minorthird

ahhh…today will be my final Phish show. It’s been a great run, but honestly, I’m glad it’s almost over.

I first got turned on to Phish in December of 1994, and saw my first show July 1, 1995, and Great Woods (now the Tweeter Center). Tonight’s show is also at Great Woods — perfect bookends.

The following is a mix of some geek and a bunch of rant…read on if you’d like…

I’ve spent too much time with Phish. I’ve only seen 18 shows — well, 17 if you don’t believe that a live simulcast is a real show, but I’ll get into that later — but I’ve spent years wading through the arcana. I’ve ran a Phish lyrics site for the last 8 years — the last couple of years I’ve been slacking, but I still host it. I’ve filled up too much space in my brain remembering dates — not important dates like birthdays and anniversary, but dates like when the last Destiny Unbound was played (2/28/03, but before that was 11/15/91…a gap of 789 shows). I’m not the worst Phishhead in the least, but I don’t see what I’ve gained out of it…

The music. Yes, the music was and is great. I just think that the people have forced me to look at the music differently. And that sucks.

People make me look at too many things differently. When I first started following Phish the only resource you had was rec.music.phish, and the power of the internet wasn’t fully revealed. When the few people that had something to say did say it, it was meaningful. Posts were thought provoking, and had a point. It was as if it cost a great sum of money to get your thoughts out there, so you shouldn’t waste a dime.

Now, with the ability for anyone to run a message board, and the exponential growth in Phish’s popularity — and the runaway growth and blending into the mainstream of “jam” music in general — thoughts flow when maybe they should not; the censors have left the brain building.

Now, it’s all about “I’ve seen 100 shows and you’ve only seen 99, so I am a superior god compared to you and everything you say from this point on will be tainted by the stench of newbieness” or “Man! That show sucked! They played Waves three shows ago! The band is slipping…they should just cancel the tour now!” or “when r u going 2 da show brah? Your going to need some mad heady molly!”

Who cares how many shows you’ve seen? Does it really matter in the space-time continuum if you’ve spent every last dime you’ve been able to scrap together or work for on going on every tour while I’ve worked a ton of hours to afford a home and a pretty good, comfortable life, while taking in the few shows that I see fit? Are you more hardcore than I? Do I want to be hardcore? A repeated song every 4 shows? Come on! In the summer of 1994 Phish covered “Foreplay/Longtime” at least 20 times — at one point they play it every show for 14 straight shows! And learn how to fucking type in English! Or type in a real language…not teenspeak.

Why do I bother reading that? Why do I put myself through it? I don’t know. But I’m not going to take this anymore…

Sure, reading the boards has had it’s benefits. I’ve received copies of the last few albums put out by the band, or side projects, a month or two before they were released. I’ve found out about some rumors that have panned out. And the humor…can’t forget the humor! Classics like “the kid who did bong hits with gasoline,” “festival sex vs. hotel sex,” “can I fax a sheet of acid?,” “My friend got arrested with some ecstacy, please help”

Maybe a word to the unwise: A Phish message board, no matter how much there is a drug culture that surrounds it, is definately not the best place to seek legal advice for your friend or your possible drug and alcohol convictions.

The band is breaking up. They don’t want to be a novelty act. I think they can’t stand that if every show isn’t a monumental, ground shaking first people will complain. People are entitled to their opinions, but in the 20 year history very few shows are earth shattering — we’re talking covering classic albums in their entirety, guest performance, long lost song bust outs. If it happened every show, then it wouldn’t be something to talk about.

I could rant more about this, but I’m not…Phish plays it’s final shows this weekend, and it’s over. The music will be better when I’ve had a break from it. If the band lies, and comes back, I won’t be there. I hate when bands do that…

now for the geek in me…what I think we’ll get tonight. I don’t do this to raise my expectations…I just like looking for trends…

List of songs that could/should/might get played tonight, factoring in past Great Woods shows, and the first two songs of this leg of the tour:

You Enjoy Myself
Horse
Silent in the Morning
2001
Ghost
Oh Kee Pah
Suzy Greenburg
Halley’s Comet
Drowned
Rift
Tweezer
Free
Guyute
My Friend, My Friend
Run Like An Antelope
Sample In A Jar
Slave to the traffic Light
Simple
Split open and melt
Tube
Tweezer Reprise
Wading in the Velvet Sea
Ya Mar
Golgi Apparatus
Wilson
Maze
Get Back On The Train
Funky Bitch

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 11th, 2004 at 10:21 am and is filed under the sweet sounds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.