READING IS FUNDAMENTAL: RIDE THE PHISH BUS TO MAGIC MIKE'S
On October 29, 2013, Phish will make their debut performance at the Sovereign Center Santander Arena in Reading, Pennsylvania. I know what you are thinking. “If it is their debut performance, how can we step into a yesterday that doesn't exist?” Well, in the first place, Reading has played an integral role in both the history of Phish, my life, and my relationship with Phish. Secondly, while Phish has never played in Reading, and the venue itself was only constructed in 2001, it was built atop the rubble of the Astor Theater.
The Astor Theater is a venue with its own rich history; the ghosts of which are sure to be lively as we make our way toward the feast of Samhain. Originally designed by architect William H. Lee and constructed in 1928, its intended purpose was a 2,478 seat Art Deco movie theater. The Astor Theater opened October 3, 1928 with an opening night program that included dedication of the theater, an overture performed by the Astor Concert Orchestra conducted by Vincent Kay, a Movietone newsreel, vitaphone presentations by banjoist Eddie Peabody, comedians Shaw and Lee, Larry Ceballos’ Under Sea Revue a stage presentation by the Circus Follies, the feature film Street Angel starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, and exit music for a film, in this case “Angela Mia,” performed on the Wurlitzer Cathedral Organ. What a night! The Astor was in use as a movie theater through 1975, with its final days as such being of the X-rated variety. After going out of the movie business, the Astor Theater experienced a brief but undeniably awesome period as a music venue with 31 performers gracing the stage from late 1975 through 1978 that included Hall & Oates, Billy Joel, Kansas, the Charlie Daniels Band, Jeff Beck (with the Jan Hammer Group), Bonnie Raitt (with Johnny’s Dance Band), Hot Tuna, Jerry Garcia Band, Riders of the New Purple Sage, Phoebe Snow, Rush, Barry Manilow, Blue Oyster Cult, and Todd Rundgren. The Astor was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1978 but despite renovation efforts led by Red Skelton, the theater fell into disrepair during the 1980s, was subsequently razed to make way for the Sovereign Center in 1998, and delisted from the NRHP in 2000.
PHISHING POLL THURSDAY, VOL. 9: JUKEBOX TOUR
It's been a gas to watch all the musical costume chatter from our users these past few weeks. The staff is every bit as wound up for the big AC reveal, and the anticipation put us in a nostalgic way about a spate of shows during the Summer 1998 U.S. tour when Phish dared to don a musical costume nearly every night (even if only a song at a time).
The resulting flurry of debut covers -- some intentionally ironic, some unspeakably poignant, but all completely unexpected -- gave rise on rec.music.phish to the nickname "Jukebox Tour." The moniker didn't last, of course, and some of the output has even faded from memory for me personally (Wait, Phish played "Running With the Devil"?! Really?! Yep!), but that made it even more fun to revisit. We hope you'll enjoy with both ears and both thumbs.
[NOTE FOR THE ANALLY FIXATED: This is a list of debut cover songs from the Summer of 1998. Anybody who complains that established covers played during the Summer of 1998 were not included, or that debut covers from some other tour were not included, or that the "California Love Jam" that's not a song was not included, will be dipped in honey and fed to fire ants. Thank you, The Management.]
HARTFORD: THE VENUE INSIDE A MALL
It had to be the best idea ever. "Let's build an arena and we'll stick it inside a shopping mall." For 1975, it had to make sense. No one who went to the Hartford Civic Center in 80's and 90's can forget the absurd collision of commerce that was the Civic Center. Buy some jeans at The Gap, have dinner at The Ground Round, and watch a monster truck show. What a night!
MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 164
Welcome to the 164th edition of Phish.net's Mystery Jam Monday Tuesday! This week's winner will once again receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday Wednesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday Thursday. Good luck!
Answer: @jmponder wins his third MJM by IDing the 7/5/98 Fee, a sloppy version in a sloppy show that nonetheless has a few unique jams worth listening to.
IS THIS STILL YOUR DADDY'S CENTRUM?
