comin’ round, comin’ round, comin’ round! Furthermore, the key first step to creating that age is for more of us to recognize this possibility and then to live like it can happen.

Meanwhile, as I wax philosophical, the band keeps playing and the actual song goes on longer than most in this set, not ending until around 4:30 but how better to leave the “well, there’s a golden age coming ‘round” than by having Trey launch into a sky-scrapin’, heaven’s-door-openin’, trapeze-walkin’ solo for a minute as Page’s organ helps him keep his balance.

Around 5:30 we get a rhythmic jam where again, Fishman just rules, and Mike is doing his thang. At 6:36 it sounds like the jam has died but they leave Type 1 and from 7 minutes Mike and Fish reveal in a “Golden Age” funk disco jam that makes me want to wear sunglasses at night and a rainbow afro wig to a funeral while I sling bling to Bavarian refuges. Just past eight minutes, Trey and Page lock in a groovy rhythm and this then transitions for the next minute, somewhat abruptly into…

“Back on the Train”: The first highlight of this always fun tune is at 1:34 when Trey plays the donkey bray, a running joke on this summer tour for a few weeks now, and then laughs through the verse as the crowd cheers. Can’t say they weren’t having phun on this tour.

I try telling my nine-year-old daughter it’s the noise a donkey makes as we are watching the webcast live and she says (in Japanese), “there’s no such thing.” Somehow that makes the stupid joke even funnier to me.

Meanwhile, the chorus winds up at 2:34 and the jam begins with Fishman chugging the locomotive down the tracks and Page on the clav. At 4:09 Page switches to piano and this leads the band into more familiar type 1 territory which builds nicely to an exciting peak from 7:46 to the apex at 8:08, but no, it keeps climbing and finally resolves into the song’s chords at 8:30 where it plays out and we get an actual five-second break before the familiar tom toms cascade to signal it’s time to look for the elusive…

“Harry Hood”: A nice one minute intro is followed by delicate, well-played and pleasing composed sections.

2:47: Does any phan not love this bouncy shuffle? Seems universally adored—I bounce for the full 51 seconds. At 4:08 we go to the brooding bit of gratitude to Mr. Minor and as always that resolves, this time in less than a minute, into the improvised bliss jam that adds to why this is such a beloved tune. I love the band interplay throughout this version, especially Mike’s contributions to the melody; not an easy feat for a bass player but one which he makes look so easy that I think we sometimes take him for granted.

Sometimes Mike feels like the forgotten member of Phish. But that’s stupid. He’s incredible.

Also never to be taken for granted is Page’s playing on the piano. Listen to it here.

Around 8:45, Trey meanwhile has to return a few more donkey brays and by 10:25 we approach the edge of the runway, prepping for take off, where we launch off to the end of the set.

Ultimately, this is not a standout “Hood” but it’s still one to feel good about, especially at the end of such a well-executed set. And that’s the case for each of the tunes in this set, too. None are going to make any all-time best lists. But one of the complaints some of us have had about the 2019 tour has been sets that don’t gel together, which is why this set stands out as one of the best of the summer. So do yourself a favor when you get a chance, go back and give this one your full attention and thank me later!

Thanks for reading.