There's no real denying that, during the 3.0 years, Phish has had a tumultuous relationship with the state of Texas. 2010 had the one-off ACL festival set which, while a good festival set, wasn't anything to write home about. Fast forward five years later and there were two summer shows in 2015, one in Austin and one in Grand Prairie. The first two set shows that Texas had seen since 1999. Expectations were understandably high. Austin was incredibly song-focused, and GP was good but definitely not great. Fall 2016 had two shows, again in Grand Prairie. The first was a fun, high energy show, but the second had, in this attendee's opinion, a travesty of a second set. The old adage for Phish shows -- "At least you had fun"-- still held true for these shows, though. And as a 12-year native of Austin, I attended all of them. And I did have fun for all of them (even during a second set "Friday"!) but to try to paraphrase Orwell, "All shows are fun, but some shows are more fun than others." Enjoying being in the moment and witnessing a band that is still playing well after 35 years of concerts is one thing, but there hadn't been anything truly transcendent in any of these shows. Which set the stage for 2018.

Would the band play another "Texas show," or would the magic --that we all know can occur-- happen?

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Welcome to the 336th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the most difficult of July. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the four mystery clips, which are connected by a theme that needn't be part of the correct answer (but will certainly help!). Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, a hint will be posted. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Hint:

Photo by Mark Sarfati

Answer: Pencils down! For only the 23rd time in history, the Blog is victorious! This week, folks figured out that the hint was a picture of Bill Graham, alluding to Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, where Phish recently completed a two night run. But what folks didn't realize is that BGCA wasn't the site of the four clips, but rather, the four songs in the clips spelled out "BGCA": 11/19/96 "Bathtub Gin," 11/28/03 "Ghost," 7/29/15 "Chalk Dust Torture," and 7/7/99 "Also Sprach Zarathustra." Stay tuned for MJM337 on Monday, where we'll give away two codes.

[we'd like to thank Willie Orbison, @twelvethousandmotherfker, for writing this recap for the blog - ed.]

When you think about the fact that this Soul Planet of ours has been around for about four and a half billion years, it’s nothing short of a gosh darn miracle that we’re living in the time of Phish. This wasn’t – and won’t always be – the case. So, perhaps it’s important to remember on nights like this, while we sift and scrutinize, that Phish shows aren’t inevitable. They don’t just happen. They are precious and rare events that deserve to be celebrated for the simple fact that they occur. We could have been living in the time of the ancient Egyptians. Or in the Dark Ages. Or in some future hellscape where the only music is made by computers.

Instead, we’re here. Now. And Phish is on tour. And that is a wonderful thing.

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Phish posted up today for a pair of shows that conclude tomorrow, in the shadow of the construction of a $4 trillion NFL stadium, for a team that three people in L.A. will ever really care about. Surprisingly, it’s the first multiple show run ever for Los Angeles, a city that has exchanged a lot of love with the band over the years, and tonight’s crowd greets the band with waves of encouragement as it slices into a nifty little “Chalk Dust Torture,” the second of the tour.

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IT’s not every day Phish offers a free webcast of a show to their fans. Their motives are unknown, but it’s possible they decided to thank their fans for their outpouring of love and support for the minority victims of violence at the Gorge over the weekend. It’s rare to see violence at Phish shows, at least in my experience of them (which admittedly only goes back THIRTY YEARS). And it’s unfortunate that such an extreme, vicious, attack was committed not against the drunk frat-hat who’d just vomited on your girlfriend, but rather fans simply enjoying themselves and the music like the rest of us. We’re also a homogeneous fan base; it’s heartbreaking to see such grotesque, racist assaults, when I'm certain the vast majority of us welcome greater diversity at shows.

In any event, on to the recap of BGCA2. I'd planned to offer you separate Noob, Vet, and JadedVet takes, since when I’ve done so a few times before, many of you were offended, but I don’t have the stomach right now for pandering to various audiences. I cannot pretend that my experience of Phish’s music in 2018 is even vaguely akin to what it was in 1989 or 1995 or 1998 or 2004 or 2009. Whether you first started seeing Phish recently or decades ago, we’ll see eye-to-eye on some things and not others about last night’s music, and your mileage should, and likely does or will, vary.

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Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

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That’s not fog rolling through the San Francisco Bay, casual observer, that’s the aftermath of the inferno that swept through Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Tuesday night. An easy mistake to make, as, perhaps, only 8,000 of us or so can tell the difference, for those of us in attendance last night might still be considered fire hazards, especially those four onstage. Don’t let the fire marshal get you.

Phish walks on stage, Trey, particularly, is all smiles. For those of us that have been around live Phish for a minute or two, Trey wears his emotions proudly and with intent when he takes the stage. His ear-to-ear smile is indicative of the set to follow, and he wastes, literally, no time as he picks up his guitar and starts riffing “46 Days” before his three bandmates settle into their battle stations. Bombs Away Trey! Fiery guitar outbursts of the Round Room tinderbox quickly relent into warped murk. Heavy, thick guitar tones slush through the jam and until the guitarist resets his tones into a final "46 Days" proper explosion. The song ends and Trey and Fish exchange laughs and smiles during a brief respite before “McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters.” Something must have clicked right there, as before “McGrupp” starts, Fish exclaims through his microphone, “Can we play that one again?!” Well, why not three times? I’ll try anything twice, especially that opener. Math was never my strong suit.

