Subject: Phoenix Review (longish)
From: Rob Winkler 

Set 1:  Rocky Top>AC/DC Bag, Bouncin', You Enjoy Myself>I Didn't Know,
Theme from the Bottom, Gumbo, Julius
Set 2:  Ya Mar, Divided Sky, Wolfman's Brother, Taste, Free, Scent of a
Mule*>Harry Hood, Sweet Adeline
Encore:  Fire

*unfinished

Well here goes, I've been really itching to try my hand at this reviewing
stuff,
and I haven't seen any posts so far (although I'm only tuned into
Rosemary's). 
FWIW, I live just down the road from Phoenix, in Tucson.  I've seen 18
shows
since '92 (including Hampton and Atlanta from this tour) and have ~100 hrs
on
tape.  

Pre-Show:  America West Arena is a sparkly, shiny new basketball arena in
a
relatively clean area of downtown Phoenix.  Cops in Phoenix are
notoriously
unfriendly, but I didn't see anything disturbing.  There was a nice grassy
area
and a fountain outside the arena where _lots_ of people congregated before
the show.  Inside, the arena is a typical new basketball arena, with lots
of
commodities, bathrooms, vending and such.  For this event, no beer was
sold
"because of the nature of the concert and its audience".  Getting to be
typical, I
suppose.  Pre-show music was some sort of Celtic music with angelic female
vocals.

On with the show...

Set 1
Rocky Top:  Surprise!  Nice upbeat opener.  The closing chord launched
right
into..

AC/DC Bag:  What I was more expecting to hear as the opener.  Trey's solo
seemed kinda rushed.  Fishman had a cool little percussion jam at the end,
after Trey's solo faded out (where the song usually ends).  Good stuff.

Bouncin:  Got a rousing cheer from the crowd, once they recognized it.
Nice
use of the white spotlights on this, highlighting each individual
bandmember as
they add their vocal part to the complex harmonies at the end.
Surprisingly,
this was my first live Bouncin in 18 shows (I was living a blessed life),
so I was
not unhappy.  

YEM:  Really?  Just me, I suppose, but at my last show (Omni), YEM was the
4th song in the first set.  What are the odds of that happening twice in a
row?  I
was quite surprised, but not surprised that this version didn't quite
match up to
the Atlanta version.  In fact, I'd say it was one of the shortest versions
I've
heard, with the solo from Trey again kinda rushed.  The bass jam had a lot
of
accompaniment from Page on piano.  The vocal jam was very percussive, and
again pretty short.  After just a couple minutes, I heard a little piano
coming into
the jam, then a few recognizable lyrics, and then segue right into..

I Didn't Know:  Wow.  Logical choice to try linking these together, but
I'd never
heard it done before.  I wouldn't want to hear it like that often, but it
was pretty
cool.  Trey had a long introduction for Fish before the vacuum solo,
something
like  "donut"..."beast-boy"..., "Henrietta", with lots more in between.

Theme:  Nice, great solo.

Gumbo:  Same, nice piano work by Page at the end. 

Julius:  The usual, but by this time in the set, Trey really seemed to be
soloing
much better than earlier.  The jam peaked nicely, and then...intermission
already?  Seemed a little short, but the tone was set for a blowout second
set.

Intermission:  Saw 5 ticketless guys come charging through the doors from
the
lot, with two security guards right on their tails.  They tackled two of
the guys,
while I think the other three got away.  After the security escorted them
back
out the doors ("...And stay out!"),  I overheard some girls saying "They
like,
totally tackled him.  That was so mean!".  Pretty hilarious, the usual
stupid
goings-on, I suppose.  

Set 2:
Ya Mar:  Best version I've heard, with beautiful, crisp soloing from Trey. 

Divided Sky:  Nice placement, with Trey really on, this was one of the
best I've
heard in a while.  The part where they "freeze" was really long, and the
crowd
cheered very loudly the whole time.  The soloing at the end was great.

Wolfman's Brother:  Very nice.  Nice funky, shifty, swirly things going on
during the verses.  Burnin' solo from Trey at the end. 

