Ok maybe not their worst song ever. But definitely bottom 10 percentile.

Just my opinion anyway. But then again 90% of the time when I play Phish it\'s the fire **** from 91 thru like 96 when Trey was pretty much constantly rippin and pushing the limits of guitar.

I did enjoy the SOAM from Red Rocks 09 very much though.

That said, I think the band is just getting warmed up and the fact that the last half dozen shows or so of the summer tour were way better than the start is a good sign. IMO Spac was their best show of the year based on quality of playing.

It\'s not like I expect them to release another Lawn Boy or Rift or Nectar or Ghost or Billy Breathes... lol.... but the new Phish sounds a lot more like pop music than progressive jam-rock to me.

Sorry for the lack of posts. The Health Care debate we knew would transpire, and the life of Sarah Palin have just not been enough to motivate. In many ways I have just checked out of the news for a while, and I don\'t see an end in sight.

Meanwhile, Phish has interested me.

Taking the advice of my friend Wendy, and some others, I decided to try it out one more time. This time it was Hartford.

Cheers, Phish, for it was very good. I\'ve listened to many of the shows they played before Hartford, and this was the first complete show that was actually start to finish both a show, and good. I never denied they could play a great version of a song here and there, or maybe have a solid 30 minutes, but overall, they were unable to perform great shows.

Lucky for me I was with people who attended Shoreline, Red Rocks, Gorge, and Chicago, in addition to the earlier East Coast shows, and all agreed, Hartford was far and away the best show. The reasons to me are obvious. They never wanted to leave the East Coast, and having come back to it after getting back in shape, they were surrounded by some of their oldest friends, families, and supporters, which I believe made them really happy. It showed in how they played.

I\'m not going to review the music outside of saying it was all played really well, and there were some excellent moments. A very good show.

But who would I be if not the straightforward contrarian? Certainly not myself, so here goes.

The band is what it is, and I\'ve come to terms with it. It\'s an event, something fun to see and hear, with moments of really good music. Certainly not groundbreaking at all. I\'ve read some reviews, message boards, etc, just to get a feel for the ridiculousness being bandied about, how "Red Rocks night 1 was the best show ever", and I laugh. Anyone who says that doesn\'t even understand that statement, or has a super potent drug which either makes the average amazing while erasing the past. The "best ever" happened, and will not happen again. It\'s a sign of the times.

The members of Phish are friends again, and because of it they can have fun on stage and with their supporters. But these four guys are no longer bound together by days on the road, endless days away from families, few worries outside of where they may have their next meal. Today these guys have real life issues which involve families, homes, responsibilities greater than what they were willing to tackle in the 90s, and countless other things. They know each other well, but they\'re not who they were then.

The same can be said for the fans, many of them have jobs they can\'t miss, spouses, children, and their own responsibilities. They cannot give what they once provided, and both the band and fans played off of that energy for years. It\'s just not the same.

New songs are written by the individual, then taught to the others, but not on some tour bus halfway through Kansas, but maybe in a studio, or on a computer. The things they bring to the table are things they do somewhat alone, and then they try to make something of it.

Then there\'s the old material, which in many ways cannot be epic because the versions played by the band of old just cannot be touched by the band of today. The emotional bonds I just referenced no longer exist. A perfect example of this is the simple notes Trey stumbled upon in the summer of 1997, which he would tease throughout many shows, until he brought to a moment during Bathtub Gin at the Great Went. Those ideas are no longer possible because of who they are in their lives.

The bottom line is it\'s just different, and it cannot be, nor will it ever be, what it was. That does not mean the show at Hartford was not great because it was.

I had hoped the band would be better than before; smarter, wiser, cleaner, and energized, but it\'s just a dream. Having seen them at their new peak on Friday night confirmed that to me. However, they did make me a fan again, and when they come back to my town, I\'ll certainly try to see them. But hearing people talk about this particular show, or this tour, as if Phish just reinvented the wheel makes me shake my head. If they did reinvent their version of the wheel, they did so by squaring it off, not by making better treads.

I\'m glad these guys have seemingly found themselves, even if only for a night here and there. It\'s important, nice to see, and fun. I can relax knowing they seem to be friends again, and in a good place. I want them for them. For me though, I\'m not delusional. They\'re a good band right now, great if you never saw anything before 1998, but I know exactly what it is that I saw and heard.

Do you?

This is from a blog I found that I believe sums everything up pretty well.

Quit comparing an album to the past. If any of you truly understood or respected Phish you would of accepted this album for what it was and not what happened in 10 years ago or any of this comparison ****.

I feel so sorry for everyone who never had the chance to really see Machine Gun Trey and either by being born too late or too lazy and missed the show.

Phish before 1998 was one band and Phish after 1998 was another.

Phish was and never will be what it was again.

