July 9, 2010

Now that the first leg of Phish’s Summer Tour has reached its conclusion – and the post-tour haze has worn off – it’s time to look at the recently completed run “by the numbers.” Here’s what we came up with for the latest installment of our ever-popular The Number Line series…

30,000 – Capacity of Largest Venue (HersheyPark Stadium)
8,466 – Number of Days between Fuck Your Face Performances
6,500 – Capacity of Smallest Venue (nTelos Pavilion)
1,413 – Number of shows since last Fuck Your Face
587 – Shows Since The Last Letter To Jimmy Page
180 – Different Songs Played
95 – Onetimers
92 – Number of Songs Played in 2009 not played yet in 2010 (A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing, Access Me, Albuquerque, All Down The Line, All of These Dreams, Anything But Me, Auld Lang Syne, Avenu Malkenu, Beauty of a Broken Heart, Bike, Bittersweet Motel, Blue Moon, Bobby Jean, Cars Trucks Buses, Casino Boogie, Catapult, Cool it Down, Corrina, Crimes of the Mind, Demand, Dixie Cannonball, Dog Faced Boy, Driver, Frankie Says, Freebird, Glide, Glory Days, Golden Age, Gone, Grind, Guelah Papyrus, Ha Ha Ha, Hello My Baby, Highway to Hell, How High the Moon, HYHU, I Been Around, I Just Want To See His Face, I Kissed A Girl, Icculus, If I Could, Invisible, Lengthwise, Let It Loose, Let Me Lie, Lifeboy, Love You, Meat, Middle Of The Road, Mist, Mound, Mustang Sally, My Mind’s Got a Mind of its Own, Nellie Kane, NO2, Oh! Sweet Nuthin’, Old Home Place, On Your Way Down, Paul and Silas, Peaches en Regalia, Pebbles and Marbles, Psycho Killer, Rip This Joint, Rocks Off, Rocky Top, Scent of a Mule, Scents and Subtle Sounds, Secret Smile, Shake Your Hips, She Thinks I Still Care, Sleep, Soul Shakedown Party, Soul Survivor, Stop Breaking Down, Sweet Black Angel, Sweet Virginia, Talk, The Curtain With, The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday, Tomorrow’s Song, Torn and Frayed, Trainsong, Tumbling Dice, Turd On The Run, Two Versions of Me, Ventilator Blues, Waves, Weigh, What’s the Use, When The Cactus Is In Bloom, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Windy City)

• Hidden Track Summer Tour Leg One Wrap Ups: Just The Facts, Survey Results, From A-Z

45 – The number of times somebody says Dr. Gabel in that song
27 – Days Until The Greek
24 – Songs Played in 2010 but not in 2009 (Alumni Blues, Dr. Gabel, Cold Water, Free Man in Paris, Fuck Your Face, Halfway to the Moon, Have Mercy, I Am The Walrus, Idea, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Instant Karma, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Killing in the Name, Letter to Jimmy Page, Light Up or Leave Me Alone, Lit O Bit, Look Out Cleveland, Mellow Mood, Saw it Again, Show Of Life, Summer of ’89, The Rover, Time Loves a Hero, Walfredo)

READ ON for more Phish Summer Tour stat geekery…

We’re less than a week away from what looks to be the biggest and best Camp Bisco yet, as Camp Bisco 9 runs from July 15 – 17 at Indian

Umphrey’s McGee @ Red Rocks (Jul. 3) & Gothic Theatre (Jul. 4)

When Umphrey’s McGee came to Denver back in January and hosted one of their S2 events at the Fillmore, one of the fan-submitted-themes put up on the board read, “1st Song You Will Play When You Headline Red Rocks”. The band responded by playing a section from the title track from their 2009 studio release Mantis. This took place before the announcement of Red Rocks & Blue and I certainly wouldn’t have thought less of the band if they had re-thought this decision, as it appeared to be decided onstage within seconds. But there we were about six months later as UM finally took the stage as headliners after playing the venue four times as support and the opening guitar riffs of Mantis reverberated throughout The Rocks. Not only did they open with it, split it up into three separate sections in their two hour power-set, but they also skipped the usual music box intro Preamble so they could immediately get down to business.

[All Photos by Mike Sherry]

The opening lyric of Mantis is, “We believe there’s something here worth dying for,” a fitting declaration for a band who was finally crossing a headlining Red Rocks gig off the bands to-do list in their thirteenth year of touring, a career that has seen over 1500 shows, 62 in the state of Colorado. Fireworks – unrelated to Red Rocks – shot off from a nearby speedway were a real treat for the first 20 minutes of the set for those positioned high up enough to see them.

The set was constructed of the band’s strongest material – pulling the majority of the set from their recent more “mature” offerings. Hangover and Hajimemashite were the only two songs played from the band’s formative years and Haji stands the test of time not seeming like a song written by a 21-year old.

READ ON for more of DaveO’s thoughts & Mike’s photos…