Taste:  Wow!!!!  Trey's solo went some pretty incredible places!  Probably
a
tease of something at the beginning of Trey's solo...definitely a familiar
sounding melody.  

Free:  Nice.  Having seen recent set lists, I was sure we would get this
song
somewhere during the evening.

Scent:  Strange things in here.  The song almost completely fell apart
during
the first verse, when I think Mike forgot some lyrics.  Mike was looking
around
sheepishly after the chorus, and Trey seemed to be giving him shit.  The
piano
jam before the duel was fabulous, with a really morphous, sinuating melody
that
never stayed the same more than a few seconds (similar to the kind of jams
I'ver heard in a lot of Tweezers, where they take turns altering the
melody, but
this was much heavier on piano.)  The duel wasn't really much of a duel.
After
the first solo by Page, Trey's response was very conservative, low-key,
and all
guitar (no vocal craziness like earlier in the tour), and then...the
opening drums
to...

Harry Hood:  Wow,  major surprise!  I've never heard of them aborting a
Scent
in progress, but if you're going to do it, there's probably not a better
song with
which to come out of it.  Another standard, beautiful, soaring, majestic
Hood. 
What else can you say?

After this, they came to the front of the stage for an a capella number.
What
would it be?  They're supposed to be singing the Spangled at the Lakers-
Sonics game the next night, right?  Would they practice it one more time?
I'm
sure they thought about it, but ultimately it was (to my pleasant
surprise)...

Sweet Adeline:  Had everyone grinning from ear-to-ear!  I was glad not to
hear
Spangled again (after Hampton and Omni).  There's definitely something
wierd
about hearing it at a concert (unless you're at some Country-Western
redneck
fest.)

Encore:  
Fire:  Yowza!  My first live Fire, and Trey just cranked!  My friends at
their first
Phish show were floored.  This song seems like it was written to be
covered by
Phish.  

After-Show Thoughts:  What happened to Scent?  My take is that Trey
decided
to kill it because of the botched first verse.  Plus, I suppose they've
played it a
lot on this tour.

Boy, this turned out to be much longer than I thought it would... thanks
for
reading.  Drop me a line if you were at the show.  See y'all in Vega$.  

Rob

---------------------------------------------
Subject: America West Arena, 2/12/96: a few comments
From: paisley@inmind.com (David M. Paisley)


        Trey's grandmother was in the audience from Sun City and so Phish
trotted out every schtick in the repertory to entertain her -- tramps,
vocal jam, vac, overdone lights (that did little more than demonstrate
that
Candace Brightman rules), etc.  The only thing missing was Contact, a fave
of the distaff Anastasios, altho perhaps not of this matriarch.  Rocky Top
an unusual opener, Julius a finely crafted closer, but the innards of this
first set sandwich were just average wonderful.  Trey introduced Fishman
as
the "Tasmanian Devil" when he joined in on I Didn't Know, prompted perhaps
by the bass drum Fishman was heavyfooting.

        Set II was a different story; the band came out tight and hot, and
played arresting versions of every tune.  The boomp boomp bass drum that
marred Set I was subdued or undermixed.  Divided Sky was gorgeously
played,
with unusual feeling and color in the guitar.  All the tunes were
fresh-sounding and neatly jammed. The Harry Hood was the best I've heard
--
awesome, in the sense that Viola Lee Blues leaves me limp.  Harry has come
a long way and may now represent the highest evolution of
Phishmusicianship.  Adeline was an afterthought for Grandma; Fire came as
a
relief (that it wasn't Contact) and ended the show on an appropriately hot
note.

        A crowd of about 12,000 was on hand in the cavernous arena, which
was wonderfully cool because of the covered hockey ice for the next
evening's game.  The Phish word has spread to the southwest but much of
the
crowd was only casually familiar with the music.  To some extent, the
brilliant Set II was a voice in the desert that went unheard; it would
have
caused a riot in Boston.  By the same token, the converts may be legion.
A
splendid evening!

Dave

David M. Paisley  P. O. Box 1167  Forest, VA 24551
Phone 804/385-4360  Fax -4361 (hard) or -4362 (computer)



-------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------