Ah, the memories. I was 18 years old and fresh out of High School. Bring on the party! For some stupid reason my parents let me and my two friends borrow the car and drive it across the state to see this show. My best friend Nate and Craig were with me. Nate is the guy that I have to thank for getting me into Phish in the first place....but that my friends is another story!

Having seen the "Fleezer" show a few days earlier my mind was still recovering and in a fragile state. This was only my sixth show so there were still a lot of surprises and songs that I've never heard before on tape or live. I believe I heard my first Tela and Sloth but I know it was the first time I ever heard Free, Strange Design and Sleeping Monkey. The DWD is simply awesome. So weird and all over the place. Amazing raw improv. I was SOOO lost during this song that I was certain that Phish were aliens and that I was now dead and I was going to spend the rest of my life within this confusion and lights. The Free saved me. This was the first time that I heard that riff. Instantly fucking loved that song. INSTANTLY. I wish I had a video of my face during those first lines of Free, I probably had tears running down it. Soon after the bliss I was again launched into fright and amazement by the mind-fuck that followed. Poor Heart brought me back to reality but I was again off into the stratosphere during YEM and Strange Design. I remember really liking Strange Design and thinking how fucking weird of a song it was. Trippy shit! I also remember the lights really well during the song. It was a Strange Design indeed and of course it blew my mind a litte further. I've seen Antelope more times than any other song and I never get sick of it. I can only imagine how excited I was to hear Antelope this night. At this point in my Phish career I was still hearing songs I've never heard before and the ones I did know where always such a treat to hear. I was still figuring out the how, why and what and didn't fully "get it" until a few shows later.

I remember after the show talking to an older Phish guy (he was probably in his late 20's...OLD) who was doing the whole tour. He told us about Free and Strange Design. I remember telling him how much we all loved Free and how fucked up the DWD and Free were.
At one point he stopped and looked at us with his knowing and knowledgeable face and said
"You guys totally got your minds blown tonight didn't you?" Yes sir. Yes we did.

After the show the cops drove around to us like 5 times and asked us to leave. We kept yelling at them "just eatin' and leavin'!". It was extremely funny at the time. Eventually they got out of their cars and, started grabbing all our shit and started packing it up for us. Again, it was REALLY funny. Can't see how they allowed me to drive out of there. Being 18 and not able to make any long term plans, we ended sleeping in some farmers field outside of town. I had a towel for a blanket and no pillow but everything was SO right with the world at that point. What a night.

BB

Jibboo Crew
JSW#1

If you're on the fence about buying this archival release, I'll try to persuade you with these 4 words: "Stash-like jam in Possum!" Maybe closer to Dave's Energy Guide territory than Stash, really, but this entire show is absolutely worth hearing in multitrack soundboard quality, especially if you haven't heard it before, or if your knowledge of Phishtory isn't as encyclopedic as you'd like it to be. The LivePhish.com blurb advertises this show as "Summer 1995 Space Camp" material, and though Summer '95 isn't every phan's idea of peak Phish, it was a very transformational, paradigm-shifting time: you got your August '93, with the breakthrough into nightly Type-II jamming, then your Summer '94 which integrates the August '93 sound into a precision machine led by astonishing guitar pyrotechnics, then your Fall '94 which gets out there into the territory that would continue to be mined in Summer '95, though each of the latter two aforementioned tours have their own characteristics (at least by virtue of the seasons in which they were played, where many phans will swear there's a notable difference between Fall Phish and Summer Phish and their concomitant conditions of indoor Phish and outdoor Phish.) I'm learning not to spoil the surprises of a given show in my reviews, so I won't blow up this show's spot by giving away all its secrets, but to reiterate, DWD -> Free and YEM are not the only reasons to listen to this show (though they are very good reasons!) Someone jam chart that Possum immediately, though, for Pete Carini's sake, is alls I know! Good luck and have as much phun as possible. Sincerely, @fhqwhgads

The new LivePhish release is GREAT.

Set I doesn't necessarily have Big (read:long) jams (outside Possum), but it's very well played, with great song selection, and plenty of quality jamming within the confines of song structure.

MFMF is a wonderful way to open the show (and foreshadows the psychedelic set II nicely). Great spacey ending section.

Don't You Want to Go? is a nice peppy cover. Has a rocking and rollicking jam and the band does a nice job indeed.

