Last night is why I still go see Phish shows. Before I go any further please go and listen to this Harry Hood if you have any doubts about whether Phish can still deliver the good, so-to-speak.

The show the previous night wasn't quite the scorcher some were expecting in the wake of the blizzard that canceled so many people's flights.. but then again, the blizzard wasn't what people expected either. Nevertheless expectations were high on this night especially considering the positive signs the band left on 12/27 in the form of a great Seven Below->What's the Use and some interesting deviations adventures in Cool It Down and Roggae.

12/28 took things up a notch and delivered on that promise and then some. Things started getting interesting when Trey busted out a Sarah Palin noise box as a way of introducing Alaska (ala Beavis and Butthead and the 12/9/95 Wilson for those of you keeping score). They rode the bluesy vibe through this set and to great effect. They had soundchecked She Caught the Katy and this was well played and probably benefited from the boys having recently donned the Little Feat costume. Wolfman's was the first proper take off of the night though, building out of the blues into proper funk (Phish was groooovy on this night at times, let me tell you) and then into Trey lead peaks through a big finale that somehow still worked in the Wolfman's theme. Reminded me a bit of the cathartic and overlooked version from 12/1/03 in Albany. Stash was played to similar and even greater (if significantly darker) effect, always flirting with going into major territory but never quite going over to the other side. Great dark but focused tension work and one of 3.0s best versions of a song that's been strong in the era (again if you're keeping track, the last three performances of Stash, which also includes 10/31 and 10/24, have all been serious keepers.)

The second set was all about pace, performance and detail. Though neither Carini nor Backwards Down the Number Line really went out there in terms of what those songs have been capable of this year, both were really tight and felt like they building towards something. The Back on the Train->Limb by Limb>Wedge segment was flawless, including some really intricate rhythmic stuff that would set the stage for bigger things to come. The Wedge is full of extra fills.

And put me in the camp who don't mind mid-second set chillouts if they're going to be of the Frankie Says->Albuquerque variety. It helps that I'm a fan of both songs, for different reasons, but you can't really find fault with either performance. One is full of lush ambience, and the other is as soulful as you can get (Phish doing Neil Young is always good, and Trey was very convincing on this one; he hits a couple notes that elicited some serious props/jaw-drops from Page).

But the Hood is the highlight, no question. You haven't heard a Hood like this before, I'll promise you that. Though the song has been somewhat rejuvenated in the 3.0 years after a bit of stagnation post-97 and through 2.0 (93-95 was its real heyday), nothing in the modern era touches this one, because it goes in a completely different direction. Trey plucks some amazing licks out of the sky, delivers them with that delicate staccato and all of a sudden there's room for Mike to respond. The end result is a kind of calypso-groove hose. The crowd erupts in dancey approval more than once spontaneously in this jam and for good reason. If this jam a sign of what happens when you mix the Little Feat grooves with the band's attention-to-detail ambience then good things are in store for the MSG run and 2011. Felt for a moment we were getting down in the Everglades again for a second there...

Whereas the first night was ice cold, this show was smoking hot. People were shedding layers well into the night. And not just their clothes.
This was a peeling of the onion show. The crowd was completely involved throughout, fun water bass balloons kicking around, tons 'o glow sticks (striking the band in the face...wonder how they felt about that), many musical references to sobriety=FUN, (no beer-bellied dancers???), lots of resounding echos growing from the crowd. Awesome!
Peaked in the second set. First set left us wondering if they go on stage sans set-list and just listen to crowd requests. Which is cool but choppy. Alaska featured a Little Feat jam toward the end (Dixie Chicken dig, I believe) Harry Hood kicked it up just one more notch as it always does. Lifted. Fishman is playing that super high high-hat thing that creates a vortex all it's own, like angels dancing on a pin, and brings us to heights we haven't known before. Yeah, boy.

PS. First night Worcester was cold yet still a smoking show.

Well, where do I begin? This was the show of life! This was my 7th show and I brought my younger brother Jeff and our best friend. This was their 4th show they were sophomores in high school and I was recently graduated still living at home. I had dragged them after constant urging and pleads to go to Albany ’09 and after SPAC ’10 we finally got used to the flow of things at a phish show. So we bought the tix like a month ahead of time for obscene amounts of $$$ thru ebay, (which totally sucked for the record). Being from Albany this was our first show that we would have to venture out into a city we’ve never been to …for 3 days …to us this was the biggest thing we’ve ever done. This was a big deal.
So long behold that day after Christmas we got slammed with this killer 2-3 feet of snow and really cold weather. My parents and everyone we knew were in an outrage! Totally taken away at the fact that not only have we seen the same band this many times but that we were leaving in this weather, which was still snowing out when we left. So we packed the car, stop at price chopper grab $100 worth of food to keep cost down and hop on I-90. This road was terrible! So slushy and a few near misses on the road kept us paranoid as hell the whole ride. My car was living up to its name since a week earlier the thermostat went on it so we had no heat the whole way. We were in full snowsuits because we were so damn cold the whole way to Worchester. We finally got to the days inn hotel which was FILLED with phans from all over the states, which was also one of the coolest things ever seen, even to this day. Night one was dope but night two was when shit got real. We parked in the awesomely immense parking garage next to the venue. I normally wouldn’t talk about this but its necessary for illustrative purposes. So we got all out goodies including something called “penis envy” the dealer left and we looked at each other like “What kinda bullshit name is Penis Envy??” but the guy was serious Don’t take too much… we were gunna do the whole 2 slices but thank god we only had the one. We took them a little too early in the lot and were tweaking on the way in. this was also my first time “hippy flipping”.
As you can imagine this was REALLY REALLY intense, the show started with that killer “Kill Devil Falls” into that UNREAL “My Minds Got A Mind of Its Own” something happened during this show… complete euphoria, we finally got “IT”, the whole reason everyone was in this arena, goes on tour, puts their life on hold, pulls “no shows” for tomorrows double at their cooking job (which is what I did), this show changed our 3 lives forever. Words cannot describe. Around the end of the 2nd set near the best “Hood” ever our friend who came with us all of a sudden was in the dumps as we all do sometimes, and yacked right there in the seat which was a window into a whole world of new things to trip about. WOW. Show ends we go back to the hotel.
The next day we had a rough morning packed the car and went back to Albany in the best mood ever. When we got home we found out the worst… as soon as we got home my car died and needed $2000 and our friends’ dad had passed away the night before while we were at the show after a long battle in the hospital. My heart will always go out to him, this was rough times for him. The epiphany about him being in the dumps was instant; this was one of those shows where the intensity continued to sink in days, weeks and months after.
This show changed our lives for many reasons that I can’t go on about but the biggest one is that we were so new and inexperienced at the time. This was one of the first times we walked around the “Hole”. It was all so surreal even when we came home my car died I lost my job I need to borrow money from mom and dad, and our bod with the 3 of us and our bond with phis was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced and probably ever will. Inside jokes between us about this trip even until this day, about the show, the blizzard, my car dying and being broke and jobless for the next month or so at my parents house …those were the days!

I agree with Andrew....well said.

Nice show with a lot going for it (as well as some of the clunky setlist moves that have dominated much of 3.0). I would however like to specifically signal out the Stash from this show. Trey uses a really nice subtle effect on his guitar for most of the jam and the whole thing is a magnificent living/breathing creation. This Hood gets a lot of hype (and rightfully so) for it's plinko-fried jam section, but this Stash shows the boys operating on the highest level. Check it out.

looking back after two years of a serious phish obsession i would say that i wish i remembered this show better. 1st set KDF and Wolfman's showed me just what a groovin fun dancefest a phish show is. i've since learned that i'm not a big fan of the slow second set. harry hood > bug got things seriously amazingly roaring again. not my favorite show but then again i was a noob and didn't really know what i was listening to.

One of the better shows of the run. Had a blast. Song choice was sweet. Strong Jamming, Smooth transitions. Floor was a Party.

Great show! Every other song was amazing too, carini, hood, she caught the katy, wolfman's, and birdwatcher was fun.

highlights of this show were kill dvil falls and harry hood. both of them were amazing. for my phirst phish show, 9/10!

