Essentially, I'm referring to that time period maybe between six months and two years after you first started going to live Phish shows and listening to the concert boots. This is a time period when all the songs are new songs and each presents it's own special challenges to our understanding and appreciation.

So many of the more complexly structured Phish songs were kind of difficult to understand at the beginning because they shifted so rapidly at what seemed to be a million miles an hour. Way before I even hoped to understand and subsequently appreciate what Phish was doing together as a four piece combo, I was in awe solely of their technical ability to start and finish one of their songs together. The understanding came later, and the appreciation after that.

And this time period for me, when I was a "Phresh Phan," was late '97 through all of '98 and part of '99. And although now I can recognize why most of the long-term fans believe the '93 through '95-'96 as Phish's strongest years, I'll never be able to venture very far away from some of my favorite music from the '97 and '98 time period.

Although the band was beginning to demonstrate more inconsistent performances from show to show, and from song to song within shows, when they did manage to sync up for certain performances or show segments, I really don't believe they ever played any better .......... in spite of my prejudice as a new fan.

When I start speculating on Phish and their music, it's generally stimulated by some song that particularly impressed me on my way into work in the morning, and quite honestly, this is definitely the case this morning. And the show was 12/3/97 from Philly, more specifically, the Bowie->Possum opener of the second set.

The band was pretty loose at the beginning of this set, and played around with the opening to Bowie in classically interesting style, which included the Simpson's secret language and a Take Me Out to the Ballgame tease. But that's not what most impressed me about this version.

Although unfinished (and I generally consider finished versions of the Phish classics preferable to unfinished ones), this Bowie demonstrated that rare Phish talent to lose themselves to some internally understood musical direction, and just play their instruments in response to the rhythms and melodies that each of them contributed to jam. Non-verbal communication is the best way I can describe it.

I really love this band best when the barest thread of the song's original structure is maintained in their heads, while all four members just begin reacting to what each of them is coming up with from moment to moment, from bar to bar. Something happens, at least in my perception of the music, where no one individual in the band is more or less a driver of where the music is going.

It's kind of like the Big Ball Jam, only there's only one ball and it's an audible one, totally invisible. And each band member keeps the ball in the air by adding his own special lick to the song in turn or together, or in some minor configuration of two or more of them.

The jam in this Bowie is a prime example of a nice groove being built and shared by all four of them equally. It's not anything exceptionally "flashy," but just four guys equally involved in solid, beneficent emotional exchanges with their musical instruments as the means to communicate. It's really very intuitive playing.

I kind of believe that the level of emotional play inside of the Bowie spirited them into the high energy Possum which followed. The Possum could have been one of the best versions of this song of all time except for a major slip by Fish during the high point of the jam. In spite of the faux pas, it was overall itself, a strong performance.

Both nights in Philly that tour had their high moments. 12/2/97 had a Mike's Groove which Charlie Dirksen spent a good deal of time praising [http://www.phish.net/reviews/mikes/12-02-97.html], and like I said, notwithstanding the wild swings in consistency, there are moments during this time period when Phish was better than ever.

The better songs from these two nights would yield a top quality "best of" remix disk if anyone is really into making re-mixes from their CDs. I would really be interested in coordinating something like this with someone who has these shows on disks. During this late '97 tour, there was some very fine Phish music played overall, and it would be a shame to miss or discount it in favor of the more consistently energetic earlier years.

thanks for the time, and thanks to Phresh Phan,

- bill