Tag: sam’s tavern

Show #73: 9/13/88

Tuesday, 09/13/1988
Sam’s Tavern, Burlington, VT

Set 1: Walk Away,  Funky Bitch,  You Enjoy Myself,  Flat Fee,  McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters >  Wilson >  Peaches en Regalia,  Good Times Bad Times

Set 2: Ride Captain Ride,  Boogie On Reggae Woman,  Cities >  Dave’s Energy Guide > Cities,  Run Like an Antelope,  Fluffhead

Set 3: Jam,  Andy’s Chest[1] ->  Big Black Furry Creature from Mars ->  Dave’s Energy Guide ->  Big Black Furry Creature from Mars,  Sanity ->  Jam[2],  Fire

[1] First known Phish performance.
[2] Fish on vacuum; first known public occurrence of Fish playing the vacuum.

Night 2 at Sam’s Tavern and what a night for history. The only problem is we don’t have the tapes. We only have the first two sets minus the “Good Times, Bad Times”. This is a total bummer. I wonder if it was another case where the taper had to leave early or if it was the tape was destroyed or lost. We may never know or maybe Phish Inc. is sitting on it waiting for a historic reveal. Only one man knows and I unfortunately am not that man…yet. Let’s focus on what we do have and end with what we don’t have. Phish.com lists Set 1 and 2 as one long get where Phish.net breaks it up. It is unclear not he recording as “Peaches” seems to go right into “Ride Captain Ride” but that might just be due to the loss of “GTBT”. The first set is pretty “Smokin’!” as Trey said at Mont Alto. Two opening rippers int he for of “Walk Away” and “Peaches”. A “You Enjoy Myself” almost played at half-speed. I can’t tell if this is them learning it in anticipation of recording it (for Junta) or a tape imperfection causing playback at a slower speed. Might even be both. It’s definitely a candidate for slowest “YEM” yet. A quick spin through “Flat Fee”. This is interesting because it will be the last performance of “Flat Fee” until the Giant Country Horns tour of 1991. It may be a short jazz tune but it is dearly missed and I can’t wait for it’s return. This “McGrupp” forms a wonderful early showpiece for the stylings of Page McConnell almost taking on a modern “Squirming Coil” feel. The 1st set highlight though is the pairing of “Wilson” and “Peaches”. Right when Trey would normally break in to the “Boom Blat” lyric, he instead yells out the drum into to “Peaches” and it’s a beautiful early segue.

Set 2 kicks off with a trio of covers. First, we get a “Ride Captain Ride” that’s well played but has botched lyrics. The only performance of 1988. Then after a request of “Aborigine Women?” per Trey, he deciphers it for Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie On Reggae Woman.” This is not a very good version and the band rightfully shelved the tune afterwards. While common today and a huge fan favorite, this would be the last performance of the song until 12/7/97 in Dayton, OH. Hopefully, they’ll hit it better after almost 10 years of practice, right? Another nice performance of the “Cites>DEG>Cities” combo but nothing outstanding. We get the first “Run Like An Antelope” since Colorado. This is important because it’s a 19-show gap for the song, the 3rd longest. We’ll have one more long one in 1992, so fortunately for me I like the song and can’t wait to see where it goes. This version gets very jazzy during the build-up and Fishman’s drumming seems a little more erratic, which is fun to listen to. “Fluffhead” ends the recording and gets cut off before it can finish.

Now let’s talk about what’s missing. We’re missing an untitled jam that would have been cool to see unstructured jamming from 1988 before songs could go “Type II”. We’re missing the only known version of Lou Reed’s “Andy’s Chest”. This is the last song by Reed performed by the band until 1995, taking the Velvet Underground influence away until formally acknowledging it in 1998 with Loaded. We’re missing an I’m-sure-wild performance of “BBFCFM>DEG>BBFCFM”. Some real punk rock potential there. The big missing puzzle piece here is the jam out of “Sanity”, which is the first known performance on the vacuum by Fishman. Fish playing the vacuum has become such a huge piece of lore that it has it’s own line of Phan art. Crosswalk signs with him pulling the vacuum would become seen everywhere. It won them the battle of the bands at the Front later.It was the centerpiece of this past New Year’s gag. It would be amazing to hear what that first solo sounded like or the crowd’s reaction to such a wild idea.  Again, I’m not sure if we’ll ever know what it was like and that makes this historian a little sad. This however does earn 167 Main St. a place on the Phish history map.

