6-27-00 - conan obrian show

Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 10:17:55 -0400
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: quick Conan Review! (ok,
     so it started out as a quick review--it 's kind of long now. sorry.)
 
One of the perks of my 9-5 NYC employment besides high speed internet
connection and all the Poland Spring one could ever wish to drink is my
connections at the major New York local TV stations.  So, on Tuesday afternoon
my friend and I busted out of the office a few hours early and headed over to
NBC Studios (of course it was raining and it was a bitch to find a cab from
the east side, but that's all part of the fun, i guess).  We arrived to find
tons of heads hanging out in the hallowed halls of 30 Rockefeller Plaza--what
a sight.  It was great. All different types of people--some obviously coming
straight from the office, others obviously coming straight off Tour.  I love
this dichotomy--reminded me of the Radio City run.  Anyway, after waiting in
line for a little while (watching the NBC Pages trying to keep us in a single
file line straight up against the wall was really hilarious), we were ushered
in to the Conan studio. It always amazes me to see how tiny someTV studios
are.  We all tried to rush to the "band" side of the audience, but those NBC
Pages are tough--my friend and I ended up with 4th or 5th row seats on the
Conan side of the stage, but the place is so tiny it really didn't matter.  
Some dude came out to warm up the audience--which basically means making fun
of anyone who was an easy target (don't get me wrong, he was pretty damn
funny).  Then Conan came out for a little pre-show banter.  He hugged some guy
in the second row and tried to freak him out--I just wanted to tell him he's
trying to mess with the wrong crowd. We are not afraid to hug strangers!  
Then he made that dude hug another dude--we were all pretty giddy so anything
was funny at that point.  So Conan asks the audience if any of us were at the
New Years show at The Garden in 98?  Crazy applause.  "Well, about 9 of you
hugged me," he said, "and no one had a shirt on."  Laugh, laugh.  "But they
were all guys.  So, uh, ladies, i'm available after the show...." Laugh,
laugh.  Let's get on with it, Conan.  Yadda, yadda, Bob Costas...yadda yadda,
Carmen Electra...  So the band stage is set up way in the back during the
show--like i said, the place is tiny--and when the crew began moving the stage
forward we realized how freaking close we were going to be to the band.  
Awesome.  So the boys take the stage, and I swear I have never seen a person
smiling as big as Trey was.  It was truly a heart-warming sight. Page looked
like his regular possessed-self, Fish looked like a big adorable goofy kid,
and I swear I saw Mike smiling too.  We all jumped out of our seats and
applauded what seemed like a really long time (could have been 10 seconds for
all i know).  They were scanning the crowd and looking around.  From what I
remember of the latest Letterman appearance they looked kind of bored--but
last night they looked like they had never seen us before--like this was all
new to them and they were surprised they could fill this tiny little audience.  
How do they keep it so new?  Amazing.  My call for the song all day was GBOTT
(not that it was any great leap of faith or anything, it was pretty obvious)
and when it started I couldn't stop dancing.  The tune sounded great--about
40x better than the Letterman Heavy Things (but maybe i'm just biased).  For
those 4 minutes or whatever (was it even that long?) I was transported right
into summer tour--forgetting the piles of work i left on my desk (most of
which accumulated on Friday when i took off to get to Atlanta..damn this
band), forgetting that they were only going to be playing one short song,
forgetting that I might get in serious trouble for sneaking out of the office.  
Trey's voice sounded crystal clear and right on--it was a fun little version
of the song, without a doubt. I'm not sure if the energy translated to the
telecast, but it was seriously fun in there.  99% of the audience were heads
and there was definitely an excitement in the air.  After the song and the
crazy cheering ("woo--hoos", as Conan liked to say), Mike kind of stood there
smiling in that Gordon-kind of way holding his bass looking out into the
audience--i really thought they were going to bust out into something else
during the commercial break, but alas, it was not going to happen.  Page had
more important things to do--like going over to talk to Carmen Electra. My
money was on Fishman to be the first, but Leo went straight for the gold.  
Rock on with your bad-self, Page.  You deserve it.  Anyway, this is way longer
than I expected or wanted this to be, so I'm going to sign off.  Thank you
Phish for yet another phenomenal experience...see you all this weekend!!!


Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 11:00:18 -0400
From: cit-jb09-02 [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Phish - Conan 6/27/00
 
Conan got blown away by the audiences response when he announced that
Phish would be appearing  with Carmen Electra and Bob Costas.  This show
which also featured a guy with bullet proof legs, was one of the
strangest Phish related experiences I've ever had.
The camera angle was directly into Electra's shirt and Bob's stupidity
narrowly preceded Phish's performance of 'Back on the Train.'  During
the performance Fishman played a scaled down kit and Page had only an
organ.  Trey wore his blue tinted glasses and Mike was bobbing his head
to the beat.  But it sounded kind of hollow and I thought I heard some
musical miscues.  Overall, the show was fantastic.  The bullet proof leg
guy was involved in a double murder and Phish played some weird ass
country shit. This performance by Phish, although with it's own merit,
was lackluster compared to other perfromances of the past.  Admittedly,
I was kind of tired at 1:26 this morning but, as always Phish were
exciting to watch. I had a great time.  I would like to recommend
finding a copy of their performance of 'Chalkdust' on Letterman a few
years ago.
Mark Gleicher
[email protected]


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