Posts Tagged ‘ phish ’

Phish: April 21, 2022 Madison Square Garden

April 25, 2022
By

When the Phish New Year’s run at Madison Square Garden was postponed, it was quite a large disappointment and a great inconvenience for tens of thousands of fans. The rescheduled dates corresponding to “4/20” was cute, sure, but the real gift was the ability to experience this special holiday week in April. For us, that meant we’d be attending and recording the first two nights, and frankly I couldn’t have been happier.

The Wednesday night show was recorded and we’ll post it later this week, but honesty this Thursday night show was so far superior that it earned the right to jump the line. This was, not hyperbolically speaking, a top five Phish experience for me personally.

The night began with a “Suzy” dedicated to the song’s main character who attended her first Phish show on this night. And what a version — energetic and fun, it propelled this first set to a nice momentum, with “Wolfman’s” and “Ghost” as the highlights. But the very best was yet to come.

Any show that packs Chalkdust, Tweezer, 2001, Maze, Hood, and Zero into a single set is naturally going to be a winner, but it was more than that. This was just top notch playing, crisp and inspired. The band locked into a glorious melodic jam that lasted for the final nine minutes of Tweezer and was such a peak that I hoped they’d never transition to another track. The Phish scholars can correct me, but I believe that this was just a spontaneous first-time creation by the band on the fly and represented for me the beautiful possibilities of any Phish performance. At this point, less than halfway through the set, the balance of the night was just gravy. And the band kept piling it on, as one highlight followed the next. I was certain that Hood was the set closer and would have been more than satisfied, but Phish was not letting up on this night and crashed into a crazy “Character Zero” that celebrated the magic of this special evening.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards from inside of the Taper’s Section, elevated behind the soundboard. The mix was dialed in for this show, and I’m really pleased with this recording. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Tweezer (with that amazing jam):

nyctaper · Phish – Tweezer (live at MSG Apr 21, 2022)

Phish
2022-04-21
Madison Square Garden
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Tapers Section Behind Soundboard

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1 [Total Time 1:11:28]
01 Suzy Greenberg
02 46 Days
03 Plasma
04 The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday
05 Avenu Malkenu
06 The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday
07 Wolfman’s Brother
08 Esther
09 Ghost

Set 2 [Total Time 1:40:44]
10 Chalk Dust Torture
11 Tweezer
12 Also Sprach Zarathustra
13 Maze
14 About to Run
15 The Mango Song
16 Harry Hood
17 Character Zero
18 Tweezer Jam
19 Character Zero Reprise
20 [encore break]
21 A Life Beyond The Dream
22 Tweezer Reprise

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Phish: August 14, 2021 Atlantic City

August 22, 2021
By

The bright sunlight of a crystal clear Saturday morning reflected off the Atlantic Ocean and offered some hope of redemption from the negative energy of Friday night’s gaseous debauchery. Overnight, the unfortunate souls tasked with cleaning the boardwalk had removed nearly all evidence of the previous evening’s wreckage and with the arrival of weekend vacationers, Atlantic City seemed to breath fresh again.

We had the pleasure of spending a little time in the Phan Art exhibition on Saturday afternoon and those gentle vibes reinvigorated me and gave us a sense that maybe the positive elements of the scene could rise above the darkness that still lurked in the shadows. The threats of rain having dissipated, we entered the beach with a sense that this night could be special.

Perhaps Phish got wind of the negative energy, as they closed the first set with the dark cautionary tale “Squirming Coil”, advising all to steer clear of “Satan on the beach”. The balance of the first set was an up and down affair, as the trainwreck opening of “Ya Mar” was offset by a near-perfect run through of the intricate “Reba” jam.

