I really do hope that they are still looking for someone to fill Jordan\'s shoes and that they find a great fit soon. I have no problem waiting for it to happen so I really just hope that they are still ACTIVELY seeking someone to replace him and not just saying..."Well it\'s good enough" because frankly its not. They need to be looking for someone and auditoning and jamming with new people if they want thier popularity to keep rising and for the music to keep progressing. They should also be keeping an OPEN MIND because a good fit may come out of left field and may not even seem like a good fit at first or may take a little getting used to.
I\'m not saying I don\'t like the trio, I\'d still rather see them than most anyone else out there these days, but it doesn\'t have the same epic possibilities nor the ability to completely captivate me every second for an hour and a half straight as the classic four piece did.
The main issue to me is the loss and current lack of BALANCE.
The breakfast was always plenty rocking and raging for mine and most everyone else\'s taste. Deffinitly even too raging for many (i.e. most females). There was never a shortage of hard driven, high energy jamming and monestrous peak outs.
Nowadays they definitely would be much better with a lot less of the present, hard edged in your face sound and more of the well rounded, more in-depth, more multi-textured, multi-styled sound that they used to have with jordan...
....like the weird quirky jams, the reggae/dub style jams, the spacey jams, the keyboard driven jams with tim doing the sweet super fast clickity clack type of strumming over it (i really loved the clickity clackity), the lik trading, the phasers, the flat out funk of the organ, the classic short but sweet phish phormula jams (song->short keyboard led jam ->guitar led->song end i.e. no glove), the overall chemistry and energy flow.
Jordan just brought it all together and made it more of an engaging experience and less of a one track wankfest.
Yea it still rocks. It always did, but its rahter lacking in numerous other areas that I thoroughly enjoyed.
There is just simply not enough substance or depth there now to keep me enthrawled and hanging on every note afraid or unable to go to the bathroom or step outside or get a drink or have a conversation because I might miss something fucking ser.
They were really taking it to new levels right before he left too ....showing restraint and maturity and balance with the monster jams on the heavy hitter songs where, instead of busting right into a jam and just wanking away until it peaked they would intentionally start out somewhere in the middle then take it down to almost total deconstructedness and then build it back up to peak in a more meticulous and attentetive way and then because of the thoughtfully well constructed build up go even higher and harder than ever thought possible. But that style seems to be dunzo or at least shelved for now and they are not hitting those ultra blissful highs by diving right into and not deviating much from the hard \'power trio\' type jam rut they seem to be stuck in at the moment.
I don\'t know how well that explains what I am trying to express, it seems to fall short somehow, but I guess you all probably understand.
I\'ll still be at local Ithaca and seracuse shows but I dont see myself traveling any long distances or spending large amounts of money to see them or bringing and motivating hella people to come to shows until it\'s a balanced four piece again. Call me a hater if you want but thats how I see it.
