A LIVE ONE

This is Phish!!! This Stash was voted for by the fans to make this album. All songs are so incredibly tight. Great Chalkdust and YEM. The Tweezer is only for the advanced Phishheads around us. The Squirming coil is the song you should play on your HiFi to convince your friends of the greatness of this band.

At particular evening I dropped by at our local book store (the big one) here in Jakarta and as usual I went straight to either novel, leadership / management topics or - what else man? - music! Yeah .. I saw at "Performers" section a book about PHISH, a very thick and very big one (I think it's about A4 size). So I asked the bookstore waiter to open the plastic strap and have me a look what is inside. Wow! I was amazed on how the content of the book was telling all nitty-gritty things about a band which - I swear! - had never heard the music yet at all. I had heard it before from some of my prog mates down here but never got interested with the band at all because they could not answer my question: is it symphonic? Is it neo prog? Is it prog met? Or what ? They simple say: "It's hard to categorize .".

About couple of weeks ago my prog guru, Andy Julias, introduced me this live album from Phish. The first spin of the CD I had only one word comment: "confused". It's not that the music is too complex or indigestible , rather I was confused on what category I should put this kind of music into? Nevermind, I don't really care, at the end music that counts. So I tried to have some more spins. It has everything - you name it: rock, jazz, pop, disco, funk. Yes, everything is lumped together into the music of Phish. And I found something interesting about this album: the guitar player who seems to be the mastermind "Trey Anastasio" plays his guitar wonderfully with heavy influences from Santana, Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix. I really enjoy his guitar playing style. The other great musician is the keyboard player Page McConnell.

Musically, the style that Phish plays is basically like a jamming music but with a structured approach and excellent harmony. You will hear the virtuosities of musicians involved in this album through various solo especially guitar and keyboards. The only problem, probably, is the repetitive music segments that may create a boring experience. Good example is "You Enjoy Myself" that consumes 20:57 minutes featuring long guitar work but with some repetitive chords that may be boring for most of us.

Overall, it's a very good live album especially if you enjoy long guitar solo and keyboard work. Trey Anastasio is one of Top 100 guitar player according to Guitar World magazine. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Most Phish heads will be able to tell you with fervor and passion when they first caught the "phever," or the "phire." To the uninitiated, that means they can pinpoint the moment or set of moments in which they became devotees of Phish, and they most likely can name the tune that did it for them as well.

For me, A Live One was that magic tome that set me on the path forever. I stole a tape from one of my fraternity brothers during my freshman year in college and stashed it for the school year with the intention to check it out sometime (no pun intended). It was a TDK Normal Bias analog cassette that simply read "Phish" on the label and nothing else. On the tape was 90% of A Live One, missing a few of the shorter tracks (the throw-aways). The tune that floored me, and I still tear up listening to it, was Harry Hood, taken from a fiery show in Florida on 10-23-94. They were all intense and mind-blowing, but Harry Hood was special. I can distinctly remember walking around in the hot August afternoons during my first newspaper internship and delivering our paper to people who weren't subscribed with this tape looping in my walkman over and over again for weeks.

I was obsessed. I melted my mind repeatedly listening to Trey set the arenas on fire with his laser-like tone and incredibly well executed and phrased solos. Mike Gordon glues the band together and elevates Trey's work to new levels of spontaneity, along with the keyboard koloration Page McConne. Jon Fishman is a drum machine. He has the touch of a peacock feather when needed, and the thunder of Mount Olympus during the next phrase. It is often times difficult to distinguish between the compositions and the jams for a beginner, since the improv is so good - getting used to the band takes a few different shows and listen-thrus.

And on this disc, I must emphasize again the Harry Hood - it is a winding, spiraling, soaring and euphoric musical rollercoaster, and contains more well-executed improv and raw energy than you've heard from any live act in a long time (except maybe Dream Theater ;-). I was listening to a lot of prog when I got into Phish, and they fit perfectly into the category. Trust me - when the end-phase of Hood's closing jam kicks in and you find yourself yelling "Hell Yeah!" as if the Eagles just scored a touchdown, you will then and only then truly appreciate and understand the majesty and off-kilter beauty that is Phish. And you will believe.

This is the very first album I got from Phish and it instantly made me a fan. I have recommended this double disc to so many people and have created so many other phish fans as a result from it. This album has selected songs from various shows from their 1994 tour. It has an excellent version of the song Stash that I think many of the people on this site will enjoy. Another song that's an excellent version is You Enjoy Myself that I know for a fact that everyone would love at this site. Those two, and the very long version of Tweezer (clocking in at a little over a half hour) are perfect examples of what this band is all about. Creating well written structured songs and creating new/different ideas every time they play them live. Don't bother getting any of their studio albums (except for maybe Junta). These guys are known as one of the greatest live acts in the past 20 years and I am blessed that I got to see these genius's play at several shows. They were the best concerts I've ever been to. So if you wanna hear some real talent, then pick up this cd or any other live album of there's.

PS. Don't even bother listening to the example they give you on this site. It shows the softer side of this band and is a terrible representation of what Phish's style is. (No offense progarchives guys)

To those who say that the true genius of Phish lies in their live concerts, this is documentation to prove that hypothesis. As good as many of these songs may be as studio recordings, it's in the live performances that the band takes them as far as they can possibly go. Foe example, Stash on "A Picture Of Nectar" is a wonderful song, but stretched out another five minutes, with the band jamming away in eerie synchonization, it becomes a masterpiece. The same can be said even more about Tweezer, a slightly longer but somewhat inconsequential song on the same album which here travels far into space and becomes a thirty minute epic by the time it finds it's way back home.

It's just too bad that it was around this time that the Phishheads, Deadheads, and whateverelseheads made it just about impossible to get to a Phish concert. I'm glad I was able to see them play many times before they got to that point.

By the way, my copy is an advance release CD from Elektra, coming out over a month before the release date. At this point, the album was titles "Phish Live". But it's the same album.