TAB tour continued last night at the House of Blues in Boston, where Anastasio’s MO of performing Phish tunes he doesn’t usually play on acoustic was once again on display.
Guitarist Trey Anastasio kicks off a 12-show tour with his solo band tonight at the State Theater in Portland, ME. To preview the Phish front man’s latest TAB tour, we’ve dedicated a post a day to Anastasio as part of the first-ever Hidden Track “Trey Week.”
[Photos by Joe Ringus]
“Trey Week” concludes today with the second part of our wide-ranging e-mail interview in which the guitarist talks to us about TAB keyboardist Ray Paczkowski, his songwriting process, black shirts and much more…
Hidden Track: Ray Paczkowski has been the one constant in this band since 2001. Can you tell us what aspect of Ray’s playing makes him perfect for this band and these songs?
Trey Anastasio: Oh man, where do I start? , Ray.. Ray takes my breath away. Ray’s spirit, Ray’s playing… Indescribable. His playing is… “unhinged?” He’s capable of letting go in a way that I’ve rarely heard a musician let go.
The thing is, if you believed in the muse, or the spirit, or the concept of an artist being a channel, then you would know that there is nothing in music to fear except fear itself. The more you let go the more “right” everything would sound, you know what I mean? Ray has that fearlessness. I’ve been in the studio with engineers and producers, and I’ll say “turn up Ray,” and we’ll turn him up and up and up and you can’t turn him up too much, because it’s a selfless playing so it never seems to intrude on the overall sound. It’s an amazing thing. I just love playing with him so much. I can’t wait to get to do it again. I usually spend the whole night just staring at Ray.
READ ON for more of our interview with Trey Anastasio…
The first annual Hangout Beach Music and Arts Festival has come to a close in Gulf Shores, AL after a tumultuous final day that saw the fairgrounds evacuated for two
A while back, we told you that iClips’ Couch Tour 2010 would include a free webcast of the Hangout Beach, Music and Arts Festival, which kicks off today in Gulf
This week’s edition of Last Week’s Sauce is being brought to you by the lovely city of Chicago. Three of the area’s best bands are represented in the categories of: Alt-Country, Post-Rock, and Jamband. And one of the groups covered the other on Valentine’s Day, you can probably guess which one.
[Thanks to Jesse Hurlburt for this week’s photo]
Artist & Title: Furthur – Unbroken Chain
Date & Venue: 2010-02-14 Barton Hall – Cornell U., Ithaca NY
Taper & Show Download: Tim Burke
Furthur dropped this 15+ minute rendition of Unbroken Chain at Cornell’s Barton Hall, a room steeped in Grateful Dead history. The Grateful Dead scene continues to have the most tapers of any band, look through the Live Music Archive and you’ll see multiple sources for basically every show. Furthur plays tonight at Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo NY.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/furthur2sauce.mp3]Video of a great Morning Dew, also from Barton Hall:
READ ON to stream the rest of this week’s selections…
Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB mixed it up a bit more as they entered the heart of their fanbase for a gig at the House of Blues in Boston this evening. Making their tour debuts were What’s Done, Plasma and Sultans of Swing.
[Photos by Balaji Mani]
Here’s the setlist…
Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB
February 12, 2010
House of Blues
Boston, MASet 1: Shine, Cayman Review, Push On Til The Day, What’s Done, The Birdwatcher, Mozambique, Night Speaks to a Woman, Alaska, Let Me Lie, Plasma, Tuesday
Set 2: Drifting, All That Almost Was, Sand, Goodbye Head > Gotta Jibboo, Small Axe, Valentine, Money Love and Change, Show of Life, Dragonfly
Encore: Sultans of Swing, First Tube
[via @YEMblog]
READ ON for more of Balaji Mani’s photos of TAB in Boston…
Last night was the tour opener for Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB. It was a busy night as the band played until Midnight, performed a five-song double encore and debuted
Our latest and greatest contributor, Tom Daly, shot Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB’s tour opener last night in Charlottesville, VA.
READ ON for more of Tom Daly’s stunning TAB photos…
The Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB tour kicked off tonight at the Jefferson Theatre in Charlottesville, VA with the title track of 2005’s effort Shine. Let’s take a look at
Trey Anastasio returns to the road on Monday with the latest iteration of his Classic TAB ensemble. This version of the band adds the three-piece horn section of Jennifer Hartswick (trumpet), Natalie Cressman (trombone) and Russell Remington (sax, flute) to the basic core of Russ Lawton (drums), Tony Markellis (bass) and Ray Paczkowski (keyboards), which most closely resembles the unit that toured with Big Red in Winter ’01. While we know the members of the band, we don’t know what they’ll be playing.
For this week’s B List, we asked five members of the Hidden Track staff to pick the two songs they would most like to see Trey and Classic TAB perform on the month-long tour. Anything was fair game from Phish songs to tunes Trey played just once to covers. Let’s see what songs everyone chose and then be sure to tell us what songs you’d like to see the unit play.
It Makes No Difference
First Time Played: 02-21-2001 – Orpheum Theater – Boston, MA
Last Time Played: 05-14-2005 – Hammerstein Ballroom – New York, NY
Number Of Times Played: 14
Just five month after Phish’s first hiatus, Trey hit the road for his first solo tour since ’99 beefing up the trio format with a three piece horn section for an 11-date East Coast Swing. Mixing Phish classics with a healthy dose of new material, Ernie also peppered the setlists with a number of of unexpected covers including Stevie Wonder’s Signed Sealed Delivered and Bob Dylan’s Rainy Day Women.
Debuting on the first night of the run, and played almost every night that tour, was a take on The Band’s It Makes No Difference. Unlike the majority of the other covers from ’01, this song, which may be about as sad as they come, has managed to pop up three more times over the years. While the lyrics may not seem as poignant as when it was debuted, It Makes No Difference would provide a great slower tempo, breather song that would also give the horn section time to shine. – Jeffrey Greenblatt
Audio: 2-22-2001 Landmark Theatre – Syracuse, NY
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/treydifference.mp3]
Liquid Time
First Time Played: Never Played Live
Last Time Played: N/A
Number of Times Played: N/A
One of my favorite sets of 2009 was Phish’s electric soundcheck at Festival 8. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck listening to Phish jam the hell out of Undermind, Gone and a track off Party Time called Liquid Time on The Bunny. This tune, which kinda sounds like Sultans of Swing, would surely benefit from horn lines and the jam would be perfect for the unit. I’m surprised Phish never played it after that soundcheck, but perhaps Trey was saving it for this band. – Scott Bernstein
Video: 10-29-2009 Festival 8 Soundcheck – Indio, CA
READ ON for more of the HT Staff’s Trey picks…