UPDATE: So, I told Kevin Shapiro about an error on the 9/13/88 setlist page of Phish.com. It listed “Ride Captain Ride” as “Mystery Train”, two totally different songs. Not only did he fix that but confirmed “Ride Captain Ride” as the Set 2 opener. I’m gonna leave my original test as is but it has been updated on Phish.com.

Show #72: 9/12/88

Monday, 09/12/1988
Sam’s Tavern, Burlington, VT

Set 1: Shaggy Dog,  Take the ‘A’ Train,  Fee,  Bold As Love

Set 2: Timber (Jerry),  Satin Doll >  The Lizards,  The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Avenu Malkenu >  Bundle of Joy >  Camel Walk,  The Practical Song[1],  Harry Hood, Esther[1]

[1] First known performance.

As with early shows, you’re going to get some real rough tapes that are either late generations or perhaps were not recorded that well. This show is unfortunately one of those tapes. It’s got tape clicks and poor balances but what survives has some interesting moments. No real banter here just solid playing back at the smaller Sam’s Tavern. “Fee is performed with the megaphone. “The Lizards” unfortunately has the “If I Were A Dog” outro cut. Avenue Malkenu has a “Chag Sameach” greeting from Mike on the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that had begun the night before and segues effortlessly into a rare “Bundle of Joy” outside of Fluffhead”. Trey tries to milk time by debuting “The Practical Song”, a song about stocking up on peanut butter. A solid “Harry Hood” is ruined by the poor quality of the tape. The set closes with what probably make this show have any significance. This is the first known performance of “Esther” and it also has different lyrics. This version has more detail about the puppet and ends with the people chasing the old man and not Esther. Without the change, maybe Esther wouldn’t have died in Vegas…but that’s for a much later day. The only must listen is the early version of “Esther” but even then, the quality is poor enough to advise anyone to just skip this one.

Shows #58/59: 7/11-12/88

Monday, 07/11/1988
Sam’s Tavern, Burlington, VT

Set 1: Satin Doll,  Suzy Greenberg,  The Curtain With,  Funky Bitch,  Fire,  Bold As Love, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent >  Fly Famous Mockingbird,  Golgi Apparatus,  Alumni Blues >  Letter to Jimmy Page[1] >  Alumni Blues

Encore: McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters[2] >  La Grange

[1] Fish drum solo.
[2] Fish on trombone.

Teases:
· Dave’s Energy Guide tease in Suzy Greenberg

Finally, the band gets back on track with some purpose here at these two gigs. Now you’d think Sam’s Tavern means a new venue and some more Burlington music history. However, it turns out Sam’s Tavern was just Finbar’s renamed and remains Manhattan Pizza today at the corner of Church and Main. So nothing exciting there but let’s get to the music. “We’d like to speed things up a bit”, kicks in the recording on 7/11 as he begins to play the chords to “Satin Doll”. It’s interesting to hear him sing a real jazz standard here. I liked it. “The Curtain With” is noteworthy in that Trey seems to think the jam was awful and calls the tune “The Living Nightmare” and that it was written by their drummer. Oh Trey; busting Fishman’s balls since 1983. We get a smoking double shot of Hendrix with “Fire” and “Bold as Love” To date, this remains the only time this has occurred in Phish history. This is also the first recorded “Bold as Love”. It apparently debuted at the Front on July 7th, a show that has not seen the light of day. Trey nails the outro solo with great tone for such an early performance. A very solid “Forbin>Mockingbird” follows but does not contain narration. Of note, Trey graduated from Goddard the day of this show and according to the show notes, pulled out his diploma, set it on Page’s piano, and then proceeded to tear into the very spirited “Alumni>Letter>Alumni”. He makes note of that fact at the end of the song. We only get part of set 2. The highlight hear is a very nice “McGrupp”.