But it was the meat of the second set where this show really began to shine. Phish covered the entire Quadrophenia album for Halloween 1995, and fortunately the epic “Drowned” has remained in occasional rotation, making a couple of appearances a year. The jam out of Drowned went into the familiar Jersey territory, as Trey clearly teased Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark” before transitioning to a nice spooky “Ghost”. Further buoyed by the opportunity to stretch out and explore, Trey seemed to be heading into a reprise of Drowned, which somehow then weirdly morphed into the middle portion of Scents and Subtle Sounds, which sadly petered out after about five minutes. The band refocused and launched into a gnarly Chalkdust that went into deep space before emerging through a fog of noise towards the gentle keyboard opening of Zeppelin’s “No Quarter”. At this point, the weekend had achieved musically exactly what I had hoped to see — a band playing at the peak of their powers and delivering transcendent moments in a troubling time of confusion and despair. We live for these peaks, and when Phish reprised Friday night’s “Tweezer” as the second encore to bookend my own person weekend experience, it was quite emotional. No nefarious post-show Boardwalk shenanigans could bring me down on this night, as we floated home through the magical mist of a sweet Summer night.

I recorded this show in the exact same manner as the previous night, with the mic stand only a few feet away from the Friday location. The Neumann hypers again delivered their magic and cut through the elements to deliver a sharp and bright recording. We’re extremely pleased again with this recording and hope you are too. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Chalkdust Torture > No Quarter”:

nyctaper · Phish – Live in Atlantic City August 14 2021

Phish
2021-08-14
The Beach
Atlantic City NJ

Digital Master Recording
Tapers Section at Soundboard

Neumann KM-150 Hypers > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1 [Total Time 1:20:54]
01 Llama
02 Tube
03 Destiny Unbound
04 Ya Mar
05 46 Days
06 Reba
07 Soul Shakedown Party
08 Split Open and Melt
09 The Squirming Coil

Set 2 [Total Time 1:24:54]

10 I Never Needed You Like This Before
11 Drowned
12 Ghost
13 Scents and Subtle Sounds
14 Chalk Dust Torture
15 No Quarter
16 Slave to the Traffic Light
17 Suzy Greenberg
18 [encore break]
19 A Life Beyond The Dream
20 Tweezer Reprise

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Phish: August 13, 2021 Atlantic City

August 17, 2021
By

Other than two stops for higher education, I’ve lived my whole life in New York State. This means that I have a complicated relationship with the State of New Jersey. Yes, I accept that there are beautiful sections of New Jersey — the lakes and mountains in the North of the State, the breathtaking scenes along the Delaware River in the West of the State, and of course the many wonderful beaches on the state-long Atlantic coast.

But with that beauty comes some ugliness. Each of the major towns along the coast have commercialized boardwalks, and while the music of artists like The Drifters, Bobby Rydell, and Bruce Springsteen have glorified life along the Shore, the boardwalks are mostly just depressingly seedy. What is particularly depressing about Atlantic City in particular is that a hundred feet north of the boardwalk across the entire expanse of the town is even worse. Sure, there are casinos — America’s most blatant and unabashed grift — but there are also countless empty stores, vacant lots, and lost souls.

The arrival of the traveling circus that is Phish tour took this carnie atmosphere to an entire other level. This was not just a culture clash, but a multi-layered appropriation of a socially and morally bankrupt city by an out of control bacchanalia that sucked the last vestige of pride from the town. When I left Friday night’s show and walked back to my sad motel, I traversed a balloon orgy — a never-ending row of nitrous tanks where the underbelly of local criminals fed an insatiable suburban youth with the hiss of an addictive but terribly fleeting high. These scenes played out before midnight, but I am told that the hiss of evil lasted at least until 3:30 am.

I don’t have any reason to know if Phish themselves know any of this. They very clearly should know because like it or not, their name and reputation are tied to these events. But the sad confluence of a decaying scene and a band at the top of their game is not lost among those of us who are there for the music. This is not the late-era 1990s Grateful Dead, whose decline as a band in many ways paralleled the disintegration of the “scene”. What is coming from the Phish stage are consistently excellent performances, and that is part of what makes so infuriating the dangerously cavalier behavior of those who are going to ruin this for all of us.