I think this blog post sums it up perfectly

More importantly, if it hasn\'t been mentioned already, Andy Gadiel\'s Phish Page has been back in business. One of the first sites I used for Phish along with Phans.com or .net, although Gadiel\'s was always the best.

Blondie for starters.

100% of your posts are bitchy and useless. Are you capable of forming an objective opinion or did you drop out of middle school?

For the main course.

I do more promotion on the side and bring more new people to Breakfast shows, and have been doing so for years, than *almost* anybody. Yeah the Todd Stoops shows blew. Whoops, formed an opinion, my bad, didn\'t mean to go over your head with that one. But guess what, I wasn\'t talking to you. The fact is I rage Breakfast shows front row with more enthusiasm than ever while you\'re sitting at the bar with a stone cold look on your face. So on that point you can bite me.

And for dessert.

If had any reading comprehension skills at all you\'d see that Spacey\'s quote and post basically agreed that Phish was way **** better in the early/mid 90s. Everyone who doesn\'t like a little hubbas with their persian or is a teenager who thought Coventry was awesome knows this is a fact. And yeah he told me to quit comparing the new album to the past.

Except, like you, I obviously don\'t give a **** if people think I make the occasional (or in your case 100%) dick statements on this message board.

Maybe you guys should quit wanking it over Phish\'s cheesy new pop album. I personally don\'t care if their new album sucks or not, I\'m still gonna rage Phish tour every chance I get because even though I thought most of their Summer 2009 tour was pretty weak there were some promising moments, and Hartford and SPAC pretty much kicked ass.

Oh and sorry for comparing something Phish did to something else Phish did. Not!

I have a shitload of respect for Phish like you don\'t even know. You really have no **** clue. So what if I think "Joy" is their fluffiest lamest album yet. Maybe Round Room sucked more but at least it wasn\'t as gay as "Joy". I couldn\'t really give a **** now that Trey\'s busted out the 2nd gen Languedoc and dude\'s obviously on a mission to destroy America once again, whether or not they added a few weak songs to the rotation.

Either bite me or go listen to SOAM or Stash 1994-06-11 and get a **** clue what you\'re trying to even talk about.

ladies.

blasphemy how can you like early 90s phish better than Sugar Shack.... lol

Is anyone checking out Trey and the Philharmonic?

Have been waiting much of my Phish life to hear orchestral Phish. It has always been the way I hear the music.

Going to be great to see where Trey leads this passion.

Do what i do, listen to a show from this tour, then listen to one from 94, and go back and forth.

Red Rocks 2009-07-31 is one of my top 5 Melts. The slow layered bend-downs, preceeded by an eerie ringing loop with soulfully played descending part-scales, and soon accompanied by matching vocals is unlike any other Phish jam.

It\'s definitely not all about the 64th notes. But it sure is nice to hear Trey max it out once in a while isn\'t it? April 1998 is the last time I\'ve really heard Trey bring the full heat with the rest of the band locked in. Probably had some strong amphetamines for that run and was layin low on the opiates. I mean let\'s get real, dudes in Phish always did drugs. And it\'s not like they started doing drugs in mid-1998, it\'s the harder stuff that went from recreational / experimental use towards straight up addiction. You might be able to play soulful guitar or trippy guitar or even creative guitar while you\'re nodding out but there\'s no fuckin way the heat is gonna get brought if you\'re mind is running in slow motion. Trey stopped practicing, stopped giving a **** if it was really that good anymore, and couldn\'t wait for the set to end so he could go freebase some coke.

So the best thing for Phish right now as I see it.... since Page Mike and Fishman apparently never got quite as deep as Trey, or if they did at least it didn\'t affect their musical skills as much.... is for Trey to at least be able to play the **** he used to. No way do I expect or think Phish will only be good if they can recreate 1994-11-25 Run Like An Antelope in 2009. But it\'s not like Trey\'s got arthritis. Anyway towards the end of the tour I heard some pretty sick licks and I could tell he\'s on a mission like he probably hasn\'t been since the mid 90\'s once again.

Anyway just because I\'m not drooling over the new album or calling most of the Summer 2009 shows great Phish shows (a few definitely were but I wouldn\'t say even the best one, which IMO was a toss-up between Hartford and SPAC, even came close to their all-time greatest shows) doesn\'t mean I don\'t understand the band is in a really transitional phase. The fact that they got for the most part progressively better as the tour went on and left on a pretty high note makes me think Phish is about to reach another era of greatness.

92-95 ... Fall 97 - Spring 98 ... and maybe 2010 onward? who knows

I\'m sure as hell not hating on Phish. But it\'s their own fault for having been so insanely excellent and then pretty much dropping the ball. I\'m grabbing all the tickets I can from now on and I hope they put a little more creative effort into their next album after Joy (maybe they should drink some mushroom tea again...) but there\'s no doubt Phish is about to rip it up and melt faces on a regular basis again.