, attached to 2013-07-31

Review by fhqwhgads

fhqwhgads I feel like this show has a kind of synaesthetical feel to it that reflects a Phish of less intensity throughout the majority of the show than I've come to love them for, and in that way this is a good show with a huge jam rather than a great show. The fabled "Tahoe Tweezer" is not really my kind of jam, in that it may have symphonically inclined elements but the whole of which doesn't pay off with the revelatory euphoria of some of the earlier big excursions that Phish did which could pay off over a shorter duration and which were part of coherent artistic statements occurring within the arc of a coherent artistic statement of a career or part in Phishtory. Nevermind that I find the woos facile and inimically entrenched thereafter such that the band may have had an idea about how to incorporate them but here they give vent to a tendency among phans to take shortcuts to true, durable connectivity within the scene. I'm really glad that people are so excited even now about this show and this jam, but to me it feels like an average-great night with an admittedly admirable attempt to recapture some of the sustained peaks of the Oh Kee Pa Ceremony-type intersubjectivity that was so endemic and integral to earlier days but that wouldn't feel fully at home in the contemporary era until the Baker's Dozen or--generously--Magnaball, and that became possible due to intentionally shedding resource constraints and settling into an indentity that makes sense in overview. Some phans may call this momentous occasion highly successful and inspirational, yet I find it a case of the phenomenon Jon Fishman once described regarding listening while drumming whereby if one focuses too much on one aspect of the music it's like the brain is a sponge and the other parts dry up due to disuse or even neglect. I love big, long jams, and I think in some ways the post-hiatus/pre-breakup Phish was a lot more keen in that regard because it didn't have to be a pivotal, Badouian "event" to go deep; it was happening vibrantly every show and with far less tentativity than this show can offer.


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