Hidden Track Staff

As we mentioned yesterday, each day this week we’ll be sharing a new installment of our geekiest column, The Number Line, in which we analyze the setlists from Phish’s recently completed Fall Tour. Today’s TNL column looks at the songs played by album. One thing you’ll notice is the lack of songs from the group’s two post-hiatus albums, Round Room and Undermind.

[Photo by Jake Krolick]

Junta (1989): Played 10 songs, Did Not Play 4 (Fee, Contact, Union Federal, Icculus)

Lawn Boy (1990): Played 7 songs, Did Not Play 2 (My Sweet One, Oh Kee Pa Ceremony)

A Picture of Nectar (1992): Played 8 songs, Did Not Play 8 (Llama, Eliza, Manteca, Guelah Papyrus, Magilla, The Landlady, Faht, Catapult)

Rift (1993): Played 10 songs, Did Not Play 5 (Rift, Lengthwise, All Things Reconsidered, Mound, Lengthwise #2)

Hoist (1994): Played 5 songs, Did Not Play 6 (Riker’s Mailbox, Axilla [Part II], Lifeboy, Scent Of A Mule, Dog Faced Boy, Demand)

Billy Breathes (1996): Played 7 songs, Did Not Play 6 (Cars Trucks Buses, Talk, Bliss, Billy Breathes, Swept Away, Steep)

READ ON for the rest of our list of songs played by album…

Welcome to the first of five The Number Line columns looking back at the figures and stats of Phish Fall Tour 2009. Today, we’ll start by listing the one-timers – aka songs the group only played once all tour – at each and every show the band played on their recently completed jaunt.

[Photo by Tim Hara]

Total Songs Played at least once – 144
Total Shows Played – 13
Total One-Timers – 70

Fall Tour 2009 One-Timers:

Detroit: 4 (Horn, Mist, Runaway Jim, Bug)
Cinci 1: 1 (Fast Enough For You)
Cinci 2: 7 (Torn & Frayed, Strange Design, Ginseng Sullivan, Albuquerque, Dirt, If I Could, Sleeping Monkey)
Syracuse: 6 (Beauty Of A Broken heart, Drowned, BBFCM, Tube, Theme From The Bottom, GTBT)
Philly 1: 6 (Bathtub Gin, Camel Walk, The Curtain With, Twenty Years Later, The Mango Song, Simple)
Philly 2: 7 (Sugar Shack, Sleep Again, Train Song, Birds Of A Feather, Farmhouse, Esther, Oh! Sweet Nuthin’)

READ ON for the rest of the Fall Tour one-timers list…

Words: Eli Badra
Images: Adam Kaufman

Watching Phish play this year has been a treat. While the band may not be quite up to snuff compared to their mid-90s selves, it can’t be denied that what we are witnessing is a slow but steady musical renaissance. For evidence, just listen to the eons-ago Boston performance and compare it to what we heard during two nights in Albany the previous weekend.

The band is reaching plateaux with each successive bout of touring, settling in comfortably before continuing upwards. As their foray through the Northeast draws to a close, Phish is playing the best music we’ve heard in 2009. It’s no surprise, then, that a three-night stint at Madison Square Garden – the site of some of their finest performances – comes with high anticipation. While Thursday’s show didn’t contain the bust-outs that have become standard this tour, nor the farthest-reaching threads of group improvisation, what it did feature was a perfectly paced and masterfully executed second set that was simply a joy to partake in.

Trey Anastasio kicked things off with the all-too-familiar guitar chugs to set up Punch You In The Eye, a solid opener that got the audience’s blood flowing. From there, the band jumped into Backwards Down the Number Line, wherein Trey laid down a brief but pleasant solo. Phish then touched on Axilla before dropping a somewhat extended Taste, which had the guitar really leaning on those minor-key notes throughout the solo.

