Trey at the Y: An Audience of His Peers

The most talked about event in New York City last night involved Andy Samberg joining Justin Timberlake on the Madison Square Garden stage for a live rendition of the duo’s smash hit Dick in a Box. But 60 blocks north and over to the east, the headiest of the heady crammed into the 92st Street Y to watch a live Anthony DeCurtis interview with former 70 Volt Parade frontman Trey Anastasio.

We love Big Red and all (to a fault, really), but what does it say about the state of his music when more people pay to hear him speak than play?

By all accounts the event appeared both cathartic for him and extremely candid, Trey delivering snappy, honest answers to all interviewer and audience questions. Red mentioned that there’s probably still a ways to go before the popular rock band Phish ever re-forms, which is fine by us seeing as the party line of this here blog has been 08/08/08 since Day One. But he’ll be H&H when it happens.

As all singers do, Trey also sprinkled in some acoustic numbers to the chat as well, playing Pebbles and Marbles, A Case of Ice and Snow, and Wherever You Find It. The venue seemed to be strict on tapers and photographers, even confiscating cell phones and cameras, but a PT user named syntaxera recorded the interview for everyone — here are a couple of sendspace sources from which to grab it:

• Trey at the 92nd Street Y: Big Red on 2/7/07 (source I .wav)
• Trey at the 92nd Street Y: Big Red on 2/7/07 (cleaner source .mp3)