It was against this dark backdrop that Phish took the stage on Friday night and proceeded to reference New Jersey and the beach setting from note one and throughout. The show opening “Cars Trucks and Buses” is both a Phish song and the less traveled right three lanes of the split NJ Turnpike between exits 6 and 15. The set closing “Sand” was everywhere, including stuck to everyone by the end of the night. In between, the band played one of the most solid first sets of the tour, highlighted by a bouncy and driven “Blaze On”. The second set was equally strong, with a notable Trey solo in “Possum” and the always-welcome Hood. But the highlight of the evening for me was certainly the thirty-five minutes of “Tweezer > Bathtub Gin”. At 22 minutes, this Tweezer wasn’t a long as the version from earlier in the tour, but the jams were all precise and focused. This might be the best single song played this Summer by this band.

The oasis of chunky jams now over, the trek from the Missouri Avenue Exit One off the beach to quieter confines was both physically difficult and psychically draining. While it was impossible to avoid the utter anarchy of the overrun Boardwalk, there was always Saturday to hope for some measure of redemption.

I recorded this set with the Neumann hypercards from a very advantageous location at the soundboard cage, shielded from the ocean wind by the tent (along with some extra custom “windcutter” screens). The live mix was sublimely perfect and loud enough to rise above the crowd din. The resulting recording is superb and exceeds any expectations tempered by this difficult taping location. I’ll be playing this one loud for a long time to come, and I hope you do too. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream Tweezer > Bathtub Gin:

nyctaper · Phish – Live in Atlantic City August 13, 2021

Phish
2021-08-13
The Beach
Atlantic City NJ

Digital Master Recording
Tapers Section at Soundboard

Neumann KM-150 Hypers > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1 [Total Time 1:04:29]
01 Cars Trucks Buses
02 AC DC Bag
03 Blaze On
04 Wolfman’s Brother
05 I Didn’t Know
06 Funky Bitch
07 Rift
08 Sand

Set 2 [Total Time 1:30:40]
09 Tweezer
10 Bathtub Gin
11 Everything’s Right
12 Possum
13 Also Sprach Zarathustra
14 Rise Come Together
15 Harry Hood
16 More
17 [encore break]
18 Loving Cup

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Phish: December 28, 2017 Madison Square Garden

December 30, 2017
By


[photos by LazyLightning55 and Jeff]

We had such a good time at the “Baker’s Dozen” shows this Summer at Madison Square Garden, so that when a taper’s ticket for the first night of the Phish four-show New Year’s run became available, I jumped at the chance to relive recent glory. Phish v3.0 is in a good place right now. They didn’t play as many shows in 2017 as in recent years, but what they did was quite memorable. The band themselves also seem to be personally doing well — clean and sober and enjoying each other’s company.

The first night of previous New Year’s runs of shows has been jokingly criticized as the “practice” night, a show used to work out the kinks and get back into the groove. But the current version of Phish isn’t playing by the old rules and this debut night was strong and confident from the outset. The band also is unencumbered by the mandate of playing different songs on every night of thirteen shows, so that the setlist was chock full of prime material. The abundant first set highlights included a solid “Wolfman’s Brother”, and extended “Roggae” and a peak version of “Back on the Train”. The second set started with the familiar, but the highlight of the set and perhaps the entire show was the twenty-four minute “No Men” which worked through a series of often melodic and thematic jams so that the extended length didn’t drag or seem indulgent. This was just the v3.0 of Phish playing to its strengths and operating on all cylinders. Far from “practice”, this night was a year-long highlight show and quite a cap to a perfect year for our experiences with Phish.

Thanks to Noah for the ticket and Walt for the clamp space!

I recorded this set from the first row of the taper’s section on the right side. Due to our fortunate position next to the great Charlie Miller, we were able on this night to maneuver the stand onto a raised platform in the center area, and that advantageous position helped this recording to achieve its maximum potential. Its perhaps our best capture of this year’s MSG shows. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Phish
2017-12-28
Madison Square Garden
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
First Row Tapers Section

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1 [Total Time 1:16:01]
01 ACDC Bag
02 Wolfman’s Brother
03 Roggae
04 Tube
05 Bouncing Around the Room
06 Back on the Train
07 Your Pet Cat
08 Waking Up Dead
09 Theme From the Bottom