Bathtub Gin sits in the 3-hole. This is a relatively short version at around 9 minutes, but carries a pretty nice jam without breaking too much ground or peaking too hard.

NICU is up next and is another fun tune and fits the preceding couple of song choices nicely. Good danceable stretch.

The Sloth is always a fine one to hear. This is a good rocking version and brings back a bit of an edge to the set.

My Mind's Got a Mind of Its Own is fun, but to me felt like a bit of an oddly placed song.

It's Ice>Dog Faced Boy>Tela is a really cool stretch of songs, with good playing in Ice, a delicate Dog Faced Boy, and a very pretty version of Tela. (Tela & Sloth in same set...awesome!)

Possum is the biggest jam of the first set and it is indeed a barn burner. This one is long and pretty open. Has a nice heavy jam in the middle and an absolutely explosive peak. Phenomenal closer.

Set II opens with Down With Disease. The opening itself contains a slightly prolonged bit of space, a bit different from today's unrecognizable bubbling bass. Pretty cool. The song itself is played very crisply & the solo is glorious. The jam quickly moves to rhythmic territory. This is '95 at it's finest, glorious open improv, mind-blowing complexity, challenging, but cohesive. Not for the faint of heart, but most certainly satisfying. I felt like this jam went by far quicker than the timing indicated and was also cohesive in the context of some of the long and more challenging Tweezers of '95. It's sublime stuff.

The -> into Free is very smooth, executed with some tactfulness (patience) which would develop into the glorious segues found on the back end of the 90's. It's a great, smooth drop-in & the first ever pairing of these tunes. I often lament how much I got these paired in 3.0, but it definitely works here. The Free itself might be my favorite jam of the show. It's amazing improv, with a minimalist, rhythmic, psychedelic section, which deconstructs then rebuilds to a glorious up tempo peaking conclusion. Is this my new favorite version? Asking that question alone is enough of a win.

Poor Heart does not allow us to cleanse our palette with a breather quite yet and is plenty fun.

YEM (in it's best ever year?) pops up and continues to carry this monster of a set. This is a excellent version (not December '95 exploratory/long) that has an incredible peaking solo (around 14:45 or so) where Trey is just on fire. The whole tune is executed very well. The vocal jam is also plenty wild.

Strange Design is the well earned breather and fits the penultimate song slot like a glove. Very choice.

Run Like An Antelope charges with abandon in this straight ahead, but nonetheless scorched earth version. It's a truly relentless jam concluding a pretty relentless set. There's a great moment of long sustain in the 6 minute mark. The playing around 7:50 or so is also very tasty and commences a relentless build to the stratosphere.

Sleeping Monkey and Rocky Top end the show in a more comical fashion, reminding us that Phish still brings the laughs after some pretty amazing & challenging music.

You can't rightfully complain about anything in Set II other than you might have needed another breather or a water bottle to keep up with the pace of that set. Fire front to back and pretty much a perfect set. Great choice LP. 5/5

I really wish this was a better review of my first Phish show ever. I was young (16) and broke. Not even sure how I bought the ticket. I caught a ride with my friend who had to referee a soccer game prior to the show. His mom drove us to the game and then dropped us at the show in a VW Vanagon. I dont remember not one note of music, or even seeing a ray of light during the show - this depresses me! I know my friend dave was dancing like crazy and he had probably never heard a note of Phish's music before that night. Looking back at the setlist, I'd give anything to actually know what was going on and listen to how they played those songs, many of which are now my favorites. It's been 19 years to the day since that show. Time flies when you're having phun. Sidenote: After the show I was waiting for my crew near the front gate. Standing next to me was this super cute hippie chick with a respectable amount of armpit hair holding a sign that said "Dayton". She turned to me and said, "Can I have a ride to Ohio?" All I could think to say is, "Baby, If I was going to Ohio, I would bring you! But I live about 20 minutes down the road." She understood and continued on her crusade. I went home and went to bed.

