Phish w/ Buddy Miles & Merl Saunders – All Along The Watchtower

When fans talk about past Phish runs at Madison Square Garden, the one that gets the least attention was a two-night stand in 1996. Unlike every other Phish MSG Run, these shows didn’t take place in December. The quartet visited the “World’s Most Famous Arena” just a week into a fall tour that wound up taking a while to heat up. After three and a half uneventful sets at the Garden, Phish finally broke through at the end of the second set on October 22nd with an amazing version of Weekapaug Groove that fans dubbed “Freakapaug” thanks to the circus dancers who enveloped the stage as Trey delivered an awe-inspiring solo. When the group returned for the encore, they weren’t alone.

Trey Anastasio took to the mic at the start of the encore to welcome two legendary musicians: drummer Buddy Miles (Band of Gypsys, Santana) and keyboardist Merl Saunders (Jerry Garcia, Rainforest Band). Page McConnell moved to organ leaving Saunders to play his grand piano (though later they’d switch positions), while Jon Fishman gave his seat to Miles and headed over to Trey’s mini-kit. Always the effervescent showman, Miles urged the crowd to “give it up for Phish” before the ensemble began only the second, and to date the final, cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower in Phish history. Musically, it wasn’t the greatest Watchtower ever played, but for many in the audience, myself included, this would our only opportunity to not only hear Phish perform the tune but also to see Miles and Saunders play before their untimely deaths in 2008. With the energy in the room already off-the-charts following the Freakapaug, the audience exploded with screams of delight when the circus dancers came back out and Buddy led the group into a bit of Stairway To Heaven.

This evening a video of Watchtower surfaced on YouTube for the first time. We’ve been spoiled by expertly synced videos featuring taper audio, but unfortunately this clip suffers from poor audio. Yet this was a wild moment in Phish history and certainly worth watching…

Phish – All Along The Watchtower