Modest Mouse treated fans to two brand-new songs as part of their set at this weekend’s Sasquatch! Festival at the Gorge, WA and to our ears both tunes are winners.
Phish returned to Bethel Woods on Sunday for the third of three tour-opening shows. Unlike the first two performances, night three was light on the jams, sporting a setlist filled with heavy-rotation staples.
[Photo via Justin B.]
- Setlists, Recaps, The Skinny: Phish Bethel Night One, Phish Bethel Night Two
- Audio, Videos, Reviews and More: YEMblog.com
READ ON for the setlist and The Skinny…
On Friday night Phish kicked off the first leg of their summer tour with a hearty opening show that featured a number of expansive jams and laid the ground work for what should be an exciting run. The quartet returned to gorgeous Bethel Woods for the second of three performances at the venue near the site of 1969’s Woodstock Festival on Saturday.
[Photo via Liberty Independent]
Saturday’s show proved the power of the jams as the band continued to flex their improvisational muscles in Bethel. In the first set both Halley’s Comet and Bathtub Gin featured impressive improvisation, especially considering nearly every version of Halley’s since Hampton has been of the five-minute variety. Halley’s at Bethel surpassed the 12-minute mark to the delight of Phish fans, while Bathtub Gin contained elements of Manteca and some of the best group interplay seen from the run thanks in part of drummer Jon Fishman’s bombastic backbeat. Also of note was the rare stretching out of the post-first verse breakdown in Runaway Jim.
The second set started with a 15-minute-plus Down With Disease that devolved into a space jam before the band worked their way into Free. Backwards Down The Number Line could be a monster when Phish chooses to explore the space between the riff that forms the jam and the Bethel version showed why as each member of the group contributed to a tasty improvisation that alternated between light/airy playing and dark/evil-tinged themes. Night two wasn’t just about the jams, Phish was also having fun all night, which was most apparent during a Makisupa Policeman that found Trey, Page, Mike and Fish each taking a turn at laying down what the music would sound like at their respective houses in a cool segment that’s worth a listen. From there, the boys turned on a dime into Harry Hood land for a patient take on the tune that would be a standout version if it peaked harder. David Bowie gave Phish one last chance to jam and they took advantage with Trey in particular laying down some ripping riffs.
HT’s Brian Bavosa will be at all three tour-opening shows and will file a full report early next week. READ ON for tonight’s setlist and The Skinny…
We’ve finally reached the start of Phish’s first tour of 2011 as the band pulled into Bethel Woods in Bethel, NY for the first of three shows at a venue we always hoped the quartet would play.
[Photo via @aaronpethic]
The band dotted the 11-song opening stanza at the venue near the site of the Woodstock Festival with four covers including Walk Away by The James Gang, Roses Are Free by Ween and Woodstock legend Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love. According to Sam Davis of Dog Gone Blog the improv out of Kill Devil Falls was a “full departure from the song structure,” as it contained a “spacious, flowing jam” that was “just amazing.” Surprisingly, there were no new covers or originals debuted during show one of the summer tour.
Set Two kicked off with Carini which led into a Back On The Train with a “patient build up” and “soaring peak” that contained “some of Trey’s best playing in 3.0” according to Guy Forget of Online Phish Tour. A cover of Stevie Wonder’s Boogie On Reggae Woman came next and featured a “weird slowdown” at the end according to Scott Marks for @YEMblog. Out of Boogie On came the first version of Waves since August 2009 and the Round Room tune clocked in at nearly 14-minutes as it went off into a spacey jam space that Davis described as “pure ambient beauty, a fine moment.” Another shining moment was a take on the Talking Heads’ Crosseyed and Painless which Davis felt had a “krautrock jam” and featured Anastasio on “octave dropped riffs.” From there, the group ended the set with a run of heavy rotation originals that left Marks noting the “very inconsistent energy level” of the set. Oddly, Phish did not play Tweezer Reprise during the encore, instead leaving off with just Julius.
HT’s Brian Bavosa will be at all three tour-opening shows and will file a full report early next week. Check back later for the debut of The Skinny, our “box score” of sorts about each gig. READ ON for the setlist…
The Death Cab For Cutie episode of VH1’s Storytellers will debut this evening at 11PM. Ben Gibbard and the boys share the stories behind their biggest “hits” as well as
Now that the Summer Camp Festival is underway, and radius clauses are out the window, jambands moe., Umphrey’s McGee, Yonder Mountain String Band and Cornmeal have been added to the
It’s one thing for a band to break up on the downside of their career, but after releasing what was by far their best album, National Bohemian, earlier this year, we’re sad to see that the pride of Baltimore, The Bridge, are calling it quits after a Thanksgiving Eve performance in their hometown. The economy is terrible, the music industry is in shambles and we can only imagine how difficult it must be for smaller acts to make ends meet.
The members of The Bridge announced their forthcoming breakup via a letter to their fans on the band’s website…
Dear Family and Friends,
This next Thanksgiving will mark the 10-year anniversary of The Bridge. It has been an amazing ride that we have shared with you all. It is therefore with a heavy heart that we announce that this year will mark the end of The Bridge. After ten years and thousands of miles, the harsh realities of life on the road have led us to a point where we can no longer sustain ourselves as a band. We fought on to continue for as long as we could, because we truly believed in our music and cherished the deeply special connection that we have built with our audiences throughout the years. But at the end of the day, the economy won, and we are forced to close up shop.
What started as a show for our friends on one Thanksgiving Eve has led us on a wild, beautiful journey beyond our expectations. The long van rides, smoky bars, sleepless nights, wicked hangovers, cheap motels, and flat tires were all worth it for the chance to play music for you all and create those special moments that we live for. It has been the most rewarding experience of our lives. In true Bridge fashion, we will be giving you everything we have left for the rest of our shows. We will be playing our final residency at 8×10, the house that built The Bridge, in the coming weeks, as well as our beloved All Good Festival, our favorite day of the year for the last 7 years. And as if it was meant to be, we will be closing out our run as a band on our 10-year anniversary, Thanksgiving Eve, at Rams Head Live. We plan on cherishing every last moment we have with you as The Bridge.
As chapters end and new ones begin, we will continue to pursue other musical endeavors, and hope to keep the spirit of this community alive. We are forever grateful to you all, the people who we have gotten to know so well through the years, as well as those who have worked so hard and given so much of themselves for the band. And lastly we want to thank each other, the members of the band both past and present, for sweating out the tough times and celebrating the high times together to try and live the dream. We are truly brothers for life. As sad as we feel that this experience is ending, we have no regrets. We feel we have achieved what we set out to do, which is to make people happy through our music. We humbly thank you, from the absolute bottom of our hearts, for your love, support, and inspiration that has given us this opportunity. It has been an honor and a privilege.
Sincerely,
Cris, Kenny, Dave, Mike, Patrick, and Mark
The Bridge
We’ll miss The Bridge and hope they each go on to bigger and better things in the future. READ ON for a list of The Bridge’s current tour dates…
Noise-jammers Garage A Trois featuring Marco Benevento, Skerik, Stanton Moore & Mike Dillon finished a run of shows in support of Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil on Saturday at
iClips.net’s Streaming Is Believing series of free webcasts continues this weekend with three days worth of action from Summer Camp. All in all, iClips will treat us to three sets
Last Friday night four out of the five members of God Street Wine – birthday boy Lo Faber, guitarist Aaron Maxwell, bassist Dan Pifer and keyboardist Jon Bevo returned to