For me, this was one of those shows that you will always remember for personal reasons – things that happened around the show. This is not to say that those things were unrelated to the show (they very much were related), but my strong recollections principally relate to its aftermath. I am not going to discuss it here, but I mention it as the sheer power of the music and the scene at the time are very much relevant to set the mood here – this is the kind of music that can do strange and intensely personnel things to you. Let’s get this show on the road…

Set I starts off dark with My Friend, My Friend – you have the guitar intro to find your spot and when the dark chording starts you are instantly transported to where the band is pulling the strings and controls reality. Boom! And then there is the emotional whiplash. Don’t You Want to Go? is as fun and bouncy as My Friend was dark. They had only played this a few times before, and this ended up being the penultimate version, but the song really ripped here. While it was bouncy at first, it was fast and had a pretty intense peak. The “Yes I want to go!” outro made the opening numbers feel of a single piece and we were all ready to start the show proper.

For that, they delivered a Gin for which the most memorable feature was in the ending where Trey chants (surely this is what he said) – “You Know I’m Tripping” which makes it feel dark and strange. It seems to me that they do the emotional whiplash parings throughout most of the set. Bathtub’s off- kilter ending gives way to a peppy NICU. Dark Sloth to Light MMGAMOIO. The Dark-rhythmic intricacies of Ice to the soft simple strums of Dog Faced Boy. Here they finally stay with a mood and keep it mellow with Tela before ending the set with a ripping Possum.

And this Possum previews what is to come in the second set. It is intense – the kind of song to get lost in, but where they can turn on a dime. A full Possum jam gives way to a heavy heartbreaker tease for a few moments and back to Possum without missing a beat – but it somehow keeps the Heartbreaker heaviness and carries it forward. The peak on this song seems to last forever where everyone wants/needs it to end but wishes that it will never end all the same. A tremendous send-off for set break.

Set II kicks in with a classic Disease set opener – though at the time the slot was not as common as it is today. Things start to move from the standard at about 9 minutes in where there is a nice bass line from Mike which leads into an almost Mancini/Perer Gunn-ish section. It’s a hard-driving-calculated-to-make-you-crazy kind of groove with Trey putting in scary accents. Things ease back at around 17 minutes to open up an ambient Page-Trey space where people try still dance but eventually find they need to just close their eyes and space out for a while. At 21 minutes or so it returns to a hard-driving groove which sound like Metallica playing Chuck Berry (to me at least…) which eventually morphs (great ->) into Free.

Free is another monster and after the anthemic beginning it breaks down into a total mind-fuck space after about 6 minutes where it feels like you are in an strange lab where unknown and potentially alien scientists are experimenting on you mind combined with the feeling of being tied to a train track where you hear and feel the train coming though you can’t tell precisely where it is. This passes eventually and gives way to a delicate and beautiful opening at about 10 minutes in (all times from the new official soundboard) which lets you breathe, but which does not last long as Trey starts driving hard into a I’m-running-down-a-hallway-being-chased-by-a-psychotic-killer-type vibe. This vibe continues until they drop into a simultaneous ice-like breakdown which leads not into Ice (this is a mid-Ice feel so I suppose it should not) but into Poor Heart which has this same ice-like break in the middle and then at the end which is a lot to do within the span of two minutes.

When they move into YEM there is a feeling that we all survived some ordeal and this is our gift from the band. The familiar composition is a mind salve and everyone is enjoying life again to the bouncy and fun vibes that the song projects. It takes its time and patiently builds to a great peak at 15 minutes followed by a great Mike solo with a fat funky tone. The tone is so funky there is no choice but to bring forth a James Brown inspired Hot Tub! vocal jam.

Strange design. After hearing it for the first time at Finger Lakes a few days earlier I was familiar with the song; a Page ballad – nice enough with some good imagery dripping/tripping etc. – but definitely a breather. Time for one more burner – Antelope was not unusual (apart from the tempo seeming to be amped up) but is always great. Another payoff for surviving the intensity of the set.

For the Encore, what to make of the sleeping monkey? I recall having a discussion on the “real meaning” of the song after the show, but I am pretty sure that goes under the category of overthinking it. Rocky Top gives us bluegrass send-off and caps off an amazing show.

