Friday's 13 - Phish '94 into MMJ into DMB

Without planning ahead, I managed to end up with tickets to three summer concerts all within 5 nights of each other in the New York area - and have some thoughts looking back at those three shows: Phish at Madison Square Garden (1994 night), My Morning Jacket headlining the Great South Bay Music Festival, and Dave Matthews Band at Jones Beach.

Phish, the 1994 show on Saturday night at MSG.

Seeing Phish as MSG is almost unfair at this point, especially when trying to compare concerts to one another, as the Garden is essentially their adopted home arena and they are almost guaranteed to deliver a memorable show even 40 years into their career. This trip down 1.0 Phish fandom memory lane was great to see in person; and to follow along with at home for the other nights. As someone that went to a few shows a year in the late 1990's and now averages about one Phish show every year or so, sticking to the 1990's material was 100% in my wheelhouse. [Although, I am not opposed to some of the more derided 'love and light' songs, especially when they play those into jams it basically does not matter what song it is (at least in my opinion). I have more of blindspot with respect to the early 200o's Phish catalog].

While the show was excellent top to bottom, in my view the standouts were the almost 20 minute Simple in the 2 spot; the very expected Set 2 Down With Disease weaving in and out with Tweezer in the second set; as well as the Purple Rain into Tweeprise encore. More on Purple Rain in a bit.

My Morning Jacket at Great South Bay Music Festival.

It had been 16 years since I last saw My Morning Jacket live (the It Still Moves night at Terminal 5), so the anticipation was building to see them at the relatively small Great South Bay Music Festival out in Patchogue on Long Island.

They wasted no time and kicked off with State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.) while the sun was still setting behind the crowd giving the band a twilight glow. I had secretly held out hopes that Rick or Peter from Goose would have trekked down from Wilton to join in on the fun, but alas that was just a pipe dream. After the opener, they settled into a wonderful groove mixing in more laid back tunes (Feel You, Time Waited, etc.) with the more straightforward rock tunes, and even dropped One Big Holiday mid-set. I fully expected OBH to be the encore or closer of a festival set but its mid-set placement it indicated Jim James and company had bigger things in store.

While the band opted for just a solid 2 hour straight show with no encore, they spent the final 30 minutes or so in full rock god mode - dropping Off the Record, then Victory Dance, shredding Holding On to Black Metal and concluding with the one-two punch of Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2 and Wordless Chorus. In my humble opinion, My Morning Jacket is one of the more underrated bands out there and should be headlining bigger venues than they typically do, but I will take a killer festival headlining set from them any day of the week.

Dave Matthews Band at Jones Beach.

I somehow have managed not see the Dave Matthews Band live ever and I pretty much checked out on them after Under the Table and Dreaming and Crash for no real reason other than other artists interested me more. I still have those two CD's along with a Dave and Tim double live CD somewhere in my home. I finally went to see them at Jones Beach, one of the mainstay venues on the summer amphitheater / outdoor shed circuit, with the weather finally cooperating as the original show date was postponed a week due to weather issues and coming a day after major Long Island flooding. That postponement did not impact turnout as it was close to a sellout.

With minimal expectations, I was pleasantly surprised by the show. I ended up knowing about half the songs, which was more than I expected. I basically had one song that I wanted to see them play, #41, which they did play exceptionally well mid-set. I'm of the opinion that #41 is far and away their best song but I also know that is a totally subjective thought. From my seat, they did a great job weaving in and out of their older songs and some (relatively) newer material.

The band was exceptional and tight, even though I somehow forgot that Boyd Tinsley is no longer in the band and thus DMB has no violin player. I also was unaware that Tim Reynolds was in DMB these days; always thought he was part of Dave's acoustic side project between DMB proper albums and tours. I was a little disappointed the Jones Beach crowd did not get any of the quirky Dave Mathews dance moves during the show, but was equally not surprised that I did not understand any words he said between songs that were not "thank you."

The Covers - Beatles, AC/DC, Prince, Grateful Dead, and Led Zeppelin

For these three shows, I was treated to 5 exceptional covers. Phish's bust out encore of Prince's Purple Rain was the highlight with Jon Fishman taking vocal duty in addition to his vacuum cleaner solo while Trey drummed. The vacuum solo led to a seamless transition on the drums that allowed Trey to absolutely shred the solo to Purple Rain in a way that only he, or Prince, probably could.

Phish's Highway to Hell cover that led off the second set (which I think would have been the Set I closer had the sound not gone out during Wolfman's Brother), was a great way to get the crowd back after the 50 minute abbreviated first set. The crowd was very calm and mellow during the early set break, which I attest to the faith Phish fans have in the band doing the right thing.

I also figured a Beatles cover was in the cards for '94 night given The White Album was the Halloween album that year. I assumed While My Guitar Gently Weeps would be the safe option as the only Beatles song in regular Phish rotation, they swerved and busted out Back in the U.S.S.R. keeping with the week's theme of '90s-era bust outs.

My Morning Jacket, midway through their headlining set treated the Long Island crowd to a rocking One More Saturday Night; primarily as an homage to an earlier Bob Weir tribute set at the festival. This ended up leading to the above-mentioned mid-show One Big Holiday.

Finally, Dave Matthews Band treated the Jones Beach crowd to their version of Led Zeppelin's Fool In the Rain. From my vantage point, the music was spot on and sounded extremely close to the original Zeppelin version, but the sound from the vocals seemed a bit off in the mix muting the song's impact.

What did I miss or overlook?