The other night, my family and I were out to eat at a restaurant by our house, where they offered a one-pound burger, loaded with everything except the kitchen sink. If you finished everything on your plate, you would get (along with a call from your cardiologist) a free t-shirt. I looked at the description of the burger, and all I could think was, \u201cmeat orgasm.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a sense, that\u2019s kind of the vibe I get from The Clifford Ball<\/i>, a seven-DVD set chronicling a two-day concert event-cum-gathering held by Phish in 1996 at a decommissioned Air Force Base in New York. And the parallel between the burger and over nine hours of entertainment is surprisingly clear: you know it\u2019s a hell of a lot to get through, and there are times you\u2019ll doubt if you\u2019ll be able, but in the end, you\u2019ll feel it was worth it. (The only difference is watching the DVDs won\u2019t leave you bloated or feeling like throwing up.)<\/p>\n
Now, to the diehard followers of Phish, I am probably not a true \u201cphan,\u201d as I\u2019ve never seen the band live, and while I have damn near all their discography, not only are there discs I\u2019ve never listened to, but I don\u2019t recognize all their songs from the first few notes. However, this puts me, I believe, at an advantage in reviewing such a set, simply because I don\u2019t have a lot of expectations going into the gig.<\/p>\n
The first thing that I\u2019ve quickly learned about Phish is that the lyrical content is not the most important aspect of the song \u2013 it\u2019s the music and the way that it can carry the moment into areas completely unexpected. It\u2019s not what a various member of the band is singing, it\u2019s how Phish \u2013 guitarist Trey Anastasio, keyboardist Page McConnell, bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman \u2013 operate as one of the tightest musical units I think I\u2019ve ever seen in over 20 years of reviewing music. (Witness the soundcheck on the bonus disc \u2013 something you could almost argue is the unofficial \u201ceighth set\u201d of the event. This is not a time where what is played is musical chaff; Phish truly keep every note\u2019s importance, as well as the journey that performing \u2013 even to just themselves and their crew \u2013 serious\u2026 though I swore I could hear a crowd cheering faintly after the first jam completed.)<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t to say that Phish don\u2019t sometimes struggle to get to that magical place. The second set of day one actually drags at the start, as songs like \u201cSplit Open And Melt,\u201d \u201cFree\u201d and \u201cThe Squirming Coil\u201d just don\u2019t seem to have the spark that any song from the first set possessed. (I also quickly found myself worried when Anastasio locked into a pattern of just rocking back and forth during extended jams \u2013 it seemed to me like he was searching for the right wave of music to jump onto, and wasn\u2019t seeing it for some time.)<\/p>\n
Fortunately, set two of day one is resurrected by, of all things, a set of acoustic numbers from the then-unreleased Billy Breathes<\/i> and a barbershop quartet rendition of \u201cHello My Baby.\u201d From then on, Phish literally can do no wrong \u2013 which is where the second realization comes in. This is, namely, that the light show (manned by Chris Kuroda) is as intregal a part of a Phish concert as the music. (Ironically, the two sets of the event played in daylight are just as powerful, making me wonder \u2013 aside from the lighting magic \u2013 why more con It is during the course of day two \u2013 discs four through six \u2013 that Phish truly lock into place and show just how much fun a Phish concert can be. From Anastasio and Gordon doing an impromptu samba mid-song to the way that the band gained new life from watching extra performers like a ribbon acrobat or trampoline jumpers, to even covers of \u201cFrankenstein,\u201d \u201c2001\u201d (from the first day) and \u201cA Day In The Life,\u201d by the time Phish performs the final song \u2013 an abbreviated take on \u201cHarpua\u201d \u2013 the viewer, like the audience, is regretting the fact that this marathon has ended.<\/p>\n Two points of contention, though. First, maybe it was my television (and, at points, computer), but Gordon\u2019s bass seemed to be buried so far back in the mix that it was inaudible. (A similar argument could be made for Gordon\u2019s vocals on sets two and three of day one.) Second, I have to admit that I wasn\u2019t terribly inspired by the \u201cflatbed jam\u201d that was performed at four in the morning on day two. Essentially just an open jam with no musical structure, the execution was, at times, as sleepy as some of the concertgoers awakened by this surprise had to have been. (I guess I would have liked more band commentary during the documentary \u2013 how Phish pulled a concert like this off is quite interesting to watch.)<\/p>\n Were there disappointments? Sure \u2013 any Phish fan worth their weight probably walked away wishing they had played certain songs (I, for one, missed hearing \u201cLlama\u201d or \u201cStash\u201d), and Fishman\u2019s vocals were underutilized. Also missing was the infamous \u201cvacuum solo\u201d that Fishman sometimes performs \u2013 but all these are minor quibbles and matters of personal preference that hardly distract from the overall set. (In its defense, I found a few new Phish songs I can count among my favorites.)<\/p>\n The Clifford Ball<\/i> is a monstrous set that will push even the most diehard Phish fan to their limit \u2013 and this truly proves to be a good thing. Although part of \u201cThe Great Went\u201d was released as the film Phish: It<\/i>, one can only hope that the other multi-day concert events that Phish put on over the years will soon find their way into similar sets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5628],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41433","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-phish","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41433"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}