As I mentioned up front, this show had repercussions which I can still feel today when I think about it. Or maybe I am thinking about the Fleezer show the week before…

First I have to say how much I love the venue, I grew up 15 miles from the venue and the sound coming from the venue when you approach the SPAC bridge is unheard of, a solid venue for all music, and when Phish is in the local vicinity Vermont and Eastern New York packs the venue.
SET ONE- My Friend My Friend opened the show, good opener always a solid version from Rift, only done better when it's live. Next came Do you want to go, i was unfamilar with this one. Gin > NICU, The Sloth and Mind got a mind of its own is nothing short of amazing. It's Ice, another Rift live gem with Page playing the keys and singing his heart out, i love this.
Dog faced boy > Tela, Possum, Another example of Phish in the mid 90's. Solid Set, Solid energy and a solid show well on it's way.
SET TWO- Disease, Free, Poor Heart, got to love the power, the energy and the bluegrass mixed up in set 2. YEM came with arms flashing and feet kicking, Spac became stuck in the middle of a long extended jam and it continued and continued, into Page singing Strange Design, calming the energy and allowing the show closer to be
Antelope. Wow A YEM which could melt iron and an Antelope which seemed to zip through the venue like a bullet. What a show.
ENCORE- I'm guessing Julius, nope Fishman came out on the table with Sleeping Monkey which is a solid ballad if i had heard one, then Rocky Top, I swear to God Gordon loves this tune as much as the crowd that was feeling the blue grass treat.
SPAC is awesome, good times and great tunes.

PHISH, MONDAY 06/26/1995
SARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Saratoga Springs, NY
Soundcheck: Time Loves A Hero > Dog Log/Time Loves A Hero mashup, Nellie Kane, Santana Instrumental, Rocky Mountain Way

SET 1:

My Friend, My Friend: I like the creepy loops at the end.

Don't You Want To Go? Standard.

Bathtub Gin: Standard.

NICU: Standard. >

The Sloth: Standard.

My Mind's Got a Mind of its Own: Standard. Standard.

It's Ice: Standard. >

Dog Faced Boy: Standard. >

Tela: Standard. >

Possum: Smoker! Would recommend. Many a melted face when the lights went up for set break.

SET 2:

Down with Disease[1] Some of it is just noise but plenty of it is engaging and upbeat with intense sections. It’s not for the faint of heart and those that grew up on 3.0 Phish will likely not enjoy this. Exquisite segue into Free. Would recommend. ->

Free: First jammed version! It has some filler but most of it is awesome especially the last 6 minutes! Would recommend. >

Poor Heart: Sick little interlude before Page’s solo makes this one a bit unique. Super high energy. >

You Enjoy Myself: Dialed in from beginning to end. Trey is on fire. Crushes both Notes and his solo is a screaming shred fest. Would recommend!

Strange Design: Standard. >

Run Like an Antelope: Barnburner for sure. Beautiful sustained note by Trey in the midst of the chaos adds to the intensity.

ENCORE:

Sleeping Monkey: Standard. >

Rocky Top: Standard.

Summary: First set is kind of first setty but the Possum smokes. The entire second set is awesome. Really strong show overall, 4.2/5.

Replay Value: Possum, Down with Disease, Free, You Enjoy Myself, Run Like an Antelope

[1] Unfinished.

My Friend started with a Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 tease from Trey. Trey teased and quoted Long Tall Glasses in Bathtub Gin. Possum contained a Heartbreaker tease and YEM contained Immigrant Song teases from Trey. Down with Disease was unfinished. This show is available as an archival release on LivePhish.com.
JAM CHART VERSIONS
Possum, Down with Disease, Free, You Enjoy Myself, Run Like an Antelope
TEASES
Heartbreaker tease in Possum, Immigrant Song tease in You Enjoy Myself, Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 tease in My Friend, My Friend, Long Tall Glasses tease & quote in Bathtub Gin

My goodness, this show smokes. The first half of the first set is fine, but the It's Ice > Dog Faced Boy > Tela is really lovely. The Possum is the first true heater of the night, and it sets the stage for the second set. If the DWD -> Free doesn't knock you on your ass, you'll get a fun reprieve with Poor Heart. The YEM that follows will try again to knock you over, and if you're still standing, Page takes a turn with Strange Design to lull you into a sense of comfort. And then the Antelope hits, and you most certainly will not be standing any longer. A fierce, fierce show.

First set is totally legit.

But boy oh boy this second set... my god. It think the DWD > Free would be on a shortlist for best Phish segues ever. Not best DWD >, but best segues period. Really spectacular stuff.

Then Free itself melts into a Medeski-type crawl before launching into a manic Llama pace. I wouldn't bat an eye if this were labeled "Free > Jam > Poor Heart." It seems like lesser jams have gotten the "> Jam >" treatment.