2010

The Breakfast @ Toad’s Place, August 26

After an impressive festival season, The Breakfast returned to New Haven’s legendary Toad’s Place Thursday to crank up the heat for their hometown crowd one last time this summer.

Opening the night was one of the band’s newer and perhaps most accessible tunes, Shotgun Butterfly. Played solidly, it was a great way to ease people into the vibe of what was still to come, and it got the crowd flowing nicely.

While I am always happy to be riding shotgun to guitarist Tim Palmieri’s wild excursions through guitar exploration, it’s not that he’s the sole pilot of this ship. Together with the three other members of The Breakfast – drummer Adrian Tramontano, keyboardist Jordan Giangreco and bassist Chris DeAngelis – the band plays as though operating under one single yet multidimensional mind, taking the audience as far out during instrumental jams as the collective group is willing to follow, then snapping it back effortlessly to the progressive riffs that keep people transfixed.

Really, few bands are capable of pushing the boundaries of a jam like The Breakfast. READ ON for more of Diana’s take on this show…

What an amazing summer for Phish. Building on the momentum gained in 2009, the band came out in force for what will truly be a memorable summer for years to come. Interestingly, Leg 1 and Leg 2 were like distant cousins rather than soul brothers. They could not have been more different and we thought it would be interesting to re-survey the masses to get their opinions on the second leg, the overall tour and some other assorted questions. Over 600 responses were received. This time, though, all questions were optional, so in some cases the responses do not always add up to the total amount of survey responses. Without further ado, here are the results:

Best Venue, Leg Two

In the vote that was clearly in the bank before any responses were received, Telluride takes the cake with over 40% of the vote. The Greek and Alpine of course garnered quite a few votes as well. Perhaps the only surprising aspect of the survey was that over 40 people felt that Jones Beach was the best venue and that it was only a handful of votes away from Deer Creek.

Best Lot Scene

Telluride nearly came up with another victory in this category but fell a few votes short of Deer Creek. The other three venues were each around 10% of the vote.

READ ON for more results from our Phish Summer Tour Survey…

The Swell Season had a rough August following the suicide of a fan during one of their shows in Saratoga, CA. But they are a tremendously talented act and if