, attached to 1999-07-07

Review by crepu

crepu For those who find the siket disc Phish’s best studio effort, this - aside from Cypress - is the show. For those who come from a slightly different background (from the typical Phish fan) where the Cure is our Beatles or classic rock, where we’re disheartened by grunge’s truncation of shoegaze, and we’re “still waiting” for the Halloween cover of Yo La Tengo’s I CAN HEAR THE HEART BEATING AS ONE - this is the show.

Sure, it starts off rather disjointed. But there’s something to that. “Back on the Train,” Whats’ the Use?,” and “Billy Breathes” are executed the way they should be, but seemingly out of place. Yet, it starts making sense. It bounces around between blue-grass and in-your-face intensity and the styles we’ve been used to from Phish, but those textured and ambient stylings sprinkled throughout were teases of what is to come in the second set, a set coming to terms with Phish’s ’99 direction, and coming to terms with the monster-exploratory set II. Taken as a whole, this show proves Whiteheadian concrescence; the multiplicity and diversity expand into one. What Phish does with their silly antics that reel us back from transcending jams, they simply transcend here, and their songs - not quirkiness - steer us back before setting us out again. This is a different Phish, and that’s what Phish is about. ’99, perhaps the most misunderstood year, is not lost on some. But it doesn’t matter. BMGS and a nostalgia for those loops over loops echoes, “God’s one miracle, lost in circles.”

Oh, and there’s that encore with one of the most genuine and humble musicians in the game. Serious taste.


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