Review: Phish Throw Down In Hartford

Now, the foursome were all making weird rising hand gestures, although after Trey began to swing around a rubber chicken on a string, it was clear they were saying, “Birds!” and ripped into a particularly nice rendition. Starting with a thick, muscley tone from piano and tumbling drums under red and yellow lights, the sound grew broader, and the guitar traced a trail through the caverns–the elements of the jam all clicked just right, leading to a small, satisfying explosion.

After Lawn Boy, Stash gave the first taste of more open-ended jamming. The improv started with a small, squirrelly line but the surrounding sounds grew darker and Trey began to cast lines about, like a flashlight on a down-river raft at night. A minor peak, and the lead was swallowed by the current, only to have the guitar come out lashing and gasping to take it all home. I Didn’t Know capped off that 1992 feeling, and the band moved on with Middle of the Road, which seems to be a perfectly apt title–I’m not to fond of Mike’s newest pieces. The set had lost its rhythm, after Stash, but a barn-burning Character Zero, Trey hopping and kicking about, along with everyone in the crowd, closed a rocking first set, just right for a Friday night.

After a short break, Phish was back, Mike grinding up stacks of sheet metal to kick off Down With Disease. Phish LD Chris Kuroda made use of the back drop, a rare move, casting up vibrating layers of watery ripples as the band wailed away. But since March DWD has bypassed too much machine gunning to produce a number of truly interesting jams, and this one was no exception. The music spun around under blues and greens and dropped down to a brief red, funky moment before slipping into a beautiful Reba jam, colored all the more so because the context. But before they went very far, the band crashed into a ripping, crowd-pleasing Wilson, which trailed off into Slave. The song placement seemed so distinct and abnormal, even though Wilson was played mid second set a few nights earlier, and it gave the songs an extra sparkle – like, where are you going go after Slave? And after a gorgeous Slave no less, Trey playing clean, with Page dancing over Mike alongside him, rising in the most organic way, and shining white light for minutes at the climax? It could have easily been the best song of the night, except the band had other plans in mind.

Piper flared up wild pretty quickly, as it’s wont to do, but just as quickly fell into a staccato groove, and continuing on, wound down into a funkier take on the idea. Page was up on his feet, leaning over his clav as the music grooved its way closer and close to the vicinity of the Mothership. Mike was shaking the pavilion pillars in the deepest moments of space, just before effortlessly transitioning to a dreamy Water in the Sky. You wouldn’t think it, but once again the placement (or maybe the placement paired with the performance) was just right. And once again, that seemed like the big jam of the night. I even wrote it in my notes, “Big Jam of the Nite.” Except the band had other plans in mind.

Ghost jumped on the right path immediately with a slick, slick jam built on a series of chords. Page was now at a gallop and Trey was right in the heart of the building glow of the moment, and they all dropped back to the chords, but this time with more bounce. The movement blazed up again, larger this time, and Fish laid down a devastating barrage of drumming that catapulted the band into Psycho Killer, the crowd, already practiced at singing the chorus, going absolutely wild.

There was the briefest move back toward the Ghost jam, but the supports fell away entirely, leaving Page playing a weird, fast paced clacking line endlessly. Trey mumbled something about the right dance for the music and began to shimmy and shake, eventually doing a strange version of the robot across the stage, and then calling out Fish to dance to the music too: out in front of the riser all loose limbed and flailing. Fuzzy effects bulged through and suddenly Trey was at the mic with “I’d catapult downtown…” and that missing narration from the first set? That was forgotten entirely.

When the spoken word piece finished, the clacking and roboting resumed, Trey asking, “Does anyone love this song as much as I do?” and going on to consider how good it would be as driving music. And then he just went off in a grand style, old fashioned Trey rant, “ ’cause ya know…” and those three notes, three distinct notes, sending him into a howling Icculus about being around when Pong was invented and “Put down your iphones and your dvd things,” because the Book was written on paper, by hand, by candle light. “When was the last time one of you picked up a fucking book?” It was awesome, and when they finished, everyone on stage was nodding his head and laughing. Not to sell the YEM short, it being killer (psycho killer) like the rest of the set, with Mike playing a huge final solo and Trey dancing Dance Dance Revolution style to his right, but that mini-suite of deep and twisting quirkiness was something entirely special and exceedingly fun. A night for the ages.

Phish
August 14, 2009
Hartford Meadows
Hartford, CT

Set One: Punch You in the Eye, AC/DC Bag, NICU, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird, Birds Of A Feather, Lawn Boy, Stash, I Didn’t Know, Middle Of The Road, Character Zero

Set Two: Down With Disease > Wilson > Slave To The Traffic Light, Piper > Water In The Sky, Ghost > Psycho Killer > Catapult > Icculus, You Enjoy Myself

Encore: While My Guitar Gently Weeps