The B List: Best New Year’s Shows
From 1994-99 and then from 2002-03, I spent my week in between Christmas and New Years seeing popular rockers Phish. It was nice never having to worry about what I was going to do for New Year’s. This week, The B List offers a virtual reacharound to my favorite five Phish NYE shows.
5. 12/29/95 – When God invented segues, he must have had Bathtub Gin > The Real Me > Bathtub Gin in mind. That mind-blowing segment is just one of the highlights from a second set that included Trey running laps around the stage David Byrne-style during BBFCFM and Mike Gordon’s bass instructor Jim Stinnett participating in a rare suck-free bass duet. The recently released 12/31/95 from Madison Square Garden is a close number six here, but the evil looking pot I got in the Centrum parking lot gives 12/29/95 the edge.
4. 12/31/98 – When Phish came on stage and busted into Prince’s 1999 I thought the Garden was going to explode. Some New Year’s Eve shows have a tendency to be a letdown, but Phish came through with a killer three-set show to end the year. The Antelope, Hood, and Tweezer from this show need to be heard to be believed. 12/29/98 is the other monumental show from this run.
3. 12/29/94 – The night of December 29th, 1994 is when the word “epic” entered my vocabulary. I nearly wet my pants after witnessing the most mind-blowing David Bowie ever that night — the beginning of the song was so evil I was literally scared. The evil theme continued throughout the first 25 minutes of Bowie until the band dropped into one of the most uniquely beautiful pieces of improv ever played (String Cheese Incident enjoyed that beautiful jam so much they decided to play something extremely similar at the end of their version of Lands End). Other highlights from the shitty little arena that could include a dark version of Guyute, a tasty Runaway Jim > Foam, and a Possum that included teases of Auld Lang Syne and LA Woman.
Read on for the rest of Scotty B’s favorite NYE Phish shows and more…