Set 2 [Total Time 1:40:57]
10 Wilson
11 No Men In No Man’s Land
12 Twist
13 Everything’s Right
14 Also Sprach Zarathustra
15 Harry Hood
16 [encore break]
17 The Wedge
18 Slave to the Traffic Light

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Phish: August 5, 2017 Madison Square Garden (Baker’s Dozen Night 12)

August 6, 2017
By


[This image from the Phish From the Road Instagram page. Photo by Rene Huemer]

Boston cream was the theme of this twelfth and penultimate night of the Phish “Baker’s Dozen” series at Madison Square Garden. And if that offered two all-too-obvious musical groups in one donut flavor, Phish couldn’t avoid taking that bait, making a mashup of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” and Boston’s “More Than A Feeling” an early highlight of a show whose uneven moments were bested, in my view, by that ever-available fount of inspiration, the jams. If the first “Sloth” of 2017 excited more than a few heads, there was a killer “Gotta Jiboo” up next for the Saturday night crowd. That said, this was no Saturday night version–a sprawling jam that veered the song away from its upbeat, party vibe. If 2014’s “Plasma” isn’t the best-known song in the catalog, it certainly was one of the standouts of the first set, closing it out.

As has been the norm, the second set was where the fireworks were, virtuosity-wise. Kicking things off with a particularly languid version of “Ghost,” the band let that song take center stage as the night’s first huge jam song, followed by relative newcomer “Petrichor” and “Light.” After a “Lizards”>”The Horse”>”Silent In the Morning”>”Quinn the Eskimo” jam, there wasn’t much to be said. Nearing the end of curfew, the band wrapped with one of their more maudlin numbers “Joy.” If that song felt like a strange note to end on, with just one night of this epic MSG run left, it drove home the idea that with Phish, it’s best not to ask why.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones in the center of the tapers’ section. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete set: [MP3] [FLAC] [ALAC]

Stream the complete set: 

Phish
2017-08-05
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY

The Baker’s Dozen, Night 12

Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Schoeps MK4V (PAS, OTS, DFC) > KC5>CMC6>Sound Devices MixPre6 > WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (compression, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, tagging) > FLAC (24/48 or 16/44.1, level 8 )

SET ONE
01 Soul Shakedown Party
02 Uncle Pen>
03 The Sloth
04 Gotta Jibboo
05 Fuck Your Face
06 “Sunshine Of Your Feeling” [Sunshine of Your Love -> More Than a Feeling > Sunshine of Your Love > Foreplay/Long Time]
07 Frost
08 Scent of a Mule
09 Fire
10 Alaska
11 Plasma

SET TWO
12 Ghost
13 Petrichor
14 Light>
15 The Lizards
16 The Horse>
17 Silent in the Morning>
18 Quinn the Eskimo>
19 Rocky Top
[encore break removed]
20 Joy

SUPPORT Phish: Website | Store

Phish: August 4, 2017 Madison Square Garden

August 5, 2017
By

Phish did it again last night. On the 11th night of the historic Baker’s Dozen shows at Madison Square Garden, this one themed on a Lemon donut, the band again delivered a unique set of breakouts, first-time covers, and surprisingly placed jams. You could excuse Phish for maybe missing the mark once on this run, but its clear that every single show has been an all-timer and this is why we continue to insist that this a bellwether stand for the band.

Last night’s set opened with a first-time cover of the blues standard “See That My Grave is Kept Clean” or “One Kind Favor”, performed by a litany of artists but first attributed to Blind Lemon (get it?) Jefferson. The set also featured stand-out performances of not-classics “Ocelot” and “Winterqueen”, two songs of recent vintage that got the full jam treatment at this show. The set finale of “First Tube” was truly remarkable, an intensely jammed version that ended with Trey literally waving his guitar around above his head in some sort of feedback devotional ritual.

The second set started off slowly with a puzzling silly acapella “Dem Bones” but quickly moved into jam mode. “No Man’s Land” is another new-y that got some peak extended play, before unfinished it quietly segued into a song that had some heads scratching and phones clicking. Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place” fit the theme (“sucking a lemon”) but certainly seemed like “worlds colliding” of musical genres. But the band did a bang-up job on the number — if a bit spacier than the original. Moving forward, a sample of the “sucking a lemon” vocals would continue to pop up during the set. Phish continued this strong set with a “Scent and Subtle Sounds” which not only reached jammy peaks but also contained a neatly interposed reprise of “No Man’s Land” tucked into the jam. The set ended with crowd-favorites “Prince Caspian” and a now-infrequent visit with “Fluffhead” before the band returned with a non-unfamiliar cover of the Edgar Winter Group’s classic “Frankenstein”.

This was my own personal final show of this run — acidjack is scheduled to capture tonight’s show — but I have to remark that this was all-in-all clearly the highlight of my lengthy but limited relationship with Phish. I suspect its also a highlight of the long-time and truly dedicated Phishheads, and that’s saying something.

I recorded this show from the dead center area of the taper’s section on the rail behind the video cage. The sound in the venue was extraordinary this night and our centered position was advantageous. As a result, the sound quality is superb and I believe this is my best sounding recording of the three shows I attended. Enjoy!

Download The Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Phish
2017-08-04
Madison Square Garden
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Sixth Row Center Tapers Section

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 1:09:49]
01 See That My Grave Is Kept Clean [Blind Lemon Jefferson]
02 Punch You in the Eye
03 Party Time
04 Big Black Furry Creature From Mars
05 Dinner and a Movie
06 Ocelot
07 Poor Heart
08 Winterqueen
09 Bold as Love [Hendrix]
10 First Tube

Set 2:
[Total Time 1:24:19]
11 Dem Bones
12 No Men in No Man’s Land
13 Everything in Its Right Place [Radiohead]
14 What’s the Use
15 Scents and Subtle Sounds*
16 Prince Caspian
17 Fluffhead
18 [encore break]
19 Frankenstein [Edgar Winter]

*with No Man’s Land Reprise

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Phish: July 29, 2017 – Madison Square Garden

August 3, 2017
By

While EricPH took less than twenty-four hours to post his recording of this show, I’ve taken way too long to make mine available and as a result I’m doing a new post and using the opportunity to gather some thoughts about these shows.

Its pretty amazing watching musical history in the making — as it happens. Now that the “Baker’s Dozen” Phish run at Madison Square Garden is more than halfway done, it has become apparent that this isn’t just a big run of shows at one venue but an event never quite seen before in musical history. The band has dedicated to making sure that no song is repeated during the entire run, created themes for each night, and playing against all of the expectations that come with a band that’s existed for longer than some of its fans have been alive. The first sets aren’t just single song play-throughs, the shorter songs can now be jam vehicles, and there’s no predictable place for a song in the setlist. Add to that a bunch of break-outs, rare numbers and first-time covers, and Phish has pretty much committed themselves to “Baker’s Dozen” perhaps becoming the bell-weather upon which to measure their lengthy career. And as this Uproxx article from earlier today notes, Phish has created a model for fan-friendly artist presentation that most bands with significant fan-bases should follow.

This Saturday night show had some serious highlights as noted by Eric’s review. There was the surprise first set closer of “Walrus”, the twenty-three minute second set opener “Blaze On” that might be the best version of that song the band has ever played, and the set closing Hood. I’ve also always been partial to the band’s goofy anthem “Meatstick” and this version was a hoot. Overall, it was just another prime show in a classic run and we’re lucky to be capturing two more of these nights this coming weekend. Stay tuned.

I recorded this in the exact same place and manner as the July 22 recording (first row taper’s section with cards) and the sound is equally excellent. Enjoy!