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It was the third night of Phish at the Gorge for the first time ever AND a Sunday show. This one just had to be great right? That question should be answered with an emphatic YES!! The extra day of play gave Phish the opportunity to really get their shit together, which resulted in the first solid from end to end movement of the tour. Sunday night cannot be rebuked for either second set song selection or any inability of certain members of the band to play their own compositions with the dexterity and precision displayed in more inspired and/or inspiring times. Gorge 3 had it all: great song selection, well crafted flow, some deep dark jams, and a general absence of clams. However, before we dig a little deeper, I have to ask one question. The same one that spread like any one of the wildfires that are currently raging throughout the West. What the fuck is up with NAZIS getting arrested for slinging nitrous on Thunder Road and (perhaps unrelated?) some dude getting smashed in the skull with a rock during the show on Saturday? What with the Tahoe PD putting Phish on Twitter blast for their fans trashing their pristine bucolic mountain hideaway and the ugly shit that just happened at the Gorge, this tour is starting to take on a real Grateful Dead 1995 vibe. I guess if I have to point a finger anywhere, it will be the middle one, and it would go in Trumplestiltskin’s Mango hued fart sniffer for continuing to be the instigator. But ultimately, we are doing this to ourselves by subscribing to the madness that continues to ooze out of the oval office. Seriously people, this IS the time for us to rise up and come together. But I digress.

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Welcome to the 335th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the penultimate of July. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, a hint will be posted. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Answer: Congrats to @becker_ross on winning this week's MJM, his second win overall and his first win in more than 5 years and almost 200 MJMs – that's quite the bustout! This week's puzzle was admittedly a bit of a cop-out – I didn't have much time between Tahoe and BGCA to throw something fancier together, so I figured a deep cut from The Victor Disc might give folks fits, especially one Mike's Moma-like bassline. I guess not! I remember when I first read about The Victor Disc in the Rolling Stone article that came out in Winter 2003 – I didn't even realize the interview had taken place until Phish followed the Valentine's Day "My Sweet One" opener with "Cover of the Rolling Stone" on 2/14/03 – and I was so excited about the latenight jam session Trey mentioned they recorded before filming Letterman. Alas, I didn't hear it till almost ten years later! There's some excellent jamming on the album – check it out if it's been a while or you've never delved in.

Though @becker_ross is the clear winner this week, I was hoping the correct answer would have the song and date: 12/19/02 "Blue Over Yellow" – thankfully no one else tried to swoop in on the technicality, making my job much easier. A reminder that while the intro to the MJM each week may look an awful lot like copypasta, I drop little nugs, links, and easter eggs into the nooks and crannies of every post; sometimes they can help guide you to the answer, others, it's just a cool jam or download. We'll be back for MJM336 on Monday – be sure to pay attention as the blog is busy these days!

[Thank you, Josh Martin, @Jsauce, for this recap of last night's show. -Ed.]

Greetings from the Gorge, everyone. Jsauce here. Long time listener, first time reviewer. I love the writing on here and I’m honored to be doing the .net review for Gorge2.

SO.

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[Recap courtesy of Pete "PhanArt" Mason. -Ed.]

The hot and windy mid-Washington Gorge Amphitheater slowly welcomed Phish fans to their first ever three-night run, home to legendary Phish runs going back 21 years. With eager families and first timers dotting the hill and posing for the obligatory "We have arrived" photo, the return to the Gorge was met with plenty of buzz as the first weekend of the tour got underway.

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Despite a little rust during night 1, Phish came out on night 2 at Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena completely locked in and ready to play. The playing was much tighter, and although the jams and experimentation didn’t always reach the lengths we wanted or expected, this second night at Tahoe bodes extremely well for the rest of the tour.

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Last month, the Trump Administration proposed Federal government “reforms” that included the consolidation of the Department of Education and the Department of Labor. Whether such a proposal will prevail in this sulfurous crater we call a democracy these days is anybody’s guess. But, symbolically, this proposal is a chilling indication that the administration holds a cynically narrow view of the mission of public education: to process children into productive adult workers.

We strenuously object.

The idea that the scope of public education in the United States should be shrunk—that students should learn on the taxpayers’ dime only what prepares them for life as agreeable worker drones—is not new. For example, since countless other fresh hells have spawned in the last several years, you can be excused for forgetting about that time when the Texas GOP enshrined their opposition to teaching students how to think critically. But it is the nation’s long-wavering commitment to music education that I’d like to talk about today—because it is almost certain to get worse before it gets better, and because you can help.

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There’s something about West Coast Phish shows. It’s a more relaxed vibe, the people are more laid back, and there’s a more celebratory air. If you’re waiting for Phish to come on stage at Madison Square Garden, you might feel a little anxious and a little overwhelmed. Not so for Tahoe. Under a beautiful blue sky and surrounded by pine trees and adoring fans, Phish kicked off 2018 Summer Tour with a solid show—at times inconsistent, at times magnificent.

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Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

Read more...