12/30/94 Purple Rain!!!!

Never meant to cause you any sorrow, never meant to cause you any pain. I only want to one time see you laughing, only want to see you laughing in the purple rain. Purple Rain might be my all time favorite Fishman song and unfortunately one that I never was able to see live. This classic Prince cover, complete with vacuum solo is from 12/30/94 at Madison Square Garden. And of course, there's some HYHU and minor Fish bowing at the end.

IT Tower Jam

The IT Tower Jam! The IT Festival closed out the summer 2003 tour in fine fashion up in Limestone, ME. Following the tradition of the extra set during their festivals (Clifford Ball had the Flatbed Jam, Great Went had the DJ Set, Lemonwheel had the Ring of Fire Ambient Jam) Phish may have outdone themselves with this one. Ascending to the top of the air traffic control tower, they played an almost hour long instrumental jam- their 4th set of the day! The tower was lit up by the lighting master himself- Chris Kuroda and there were dancers hanging by wires along the sides of the tower. Here's the whole thing- in 7 parts- just click each part along the bottom to move along to the next one after you're done with each. I spent waaaay too much time (unsuccessfully) trying to find a way to get it to autoplay all 7 in a row so if anyone knows a way- email or comment PLEASE!

Farmhouse in a Spaceship

Here's some Phish Farmhouse action from the Spaceship, the Mothership, the world's greatest concert arena except for the no alcohol sales thing- Hampton Coliseum in the home state of the personalized license plate-Virginia (seriously what's the deal there?). There's something about Farmhouse that I've always liked- besides the whole No Woman No Cry guitar line ripoff thing- I think it's the line "each betrayal begins with trust, every man returns to dust". That's some deep stuff there. This video is from 11/20/98-yep Hampton Comes Alive! Note the Fishman Viking horns getup. Warning it's a little shaky at times but then again who isn't sometimes. Maybe the cluster flies were getting to our cameraperson.

Phish Waste My Time on TV

Here's a pro-shot Waste from Roseland Ballroom in New York City on 5/23/00. I believe this aired on VH1 or maybe it was MTV. Why Waste? No reason, that's just how I roll dawg. Yes that was the worst line ever written on this blog. Don't worry, it'll be topped at some point.

Phish Love: Love You, Love Me

Today we've got a Valentine's Day Phish Double Date for everyone. We'll start it off with some Fishman love. The first video is Love You (aka Honey Love), a Syd Barrett song. This performance is from 3/31/92 at the Blue Note in Columbia, MO. It starts off with the somewhat rare Cold As Ice (Foreigner) intro and outro for our favorite drummer instead of the more normal HYHU. Some humorous swinging introductions from Jon F. and then a thick vacuum solo in the middle. Nice.

The second part of our double is the much rarer Love Me (aka Treat Me Like a Fool). This version is from 11/8/98 at the horseshoe shaped UIC Pavilion in Chicago. Mike "Cactus" Gordon takes the vocal lead for this Elvis cover. They've got some pretty decent background harmonies going on too. Lots of good closeups for all you Gordo fanatics out there.

Glad to be Gliding on Gliders 7/21/93

This Glide video is from 7/21/93 at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Middletown, NY. The show was part of the H.O.R.D.E. (Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere) Festival. Other bands that played that day were Allgood, Aquarium Rescue Unit, Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Blues Traveler, The Samples, and Widespread Panic. While Phish played many shows on the 1992 HORDE Tour, this was their only appearance at the festival in 1993. What's interesting about 1993 Glides is that Phish used these exercise glider things during the song. Supposedly (per the Phish Companion) they ordered them from a TV infomercial while at a motel on tour. The gliders were not seen after 1993.

Scent of a Mule>Blister in the Sun>Scent

Here's a hot one for ya... it's from 7-9-98 in Barcelona. Looks like a pretty steady cam shot from balcony or bar or something over on Page side. It's just kind of weird how they randomly go into Blister in the Sun (Violent Femmes). I was at the Austin show the year before when Phish played it and that was clearly precipitated by the obnoxiously hot weather. They were even driving around the parking lot in a golf carts handing out free water to keep the crowd hydrated in the Texas sun. I wasn't on the Europe tour in '98 so I wonder if this show was just as hot or if Phish just decided to play it for fun. Blister seems like the song that EVERYBODY plays when they start to learn guitar. And is it just me or did Scent seem to disappear post-hiatus? Enjoy: