Phish: It's an Udder Ball: 12/31/97

Phish: It's an Udder Ball. Sure everyone's seen the footage from Bittersweet Motel of the MASSIVE balloons dropping after midnight on 12/31/97 at The World's Most Famous Arena: Madison Square Garden. But what they don't show you is even better... the scoreboard above the center of the arena was covered in a dome shaped cloth screen the whole night and images were projected onto it. These were the same images Trey was talking about the night before during Harpua- eggs, olives, etc. The images danced and gyrated to the music. Finally just before midnight all the images came together to form a giant olive loaf, which morphed into a pig into the Statue of Liberty and eventually into Baby New Years. Then the screens ripped open at midnight and the big balloons fell out. Here's some good footage (1st minute is bad though) of the NYE madness:

And of course, a Happy New Years to all the Phish Phans out there!

MSG 2002: The Return- A Montage

Can you believe it's been 5 years since Phish's grand return from hiatus? This video is a montage of clips and images from that show on 12/31/02 at Madison Square Garden. It really captures the feel of the show; from the impossible tickets outside, to the deafening roar of the crowd as Phish came back onstage for the first time in over two years, to the Hood glowstick war, to the Seven Below dancers, to the madness as New Years approached. While it certainly wasn't the best show Phish played, it was a huge relief to all the fans that Phish was back. Hopefully we will feel that way again...anyone got any good Phish reunion rumors??!

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:

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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.

Shoreline 92 Maze Rages

This is a pro-shot video from 8/29/92 at the Shoreline Amphitheater out in Mountain View near San Francisco. Phish opened for Santana this show with a quick one set performance. BUT, like most 1992 Mazes, they just raged the Maze. Nothing long and drawn out but just quick and raging. There's some great closeups on this one- check it out:

Destiny Unbound 10/27/1991

We gotta get on the road! Here it is- the rarely played Phish classic Destiny Unbound from the Elk Ballroom in Telluride , CO on 10/27/91. Check out Trey with the short hair! He had shaved it all off (beard too) only 2 days prior and was the butt of jokes during the show prior to this (which does not exist on tape). After this show, Destiny would be played only 2 more times in the following few weeks before being retired for almost 800 shows and resurfacing one last time at the 2/28/03 Nassau Coliseum show.

He is Legend: Gettin Jiggy Wit It 11/20/98

There is nothing like a full grown man in a tattered purple circle print dress and viking horns covering a Will Smith song complete with vacuum solo. Hampton (Coliseum aka the Mothership) really came alive this night, alive with laughter at the ridiculousness of this Jon Fishman spectacle. Fun times. I think we're beyond words really with this one... let's roll the videotape:

Feeling the Vibe of Life and Catapulting Onward in Omaha 11-16-96

The 11-16-96 show in Omaha went down as one of the weirdest ones Phish played. There is a bizarro Hood jam where Trey holds a single note for minutes at a time as well as changing the lyrics to Lee Fordham. There's also a wacked out Axilla, a LaGrange opener and a We're An American Band encore. And then there's your sort of standard Phish weirdness; The Vibration of Life>Kung>Catapult which is featured in the video below. Trey explains the rarely played VOL; seven and half beats per second, "you'll feel it in your ass". He also unknowingly starts a firestorm of discussion at the time on the Phish newsgroup (rec.music.phish) by saying it was "written by God". Catapult features Trey on his drumkit thing and Mike dancing with scarves!!?!? WTF? Seriously Cactus, WFT?