READ ON for more of Eli’s thoughts and Adam’s photos…

For this edition of Track By Track, singer/songwriter/banjo player Danny Barnes shares a quick factoid about each track on his latest album, Pizza Box. Pizza Box is Danny’s first album on the ATO label and the release features guest spots by label mates Dave Matthews and Rashawn Ross.

Caveman

I read the bible a good bit and one day I realized that the human condition really hasn’t changed that much. We live a little longer and don’t work as hard, but we really are just animals, or guys with sticks and rocks, to a degree. This has my country funk thing and a delta blues construction. Dave Matthews provides the levity, that’s him grumbling and whooping.

Road

When i was young, Black Sabbath Vol. 4, Aerosmith Toys in the Attic, T. Rex Tanx, The Sex Pistols record and stuff like that were a huge influence on me. I love the way those records sounded and I searched for that feel in this song: like you are riding in a fast car…with the windows down on hot a summer night. The poetry in this song is an amalgam of several stories i’ve heard from friends that went to the joint. One of my friends said it was a relief to finally get away from the death trip and get off dope. It’s also about walking away from your own issues and moving metaphysically to a healthier place. Boyd Tinsley loaned me the guitar I used on this and the Marshall amp.

READ ON for a taste of Pizza Box and for more stories about each track…

Longtime friend of HT Joe Madonna has contributed news and photos to the site over the past few years. Joe recently attended a Guster concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York City and wanted to share some thoughts on the show with our readers. Take it away, Joe…

Lost and Gone Forever, besides being Guster’s 3rd album, is classic. It has horns, it has rhythm, fans whistling and Page McConnell of Phish playing theremin. It’s classic! On Saturday night, we got to hear this amazing set live in all its glory. Fans young and old filled the historic theater over two nights to see the New Englanders rock this classic piece of work. There aren’t many bands that can pull off playing their whole album, but Guster pulled it off.

[Guster joined by producer Steve Lillywhite on bass]

Guster’s first set was a mix of old and new tracks, including a new song called This Could All Be Yours. The band dug deep and played X-Ray Eyes from 1998’s Goldfly. As they sometimes do live, Guster jammed into Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper during their original Red Oyster Cult.

To close the first set of the show,they played a dance-hall version of Airport Song which had a very Passion Pit feel to it. Multi-instrumentalist Joe Pisapia’s dazzling keyboard work made it rock out. Old school fans threw ping-pong balls on stage to the band during the song. The band took a quick setbreak, and then came back out to a cheering crowd as Prince’s 1999 was played over the PA. That was a bit fitting since the album came out then.

READ ON for more from Joe on Guster @ the Beacon…

Just in case you haven’t heard, the Mimi Fishman Foundation has launched another charity auction. The auction includes a whole lot of Phish posters (mainly signed posters from late summer

Words: John Coleman
Images: Tammy Wetzel (from the Rochester UM show)

Northern Lights, in Clifton Park, is an awkward little rock club located in a roadside plaza, squeezed between a Dollar General store and some kind of church. I have to admit, it’s kind of hard to get excited for a show that’s next to a church on a cold Tuesday night. But I had just seen an historic Umphrey’s show at Higher Ground in Burlington four nights before, complete with a Mike Gordon sit-in, and was ready for more Umph. And they delivered.

[All photos by Tammy Wetzel]

I knew things would get loud, it’s always loud at Northern Lights, almost obnoxiously so. The way the bar is laid out, with a horseshoe bar in the center and stage crammed into one small corner, the crowd is packed like sardines into the irregularly shaped room. But it seems like some of Umphrey’s most creative playing is produced in close quarters clubs, where ease of communication takes their improv to another level.

The band eased into the first set with 2×2, but things quickly warmed up with the intro to Robot World. It’s not often a concert is physical, but you could feel Ryan Stasik’s bass and Jake Cinninger’s crunchy metal chops. The set cooled off a bit after a haunting #5. Safety in Numbers was well-represented with versions of Anchor Drops and Passing. Bright Lights fell short, but set one ended in a blaze, with Glory.

READ ON for more from Umphrey’s in Clifton Park…