Tuesday, 07/12/1988
Sam’s Tavern, Burlington, VT

Set 1: Cities,  The Lizards,  Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley,  Good Times Bad Times, Happy Birthday to You[1] >  Peaches en Regalia,  You Enjoy Myself,  I Didn’t Know[2]

Set 2: Blue Bossa,  Take the ‘A’ Train >  Timber (Jerry),  Fluffhead >  Jesus Just Left Chicago, Makisupa Policeman,  Slave to the Traffic Light,  AC/DC Bag >  Roll Like a Cantaloupe

[1] Sung for “Jen.”
[2] Fish on trombone.

Teases:
· Happy Birthday to You quote in Peaches en Regalia
· Flash Light tease in You Enjoy Myself

7/12/88 however is the better of this pair. It starts with a solid “Cities>The Lizards” combo. However, “Sneakin’ Sally” is where it picks up. They go into a very “YEM”-like vocal jam. Totally going outside the usual framework of “Sally” and getting weird with it. They finish up but then do a weird acapella “Happy Birthday to You” for Jen. Whatever got into the band continued and they sing along with the melody to “Peaches En Regalia” AND THEN they turn the “Peaches” melody into “Happy Birthday to You by Frank Zappa”, which is hilarious. But then they do play “YEM” and it in turn has its first real funky vocal jam. The vocal jam was already present but I think this the first real time it became the YEM VOCAL JAM, fi you understand. Not just wild screaming into the microphones. They close the set with a fun “I Didn’t Know” in a new key of A-flat!

Set 2 opens with a double shot of Jazz. The actual debut of “Blue Bossa”, we think. It’s played very well. If you listen carefully enough, you’ll swear it sounds like another song and after a little research, the studio version of “The Landlandy” on A Picture of Nectar definitely had a couple of bits ripped from “Blue Bossa” especially by Page and Mike. Another long, if not exciting, version of “A Train” follows. A solid “Timber (Jerry)”, a tight “Fluffhead”, and casual “Jesus Just Left Chicago” bridge nicely up to the set’s top highlight. Earlier in these posts, I wondered how the band found what to do with “Slave to the Traffic Light”; that it hadn’t yet reached its potential. This is the show where that magically happened. This “Slave” is an early masterpiece. The composed section plays easy enough with the right tone and feeling but at 3:23 when it drops down, Page and Trey get very quiet but with amazing interplay between the two. The jam then has an amazing slow build to the peak. Around the 4:30 mark, Page hits just the right notes on his electric piano to fill Trey’s empty spaces and it’s glorious. The way the while thing pauses and almost breaks down at about 5:00 is amazing. Mike playing the counterpoint bass is tasty. Fish eases off just enough to be effective. This is the blueprint for a perfect “Slave”. It’s incredible. Then when it bursts wide open at 6:43, it’s had just the right among of tension from the band that it hits HARD. You’re ready for the glorious peak because you’ve had the perfect journey there. And the peak is nailed, not too many notes from Trey, perfect coloring from Page and Mike. The arpeggios at 7:50 just magical. In my mind, it should have closed the set. However, you got to give the bar crowd one last chance to dance and they do so with a boogying “AC/DC Bag” and then rips right into “Roll Like A Cantaloupe”, which the crowd rightly goes nuts for. One of only 4 times it’s ever been played, I wonder what sparked Trey to bust it out that night as they just played “Run Like An Antelope” during the previous Nectar’s run and would go back to it the next show. The band reaches wild peaks during this version, pushing the tempo harder and harder. It’s almost the antithesis of “Slave”. Where “Slave” needs patience and delicateness to counter the peak, “Antelope/Cantaloupe” needs chaos and energy to reach the peak. That release before the refrain is just a blast off point. Such a crazy range of energy and emotion in only 3 songs. It’d be wilder if they had played them back to back. The band nails the release here though and Trey goes into the story about going to the grocery store. Page thanks the crowd and end tape. 7/12/88 is a must-listen. Such a powerful night.