Very interesting show, plenty of things I was not expecting and some rippin jams. Front row page side rage side for me. Highlights included:

She Caught the Katy is a nice bluesy tune, I wouldn’t mind them covering that more often (more exciting than Cool it Down). – Wolfman’s Brother was absolutely furious, worth a listen. – New Marshall song Pigtail was enjoyable, I liked it more than some of their other newer tunes. Very strange lyrics reminiscient of old weird phish lyrics like Tube. – Birdwatcher was cool and silly as well for a nice acapella ending to the first set—

Carini was great, I was disappointed they didn’t finish it with the normal screaming, but still great to hear. -- The Wedge was tight and it seemed like Trey was having more fun playing the song than anything else that night. – Then the show got cerebral. Frankie Says, Albuquerque, Bug, and Shine a Light are all emotionally charged and pleasant to sit and listen to and think about.

Overall it was cool to see them rely on technique songs and vocal intensive songs that they knew they could nail with fresh voices. Very cool show to be at.

I will say overall this show was a hell of a lot better than the previous nights (as usuall the 2nd night is better than the first). It was also warmer, although last night i learned a thing from monday and wore more than a t-shirt under my jacket and two layers of pants lol. I dont know if anyone else noteced, but these two shows seemed to me to be a little farmhouse heavy, great album.
kill devil falls was much better than sample. i agree with someone elses comments, all around my in my area (106) the energy and temp rose and rose through the night, people were even going topless heading towards the bottom half of the seccond set. Back to the first set... I liked hearing my mind's, on the drive down it came on in the car which made me and my company laugh. I really digged trey using that sara palin sample in alaska, that cracked me up. Did not expect to hear She Caught the Katy, i havent heard that in like a decade. it took me a while of guessing the i know that song... Wolfmans was sick and overall it was a pretty good first set. I liked it beter than yesterday.
On to the seccond set. Don't you just love a Carini set opener.... seccond time seeing one this year. Numberline had a nice jam, I loved the segue from Train to Limb, Love wedge but another bust out of frankie Says. I like that song allot, The highlight of the show for my was Hood, That jam just plain rocked, my fav hood (of the 3 i've seen) this year, and by far the best song of the worcester shows, and Bug was a nice treat, the seccond time seeing it.
Over all i thought last nights show was a great show, I had a blast, and of the 12 shows if seen this year, it is with in the top four, Now is i can get out of work and make it to msg on fri.....

Having just finished up yet another great Christmas with my family back in New Brunswick, on December 28th, 2010 m’lady and I pushed our hangovers aside and drove from Moncton to Worcester, Massachusetts to see Phish, who were warming up for their nearly annual New Years Eve run at Madison Square Garden. The east coast had just received a big dump of snow which made the drive through rural Maine (is the phrase “rural Maine” redundant?) extra-pretty though it did slow us down a bit.

As we were running just a bit behind schedule I wanted to be sure we were going in the right direction so when we stopped just outside of Marlborough to fill the tank I checked with the gas station attendant just to make sure.

But. One has to realize that Worcester is not pronounced “war-chester”, it’s pronounced closer to the way the sauce is pronounced, “worster,” but with a bit of a Boston accent. So, when I queried with the attendant I slipped into the local tongue and asked:

“Is this the right way to Woostah?”

The lady looked at me over her glasses and said, “What did you say?”

“I asked if Woostah is this way,” I repeated, confused.

“Woostah?!?!?” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “What’s ‘Woostah’?”

“Um…” I started, before m’lady piped up from behind me.

“He wants to know if this is the highway to Woostah,” she said, eyeing me oddly.

“Yeah,” said the lady, eyeing me even oddlier. “That’s the way to Woostah.”

To this day I can’t hear the difference between how m’lady (and everyone else) pronounces “Woostah” and the insane, clearly very wrong way that I try to pronounce it, and to this day m’lady teases me about the entire affair at every opportunity. Which is shockingly often.

I suppose if I had been on my own I might never have gotten to the concert but due to m’lady’s knack for the vernacular we did indeed get there, and we had a great time too. We were sitting full-on Fishman side in the 100 levels which made for an interesting vantage point; a lot of insight into how much the drums inject the music and get it driving. From the get-go there was so much stimulus input; the lights, the music, the crowd; all three elements working together to create a sensory onslaught that is rarely rivalled in live rock and roll.

About ninety minutes before the 43rd anniversary of my birth Phish played their birthday song Backwards Down The Number Line and the show started to feel like it was my very own. I got my Stash and a nice Harry Hood taboot and the band even played Neil Young’s Albuquerque. Limb by Limb contained a truly excellent jam* and the Hood jam was exquisite, as the band brought the song to the brink of the “You can feel good, good about Hood…” part and pulled back three times. I was in bliss with my eyes tightly closed when a dude behind me screamed, “This is why I go to Phish shows, mother****ers!!!” I knew exactly what he meant.