I'm pretty stoked to be writing a few words about this venue and equally stoked for the upcoming shows. Sometime by the end of the year, or if the cards don't fall right, perhaps the first part of 2014 Tour, I'll hit my 300th show. Tons of special memories of course. I've seen Phish perform in every place from dorms, college quads, fraternity houses, gin soaked college bars with 15 people attending and deserted clubs to hallowed halls to the country's biggest, grandest and most cherished venues. Yet, of all the special places I've seen this band- the Centrum ranks right up there among my favorite venues. Perhaps I'm one of only a handful of people that would make that seemingly bizarre claim and hold the venue in such high regard. What is it about the Centrum? Who knows. A cocktail of great memories with friends, remembering the band beginning to "hit it big", great musical moments, omnipresent electricity in the air, historical shows, and a large dose of home-town homerism has elevated this venue for me. Regardless of what regard you hold this venue, there's no doubting the importance it has had in Phish history or the many great musical moments that it has hosted.
Who knows: You may not even recognize the Centrum in Worcester, MA when you visit on October 25th and October 26th for the bands fifteenth and sixteenth appearances here. These shows keep this hallowed venue square in the top few of most played venues by Phish (and likewise the second most performed artist here). Let's get a few things straight before we roll up our sleeves. First off, it is, phonetically, "Woo-ster" not "Worchester". And like Deer Creek, The Boston Garden or Great Woods, it doesn't quite matter which corporate behemoth shelled out enough money to rename the joint. It will always be "The Centrum" but feel free to call it the DCU Center if you want. The venue has actually had a few different names over the years. We need to do a bit of house-cleaning here on Phish.net as we actually have the names incorrect. In 1993 when Phish first played here on New Year's Eve and in 1995 the venue was named "Centrum in Worcester". In 1997, it was re-christened "Worcester's Centrum Center" and in the 3.0 era, starting with their performances in 2010, it has been known as "DCU Center".
The venue, with a capacity of 14,500 and situated in New England's second biggest city, has an embarrassingly rich history for not only epic Phish shows, but also for scores of other bands. We'll look at 'Ten Great Moments' in Centrum Phish history after we look to the future. Despite some real high moments musically and historically for the band, the venue has also been marred with complaints. Most notably have been the lack of restrooms, the lack of concessions and the miniscule concourse space to accommodate the always sold-out crowds. So what's changed? Read on for the best of what's to come and the best of what's already been!
SMALL VENUE REDUX: WHERE THE **** IS GLEN FALLS?
Unlike the legendary Fall 2013 venues like the Hampton Coliseum which has seen 15 memorable Phish shows, including the 2009 reunion run, or the Worcester Centrum Center/DCU arena which has had 14 shows, many notable like the 1993 New Year’s Eve show with the “aquarium” stage set and the 11/29/97 “Runaway Jim” marathon, the upcoming show on Wednesday, October 23rd at the Glens Falls Civic Center will only be the second Phish show at that venue.
Of course, the first show, on Halloween in 1994, is one of the most well-known and loved Phish shows, where the tradition of playing a “musical costume” in a three set show on Halloween, since repeated five more times (in 1995, 1996, 1998, 2009 and 2010), began.
The Glens Falls Civic Center (yes, it's GLENS Falls, no apostrophe, folks, not GLEN Falls)
PHISH DESTROYS ROCHESTER
Phish has previously played five shows within the city of Rochester proper, all occurring in odd-numbered years in the 1990s, oddly enough. The first took place on April 20, 1991, at the University of Rochester’s Douglass Dining Center during its annual pre-finals “D-Day” spring celebration. Having attended UR in the latter-half of the decade, during which Phish regularly performed in front of crowds numbering in the tens of thousands, I was awed that only a few years had passed since they held a concert in the small cafeteria I regularly ate meals at.
REVISITING HAMPTON
What’s so special about Hampton? I joined in a discussion about this topic a few weeks ago, and there doesn’t seem to be a simple answer to the question. For sure, as venues go, Hampton has a number of marks in its favor, but none seem to provide a slam-dunk answer to the question: Why does Hampton Coliseum enjoy such legendary status for Phish fans?
(Photograph by Erik Axdahl)
MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 163
Welcome to Phish.net's Mystery Jam Monday, Part 163. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, you'll need to be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday. Good luck!
Answer: Kudos to another first-time winner this week, as @bostonron deftly identified the 8/11/04 Down with Disease.
PHISHING POLL THURSDAY, VOL. 8: BOO!
"Ghost."
It's a wisp of a song, yet one of the band's most versatile canvases. It can become a melting reactor core, a V8 ghetto glide, a starship awakening in the cradle of a distant nebula, or a lurking menace. And 'tis the season: If Winter Phish is "Tweezer," Spring Phish is "Reba," and Summer Phish is "Bathtub Gin," then Fall Phish is surely "Ghost."
To mark and celebrate the onset of autumn, we want to hear about your favorite "Ghost." And this Ranker comes with a bit of a twist: we are letting our users start with a blank canvas. We haven't named a single contender . . . not that we could name just one if we tried. [Edit: Well, we had to name one to create the poll. What better to start with than the studio version?]
Please add your selection using this format: Ghost YYYY-MM-DD. Thanks!
MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 162
Welcome to Phish.net's 162nd Mystery Jam Monday! Because no one was able to ID MJM #161, this week's winner will receive TWO MP3 downloads courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, you'll need to be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday. Good luck!
Answer: In the penultimate 1.0-era show that contained the band's lone performance to date of El Paso -- a song also prominently featured in the opening scene of Sunday's Breaking Bad finale -- the 10/6/00 Down with Disease was identified by first-time and two-MP3 winner @itsice1. Great job!
PHISHING POLL THURSDAY, VOL. 7: BEST SECRET FEST JAM
If we are to trust the band as the arbiter of what is and what is not, there have been nine Phish festivals to date. Each of these events has been replete with surprises both on and off the stage. Among the more clandestine of these surprises have been a series of secret, unannounced, unrequited, undermined, and/or under attended sets of non-traditional Phish. Although, not officially a festival, this "secret set" tradition was originally to be initiated with a late night 4th set at Amy's Farm. Unfortunately, due to the arrival of some uninvited guests looking for trouble, the band pulled the plug and this late night set never materialized. Eliminating the elusive 4th set at Amy's farm from contention, we are left with the opportunity to determine the best of the non-traditional festival sets that are alleged to have occurred when many of us were not looking. Some of these sets are so secret, only Phish knows about them.
TUESDAY ON TURNTABLE.FM/THEPHISH: JUNTA
This just in from Myke "@LawnMemo" Menio:
The third installment of our weekly Phish studio replay is on Tuesday, September 24, at 9pm e.t. at turntable.fm/thePhish. We will be replaying Junta from start to finish and will be including the outtakes (available on etree here). Come join us for a couple hours and re-live one of Phish's greatest albums!
MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 161
Phish.net Mystery Jam Monday iteration: 161
Prize: One MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net
Objective: To be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip
Rules: Each person gets one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint on Tuesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday
Start time: Now
Hint: If Mr. Carey were judging this week's MJM, as of Tuesday at 9:27am ET, Mr. Monroe would have twice the money needed to win.
Answer: Several of you were able to figure out the hint -- as of the time it was posted, all submissions were past the date of the correct answer, so using "The Price is Right" rules (hosted by Drew Carey), since everyone else was "over", Bill Monroe's two-dollar bill would have been double the $1 it would have taken to win. Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for the Blog, only Contestant Emeritus @pauly was able to figure out this week's MJM: the 8/21/93 Stash. For the record, it was previously said that a more straightforward hint might be in order next time. For a mystery jam from the prominent month of August 1993, I'd say this was a suitable increase in clarity, no?
Stop by next Monday for a double-MP3 giveaway MJM!
PHISHING POLL THURSDAY, VOL. 6: BEST FISHMAN SONGS
Norton Charleton Heston. Bob Weaver. Henrietta.
Sneezeblood Eyeball.
Call him what you will, the truth remains: Jon Fishman is Phish's one, true, natural-born showman. Though threadbare of garment and hairbare of head, the man knows how to own a song like nobody else.
Pick one favorite Fishman tune? A fool's errand for sure. So we made it easier for you by including only those that have at one point been accompanied by HYHU. And, as usual, you can always click through and vote for (or against) more than one . . .
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