, attached to 1994-11-30

Review by n00b100

n00b100 Fun first set - I'm not that much a fan of the DWD, but the Reba is pretty decent, Frankenstein is a great opener, and the Forbin's > Mockingbird is cool (I enjoy the segue arrows for The Vibration of Life, which barely constitutes a song). The second set, though, is goddamn incredible, and is my choice of the best set of the 2nd half of '94 (even over anything on Halloween!). Halley's Comet is a bog standard version, but then Antelope barges in and zips off into the stratosphere, Trey punching the effects pedal at some points because he can. The jam seems to be heading into the trill-off/Rye Rye Rocco portion, then starts whipsawing like BBFCM is about to pop its furry little head out, but then goes upbeat and slides beautifully into My Sweet One, which stops for a weirdly long time (the snoring is quite amusing), then churns back into a fierce, UGLY jam (again, BBFCM emerging from this nastiness would not have been a shock), which returns to an Antelope jam briefly before transitioning into a wicked version of Fixin' To Die, a song very much of this era of Phish but would be welcomed back with open arms.

Fixin' To Die absolutely smokes (it's like Trey poured all the energy he would've put into finishing Antelope into this song), which makes it all the more surprising when the band segues with ease into Ya Mar, one of those glorious transitions that doesn't make sense on paper but works effortlessly in practice. Ya Mar bops along energetically, then goes nearly silent, Trey playing *very* quietly (like a rendition of Shout - dig Trey playing the strings at the very top of the neck!), before the volume gets turned back up and Fish gets to really shine in the closing jam. Then Trey starts up Mike's Song, which is not quite a smooth transition (it doesn't jive with the Ya Mar jam, which has to be slowed down), and the resulting version is nothing special (the only low spot of the set), but the sudden segue into Catapult is quite amusing, and the segue from *that* into McGrupp is fun (as is the resulting McGrupp). Everything else is the usual.

I've listened to this show and liked it fine before, but with time I've really grown to love the hell out of it. The first set is good fun, and the stretch from Antelope to Ya Mar is just pure gold (the Fixin' To Die might be the best part, IMO). A glorious show.


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