Download The Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Phish
2017-07-29
Madison Square Garden
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
First Row Tapers Section

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 1:16:54]
01 Llama
02 Wilson
03 Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan
04 Ya Mar [Cyril Ferguson]
05 Tela
06 The Birds
07 The Line
08 Water in the Sky
09 Vultures
10 Train Song
11 Horn
12 I Am the Walrus [Beatles]

Set 2:
[Total Time 1:21:51]
13 Blaze On
14 Twenty Years Later
15 Alumni Blues – Letter to Jimmy Page – Alumni Blues
16 Meatstick
17 Dirt
18 Harry Hood
19 [encore break]
20 Cinnamon Girl [Neil Young]

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Phish: July 29, 2017 Madison Square Garden

July 30, 2017
By

Night seven of the Baker’s Dozen was dubbed the cinnamon donut night. And while there are an overwhelming number of obvious and not-so-obvious songs that fit thematically, the band didn’t go overboard with cinnamon references aside from the semi-predictable Neil Young cover (which they pulled off perfectly). Otherwise it’s a varied set—at least for this Phish newbie—that has them jamming on a (pardon me) blazing “Blaze On” to open the second set, a first-set closing “I Am the Walrus,” and a killer “Alumni Blues” with the “Letter to Jimmy Page” bridge. While nothing could hold a candle to the previous night’s “Chalk Dust Torture,” this is no doubt a solid set throughout.

Eric PH recorded this set with the Schoeps MK41V’s mounted in the official taper’s section, from row 1 seat 1. NYCTaper will follow up with his Schoeps source shortly. Enjoy!

Download the complete show (Schoeps MK41V source): [MP3 / FLAC16 / FLAC24]

Stream the complete show (Schoeps MK41V source):

Phish
2017-07-29
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY

Baker’s Dozen #7

Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com

Schoeps MK41V (OTS, LOC) > Aerco MP-2 > Zoom F8 > WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (compression, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, tagging) > FLAC (24/48, level 8)

Set 1:
01. Llama
02. Wilson
03. Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan
04. Ya Mar [Cyril Ferguson]
05. Tela
06. The Birds
07. The Line
08. Water in the Sky
09. Vultures
10. Train Song
11. Horn
12. I Am the Walrus [The Beatles]

Set 2:
13. Blaze On
14. Twenty Years Later
15. Alumni Blues > Letter to Jimmy Page > Alumni Blues
16. Meatstick
17. Dirt
18. Harry Hood
19. [encore break]
20. Cinnamon Girl [Neil Young]

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Phish: July 28, 2017 Madison Square Garden

July 29, 2017
By

The sixth night of Phish’sBaker’s Dozen” shows at Madison Square Garden was thematically the “double chocolate” donut show. This presented some challenges for song selection as Phish’s vast catalog does not contain a song with the word “chocolate” in its title. But ultimately, in a run of never-ending surprises and first-time covers, Phish chose to open with the 2007 novelty one-hit wonder “Chocolate Rain” by Tay Zonday. The balance of the first set was comprised of fairly short dips through some obscure numbers (“Destiny Unbound”) and the classic material (“Divided Sky”), with the set-closing “Sand” perhaps the highlight of the eleven-song set.

The second set began with another acapella number (The Might Diamonds’ “Have Mercy”) before Phish launched into the first serious jam of the night—a tremendous “Chalkdust Torture.” The chocolate theme appeared again with a cover of Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” with Mike on vocals. The second chance to jam was the segues between “Mercury,” “Sexy Thing Reprise” and an extended “Backwards” that ended the set in fine fashion. The encore segment closed with another acapella number, this time an inventive and entertaining version of Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

Eric PH recorded this set with the AKG CK61’s mounted in the official taper’s section, while acidjack recorded with Schoeps MK4V on the same stand. The sound quality of both is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the complete Show [Schoeps source] [MP3/ALAC/FLAC16/FLAC24]

Download the Complete Show [AKG source] [MP3 / FLAC16 / FLAC24]

Stream the complete show (Schoeps source):

Stream the Complete Show (AKG Source):

Phish
2017-07-28
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY

The Baker’s Dozen

Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com

AKG C480B/CK61 (DIN, OTS, DFC) > Aerco MP-2 > Zoom F8 > WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (compression, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, tagging) > FLAC (24/48, level 8)

Set 1:
01. Chocolate Rain [Tay Zonday]
02. Ass Handed
03. Free
04. Weigh
05. Undermind
06. The Oh Gee Pa Ceremony
07. The Dogs
08. Destiny Unbound
09. The Divided Sky
10. Things People Do
11. Sand