After the show we joined about a dozen of m’lady’s Phishy friends at a bar across the street for my birthday shot. I was born at 12:02am so every year I do a shot of something or other (usually tequila) at two minutes after midnight. I ordered tequila and watched the clock. By 12:03 or so we were out on the sidewalk, walking back to the hotel where the company of a whole lot of friends and even more pizza was on offer.

It was a little olde school squishing so many people into one hotel room but the fact that it was a suite (and again, a pretty nice one at that) bumped up the classiness of the situation considerably. Snorey-guy me took one for the team and benevolently slept in the closet, my standard wookstack M.O.

In the morning I awoke nice and early to find myself forty-three years old. Crazy world we live in, huh?

This was back when I was just getting to knew m’lady’s American crew of friends, and I vividly remember hitting up the free breakfast way too early that morning with the only other person in the suite who was also awake, a nice fellah I had just met (also) named Todd. We each had a bagel and a coffee in a paper cup. Todd was shocked to see me put pepper on my bagel; he said he had never heard of such a thing before and tried it himself. I was pretty surprised. Putting pepper on one’s cream-cheesed bagel is fairly common, non?

Anyway, for one reason or another Todd has remained near the top of my list of favourite Americans ever since that bagel-and-bad-coffee birthday breakfast. Todd tells me that he always puts pepper on his bagels now.

*There’s an improv exercise/technique called “Follow The Leader” in which musicians morph between one of three roles: Leader (aka soloist), Accompany The Leader (rhythm), or Follow The Leader (mimic/counterpoint the leader). In this game any musician can play any of the roles at any time regardless of what’s going on. Say Trey considers Mike the Leader and decides to Accompany. Meanwhile Fishman considers Trey the Leader of the moment and Follows. Mike might be Accompanying Trey while Page off by himself Leads away. Twenty seconds later everything could change. I’m utterly convinced that the band was playing this game during the Limb jam. They are crazy good at that kind of stuff.

http://www.toddmanout.com

Solid Show!
KDF was a rockin way to get the centrum movin'Alaska was fun,Wolfmans was good(im sick of these 1st set Wolfmans)Stash was Stash,great ending w/Stealin time and Birdwatcher

set 2 is all good w/the best Hood Ive seen since the come back

Sorry, me again.

Listen to the Bug, regarding the references to sobriety, do they not say:

BUD! Don't need it.
BUD! Don't feed it.

:o >>>>>>>>

When you're drunk and your late night friends leave you in the dawn.
The angels sigh........like Mike in WHITE 12/27/10~~~
LOVE this band.
Come on up now.

First night definitely had its highlights but overall felt a bit disjointed. 2nd night IMHO rectified that, each set seemed like one big long song subdivided into various chapters aka song titles. Really got into gear with Alaska, long and jammed out. Wolfman's rocked and from Stash onward the dancefest was ON!, Vocally this show was much better than Monday and The Birdwatcher was proof positive, sweet!

Carini to open 2nd set was monsterous and there was no let up afterwards. Glad I was in the building for Back on the Train, one of my faves. I totally lost track of time during this set and that's a good thing. The entire show bristled with energy. Just a great, great show from beginning to end, couldn't ask anymore from a band who has set their own personal bar where most can't even see that far up. Mad crazy and loving it!

See you'all on NYE & NYD!

Peace,
Alex

Looking back on it, I have no idea why I wasn't that into this show. I just remember feeling detached from the music. It felt like the crowd was just so-so on everything as well...kinda like if you play Guitar Hero and just aren't doing that well. Seems ridiculous to give this show only 2 stars because I just didn't like it, so I just won't rate it at all.

Down to snuggle? Huh? Ok, to each his own and I have loved snuggling.

So, I just listened to the show again and wanted to mark a point.

I have previously mentioned in my dream blog (MGFC FB, Boughn/Posner, check it out) that some of what goes on here doesn't necessarily translate to our digital recordings. I want to mention that the Fishman symbols-vortex-riff does not translate. When you listen to the copy, it's quite silenced, nothing like what is going on in the venue. Just more proof, that's all.

Peace y'all.