Phish Hartford Review

I know it’s several weeks since the Phish show in Hartford on August 14, but I wanted to make sure I re-listened to the whole show before I wrote a review. Much of the show is still fresh in my head. After all, it was probably one of the most memorable shows of the summer. I’ve finally had the chance to listen to the show straight through and most of my thoughts are still the same as they were after the show as they were after the listen.

I’ll start at the beginning, leading up to the obvious highlight of the show. The band was scheduled to come on around 8:00 pm. They usually start late. So it was expected that they wouldn’t actually start until around 8:30. That night, the band didn’t hit the stage until almost 9:00 pm. In doing so, they allowed the sun to go down and the sky to go dark. Shows tend to have a different feel after dark. Usually, you only get the pure darkness for the second set. This show was special in that the whole show was performed after dark. The first set started out really strong. Punch You In The Eye was a powerful opener that basically said to everyone that this show was gonna rock. AC/DC Bag came next with a strong showing, but nothing overly jammed out. They quickly went into NICU, again strong, but nothing over the top. Then came the bust-out of the first set with Colonel Forbin’s Ascent->Fly Famous Mockingbird. The crowd went crazy at the first notes. It was really strong, but the combo lacked the narration that usually precedes Famous Mockingbird, which was a little disappointing. The rest of the first set was pretty mixed up and definitely not as strong. The Bird of a Feather that followed Mockingbird was strong with a good jam. Lawn Boy, while always fun, seemed more of a distraction. That was followed by a strong Stash with a great dark jam. I Didn’t Know, again a fun one, provided some of the “Phishiness” with the Fishman vacuum solo. Middle of the Road was fun and followed by a decent Character Zero. The songs, in their own right, were all pretty strong, but the first set as a whole was pretty disjointed.

The second set, however, was probably the best single set of the whole summer. The band came back with the pounding bass intro to Down with Disease. They extended the jam a bit and reached some territory they only rarely hit throughout the summer. It quickly came to a stop as the band started up Wilson, a song rarely seen outside the opening spot in a set. Continuing along with odd placement, the Wilson jam went into Slave to the Traffic Light. This song is normally not seen outside the set closer spot. This is the new Phish. Anything goes nowadays. Continuing the long segue, the band started up a rocking Piper that segued into a nicely placed Water in the Sky, which provided a little breather from the strong jams and perfect segues for the beginning of the set. Little did we know what was coming next. The band started up Ghost, which had a great extended jam that continued with the rocking theme of the show rather than going to the funk that is usually sees. The jam led to the beginning notes of the Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer. It was at this point, we knew the show was gonna be special. The pre-show house music was the Talking Heads, including Psycho Killer, which everyone was singing along with. This was the second time the band had ever played Psycho Killer, totally blowing away the first set’s bust-out. The band brought the music into an electronic 80s video game beeping sound. Apparently, there was a guy in the front row totally dancing to it. Trey put down his guitar and started making fun of the guy and then asked Fishman to dance to it. The “Phishiness” of the show was just beginning. They then started singing Catapult, after which, Trey began a rant about kids and their technology and how no one ever reads anymore while the band started up Icculus. The crowd went absolutely crazy and the band segued into You Enjoy Myself, which lacked much of a Trey jam as he had put down his guitar to do some more dancing, but this allowed Mike to step up and lead the jam. Some wanted a full out guitar jam, but I felt this was a stellar jam and the vocal jam that ended the set had the band leave on an eerie, if not freaky, note. They came back for the encore with the Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps. While it wasn’t the best playing (Trey made some mistakes), it was a great finish to an awesome show.

This was only the third show I had seen this summer. As I was waiting for Susan in the bathroom, I saw a few friends walking out. They all had the same thing to say… Set. Of. The. Summer. And it was. There were only 2 shows remaining for the tour. One was average at best and the other was very strong throughout (with the awesome bust-out of Harpua). No single set, however, touched the second set of Hartford with the perfect segues and the classic Phishiness that we all missed during the post-hiatus period. This show has gone down in my books as the best show I have seen live. Coming in second in that list is the 10-8-99 show from Nassau with Tom singing the Who’s We’re Not Gonna Take It from Tommy.

Now back to planning the Vegas originating RV trip to Indio, CA for Festival 8 with my new friends from Twitter.