Pork Tornado is the side project that flies under the radar. While Clone, Trey Anastasio, and Vida Blue all received extensive commentary from the curious community, Pork Tornado’s self-titled CD managed the near impossible feat: to go unnoticed.

As a result “Blue Skies” was the song that people were most curious about in the “show and tell” set in Worcester on 2/26/03. “Clone” and “Drifting” were among the most well known songs in Mike and Trey’s projects. “Final Flight” might be a more obscure Vida Blue song, but the appearance of 3/4 of Phish on 12/31/01 meant that many people owned at least that show and therefore had some sort of idea of what the Vida sound was like.“Blue Skies,” though, was a complete mystery.

Due to the magic of Live Phish, the secret of the song was soon revealed as a straightforward bluegrass song; it even used the trick of many successful bluegrass songs – use upbeat music to disguise a depressing lyric. While a pleasant enough listen, there isn’t much here to distinguish it from a million other similar songs. If you ever wondered what “My Sweet One” would sound like without the humor, “Blue Skies” is the answer.

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