Set 2:
12. Have Mercy [The Mighty Diamonds]
13. Chalk Dust Torture
14. You Sexy Thing [Hot Chocolate]
15. Mercury > You Sexy Thing
16. Backwards Down the Number Line
17. Rock & Roll [The Velvet Underground]
18. [encore break]
19. Fee
20. Space Oddity [David Bowie]

______________________

Phish
2017-07-28
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY

The Baker’s Dozen

Recorded and produced by acidjack for nyctaper.com

Schoeps MK4V (PAS, OTS, DFC) > Sound Devices MixPre6 > WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (compression, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, tagging) > FLAC (24/48, level 8)

Set 1:
01 Chocolate Rain [Tay Zonday]
02 Ass Handed
03 Free
04 Weigh
05 Undermind
06 The Oh Kee Pah Ceremony
07 The Dogs
08 Destiny Unbound
09 The Divided Sky
10 Things People Do
11 Sand

Set 2:
12 Have Mercy [The Mighty Diamonds]
13 Chalk Dust Torture
14 You Sexy Thing [Hot Chocolate]
15 Mercury > You Sexy Thing
16 Backwards Down the Number Line
17 Rock & Roll [The Velvet Underground]
[encore break clipped]
18 Fee
19 Space Oddity [David Bowie]

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Phish: July 22, 2017 Madison Square Garden

July 23, 2017
By

Phish’s “Baker’s Dozen” at Madison Square Garden is an ambitious concert series that promises an unmatched level of musicianship and inventiveness never before seen in the history of the City’s “Most Famous Arena”. We’ve attended many shows at this formidable arena over the years, but never a series that offered such unique treats. The “Bakers” part of the equation has been taken quite seriously — we were met at the gates of the venue by the gift of a strawberry donut for Saturday night’s show. And this was no coincidence. The theme for this night’s show appeared immediately as Phish’s never-before cover of the Beatles “Strawberry Fields Forever” opened the night.

The first set for Saturday followed another development evident throughout the band’s Summer tour — first sets have become serious jam vehicles no longer relegated to straight song play-throughs. And on this night we were treated to an extended “Moma Dance” and a Page McConnell solo piece to complete the “Squirming Coil” set closer that portended unique events to come. The second set began with a lengthy “Down With Disease” which led into the night’s second major surprise — a cover of the thematically appropriate Brothers Johnson’s “Strawberry Letter 23”. This late-70s psychedelic funk piece offered a perfect vehicle for Phish to exercise its chops. The remainder of the second set followed the pattern for the evening as the band played extended versions of crowd favorites. The encore segment struck home in particular as Phish played a local favorite — The Talking Heads classic “Cities”, among a series of inventive covers. We were met upon the exit of the venue with a downpour of rain that perhaps dampened the night temporarily but given our advantageous taper’s section spot, wasn’t a killjoy for very long. This is uploaded as fast as I can these days, and I hope you enjoy a primo recording of a first-rate Phish show, with many more to come.

We will be attending at least four more Phish shows during this run. Stay tuned.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards mounted at twelve feet in the first row of the Taper’s Section. The band’s sound crew did a terrific job in this arena and sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Phish
2017-07-22
Madison Square Garden
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
First Row Tapers Section

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 1:22:03]
01 Strawberry Fields Forever [Beatles]
02 Halley’s Comet
03 The Moma Dance
04 Breath and Burning
05 Funky Bitch [Son Seals]
06 Mound
07 Foam
08 Roggae
09 The Squirming Coil

Set 2
[Total Time 1:22:42]
10 Down With Disease
11 Strawberry Letter 23 [Brothers Johnson]
12 Birds of a Feather
13 I Always Wanted It This Way
14 All of These Dreams
15 Split Open and Melt
16 Down With Disease Reprise
17 Shine a Light [Rolling Stones]
18 [encore break]
19 Peaches en Regalia [Zappa]
20 Cities [Talking Heads]
21 My Sweet One

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