Vicious Mike's Song into Digital Delay Loop Jam 12/31/95

Oh yeah! The culmination of possibly Phish's best year ever, 1995 was the big show at Madison Square Garden on 12/31/95. New Years Eve had the band in fine form. The 2nd set ended with a HUGE Mike's Song. Just monstrous. Best ever? Maybe. Not really evil Phish but just intense and focused, moving smoothly from one theme to the next as if it were a pre-composed song. That little thing starting around 7:45 into the first video is just the absolute shit. Damn.
The jam went into a smooth mellow loop jam with Trey "we work in the Gamehenge Time Factory" Anastasio creating digital delay effect loops using his foot pedals to end the set in a chill psychedelic mood. Gotta love how he says "don't go away" as if someone was going to leave before the midnight set.

Drinking Gin from a Hose at the Great Went

Here's a doozy for ya! The greatest Bathtub Gin of all time? Maybe. This video is from 8/17/97 at the Great Went, Loring Air Force Base, Limestone, ME. In case you're wondering where that is exactly, it's way up there in Maine. Waaaay up there:

View Larger Map
The first few minutes of this video is the "Art Jam" where each member of Phish painted on some wood which was later passed through the crowd and nailed onto the large 50 foot tall art tower which consisted of pieces that fans had painted throughout the festival. You can see Fishman painting at 2:00 in. The tower was burned down in a giant bonfire at the end of the show (and on a personal note, "sure let's meet by the big sculpture after the show" sounded good before the show but it turned out to be a poor choice of meeting places since the entire crowd seemed to head towards the fire...) Part I:

Part II is where the jam really gets going...at around 2:30 they really start hitting that smooth hose jam that is just free and gorgeous... that little repeating riff Trey starts playing at around 3:15 is the essence of Phish, just finding a little groove and expanding it into something bigger than the sum of it's parts culminating in the big peak at 7:10 before heading into the next song (no closing Gin chords). Epic. Confirmed.

12/9/95 YEM goes Silent in Albany

Well today is December 9th and that means it's been 12 years since Phish hosed down Albany with some peak epicness on a VERY snowy evening (I actually was not able to make the show due to road closures 8( oh well). This You Enjoy Myself is the epitome of the smooth machine-like hose of those great December '95 shows. The whole month is redonkulous. This is a 4 parter! And we're going biggie size on it. Part I starts with the near perfect composed portion of the song:

Part III continues with Phish melodiously building up to the peak jam with Trey hitting up the mini-drumkit about 2 minutes in for a bass & drums type jam before bringing it back around to the previous theme at around 4:30. Then comes the ultra groovy Page breakdown section, the Shaft teases (with Trey reciting the lyrics), and then the silent jam at around 7 minutes complete with Trey windmilling and "playing" his guitar behind his neck.

Part IV picks up from the end of the silent jam where they take it right back into the groove as if nothing happened. Just sick sick sick. The vocal jam ends the epic YEM: