After two completely different shows in Albany, Phish kept fans on their toes once again tonight at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, ME. While there weren’t the crazy
When you have a group of Phish-loving friends, you find all sorts of differing viewpoints on what and how Phish should play. Among the camps, you have those Phish fans who like anything the band does, you have those who are only impressed by the bust outs and those who couldn’t care less about the songs and just want the band to jam. Outside of a few instances of far-reaching improvisation – namely the Susquehanna Sand and the Merriweather 46 Days – Phish hasn’t strayed too far off script since their return in March…until last night’s second of two concerts in Albany.
Following a fun first set that contained a number of rarities and well-played originals, the band started the second set by jumping into the deep end of the pool – two 20-minute-plus songs that contained more peaks than the Alps. The set started innocently enough with Seven Below. After jamming on the main theme of the tune for a few minutes, drummer Jon Fishman changed the beat he was laying down while the other members of the band went off in different directions as well, leading to a bit of spacey dissonance. I thought the Seven Below jam had just fallen apart and that the quartet were about to end the tune, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
After a few quick minutes of each member traveling their own path, guitarist Trey Anastasio linked up with bassist Mike Gordon on a few gorgeous patterns of notes that got Fishman’s attention. What had been a dark, minor key jam had been transformed to a pretty major key jam as only Phish could do. At this point, Fishman, Gordon and keyboardist Page McConnell started to follow Anastasio’s lead, patiently building the gorgeous “butter jam.” That’s not to say the other members of the band rolled over, they each added all sorts of dark accents to add some depth to what Big Red was laying down.
READ ON for more of Scotty’s thoughts on Phish in Albany…
