So the news blip will go to jambands.com maybe someone wants to write a review for Jambase???
Done and done. I brought the A game for that review. I think it will get published. I will not post it here right now because they want exclusive material, so if it\'s not up in a week or two I\'ll post that review here for Breakfast fans. Until then, here\'s my more informal, personal take on the matter
BEST FUCKING SHOW EVER!!!!
Hehehehe. Well, in the words of The Late and Great, "That\'s debatable", but the terms "Instant Classic" and "Automatic Top-10" are very safe descriptors, as are all of the other big words and positive superlatives that have been thrown around this thread such as "nailed", "crucial moment", "unbelievable" etc. Lawn Boy met and exceeded all expectations I ever had, and my expectations were pretty high. Here\'s what I posted on these pages back on September 22nd:
Personally, I would lose my #&^$ if The Breakfast covered a Phish album and would love every second of it. In fact, it would make a serious run at being the greatest 90 minute stretch of my life. And any good fan of The Breakfast or Phish would feel the same.
It worked out even better than that. I think I hugged damn near everyone in the room during Squirming Coil. Definitely everyone I knew, anyways. My hands were on my head in legit shock and awe in the rare moments when they weren\'t hugging someone. When I fully grasped what was to come, i.e. Reba, SOAM, Gin, and Antelope, I screamed "YES! YES! GO GET \'EM BREAKFAST!" so hard that it made my throat hurt for the rest of the night. Each one of those tunes was better than the one before, they just kept getting more and more into it. Heck, we were even RAGING to My Sweet One for crying out loud! Nothing against My Sweet One, but nobody ever rocked as hard to that song at a Phish show as we did Saturday night. Nobody could stop dancing even during setbreak, I remember big groups getting down to Funkadelic, Thriller, and The Message and several "Best setbreak ever" comments. What a party.
The Gordon sit-in was great, and in classic Phish style, it was treated with a level of zaniness to relieve the pressure of the moment. That ludicrous performance of I Will Survive was undoubtedly the most uninhibited moment I have ever seen from The Breakfast while onstage. It has to be seen to be believed. Finally, I loved the 5-song double-encore. I\'m pretty sure this was my first double-encore since my first show. The crowd was INSANE after the set and the first encore, and got everything they wanted after the 4-song second encore. It left everyone feeling really good and satisfied, not that uncomfortable semi-letdown when the lights come on after a 1-song encore and the place is begging for more. I know some people weren\'t totally happy with Honey Butter being played for the third time in three nights, but I didn\'t care at all. To be fair though, I understand that view of it and I might have been in the same boat were I not a sucker for Honey Butter.
Anyways, I was really glad that they ended 20 minutes before curfew so everyone could hang out together in the room for a while. I really needed that time to decompress from what had happened and to just be in love with everyone in the room. I will never forget this show.
Finally, the potential positive aftershocks and ramifications of this show are very real and I\'m eager to see what comes of it. To quote myself again from last month,
The key word in Breakfast marketing needs to be DIFFERENTIATION ... the band has never really had any PR whatsoever.
Well, here\'s a colossal dose of PR and differentiation. Nobody else has pulled off a feat quite like this...covering a Phish album in Burlington with Mike Gordon watching. It\'s free stories like this that can take The Breakfast to the next level. Of course, I also posted somewhere that the backlash from idiotic "fans" hating on bands for covering Phish could be equal to the positive reaction, but right now I don\'t believe that anymore. I hadn\'t considered the possibility of an actual member of Phish sitting there and enjoying the whole thing, putting the ophishial stamp of approval on every moment. That\'s what Mike\'s presence brought to the table...a
validation for the outside world that this was indeed legit, worthy, and even downright badass. Now that I\'m on the other side looking back at it, it was so incredible and well executed and openly blessed by Mike Gordon that there\'s no way any sensible music fan could take this moment down. It\'s all good. May the after effects of this moment spread far and wide for The Breakfast.
