The tour until the 1st had been going fairly well. Early shows in Las Vegas and Colorado were satisfying, but the band picked up the pace in Cincinnati and began to really hit its stride in Worcester, with a YEM opener and a tremendous Ghost in the second set. What really got everyone buzzing, however, was the 28th in Nassau. At the time, Destiny Unbound was a mythical legend, like a full-set Gamehendge, a thing that was so hyped that it had pretty much become unthinkable to expect, despite repeated attempts by the audience to summon it from the depths (see Hampton 97 or PNC 00). Nonetheless, it’s safe to say that the community was totally and utterly shocked to see Destiny come over the setlist update on rmp. No one could believe it. I still can’t believe that they did it. And not only that, but the band blew the second set away with an absolutely incredible Tweezer that meandered into Soul Shakedown Party. Down in North Carolina, a whole lot of people were wondering why they had skipped the 28th, myself included.

The Coliseum was, and still is, the largest indoor venue that the band has played. Being a general admission show, I wanted to take full advantage of this opportunity to get on the rail so I headed over to the arena from Winston-Salem late at night on the 28th. Arriving to a bunch of Shania Twain fans waiting for tickets (at least I think it was Shania Twain…), me and my other diehard friend Hugh decided to sit right down and wait 12 hours until the show started. That’s right. We sat on concrete in the middle of a cold February night and slept on the ground to secure a front row seat. Humorously now, although it wasn’t funny at the time, the tip-off that a graveyard shift Colesium worker gave us about a ‘side entrance’ turned out to be a joke, as a policeman woke us up at around 6AM. After a quick run to get food, and since there was no one there yet, we moved instead to the front doors of the venue. The hours passed quickly as folks shuffled up to the entrance. My good friend and rmp compadre Salvo and I sat for hours statistically predicting the setlist. We were pretty sure that there would be a 2001, and that Chalkdust would make an appearance, but we were really unsure what to expect since the break-out of Destiny had changed the game. Since Slave had been played in Philadelphia, I also had to change up my sign, which I decided would look good with ‘Peaches’ on it (I mean…if we were gonna choose from everything, why not?).

To this day, I have no clue why we went so early…perhaps we were so excited from the news about Destiny, perhaps because we knew it was going to be an amazing show…in any event, the waiting paid off, as it was easy to quickly scurry through security and grab a space on the rail, right in front of Mike.

On to the show…a rowdy Chalkdust started things off. If I recall, and the video is blanked out, but there was a tremendous wave effort going which got the crowd going (we should really bring that back…). Moma was a nice funky treat, but it was clear that the band needed Foam to warm up. The noticeable action started during Lawn Boy when, during a gorgeous Mike solo, Page meandered over to Trey’s mic to croon in the spotlight. Of course the crowd went bananas, so the obvious next song choice was a loud Zero, which got them all rallied up even more. You can see the reaction at this part of the video. You can also see a very young me, in the white shirt, going ga-ga for Trey (quite embarrassing now...sigh).

After a wild Zero, the band wound down and Fishman missed his cue. At that time, Trey started up what I clearly thought was the beginning to Slave. Right at about 40:41, there is about half a second when I distinctly remember hearing the very first notes of Slave, which shot me straight through the roof. You can see in the video a lone figure jumping sky high. Now, of course, I wasn’t disappointed with Divided Sky; at this point, the band had dwindled the number of performances of this song to a handful of times a tour, and, it certainly was welcome in the first set. But I really was hoping… Anyways, this was a particularly strong version, though, and one of the most memorable parts of the night came right during the silent section. A great thing about this video is that it really captures the intensity of this moment. Somewhere in the noodling that Trey did during the quiet section, a group in the back corner of the arena cracked what literally looked like flares and sent them all around the arena. You can hear the crowd react at 45:34. These things were gigantic and extremely bright and the entire arena was looking at them. The camera pans out at around 46:00 and you can kind of see a few of them being thrown around. Gigantic gigantic glowsticks. Of course that set off a flurry of glowstick chucking, a few of which made their way to stage.

In the middle of all of this, and this is still one of the more bizarre things I’ve seen at a Phish show, right at 47:27 on the video, Trey just holds up his hand, and a glowstick comes out of nowhere and lands in it. He throws it back and then seconds later, Mike picks one clear out of the sky. Of course, then the entire audience starts throwing these things at the band – hundreds of these things are coming down from all over, and Trey finally is waving to stop. You can see Fishman huddle behind his drums for safety. Anyways, Divided Sky was, from what I remember, pretty good. In the jam, I distinctly remember hearing Waves teases. After a nice calm Mist, the band, which had just played Waves a few nights earlier, unleashed a wonderful Waves which, at the time, I had been wanting to hear since MSG. It’s a beaut – of course nowhere near, say, the Bethel version, or even the absolutely amazing IT version, but it still translates pretty well.
Really, though, set 2 is where the action was this night. Rock N Roll started off this beautiful set with some early machine gun. The band got in a groove, and Trey and Fish just hinted at Oye Como Va and a little theme they’d return to later. I really thought things were going to take off in the Rock N Roll, especially right at about 9:19 when Trey got into the “we’re going to start a jam” groove pattern (you can hear it in many really big jams, including the Cypress Rock N Roll). Unfortunately, after about a minute of potential, they reeled this one in. It was frustrating, at the time, especially when things moved into the rather mundane Wilson. But then…there was Piper.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of Phish. But the 15 odd minutes that make up this Piper are among the best minutes I’ve ever spent watching or listening to the band. Starting at about 21:00 in the video, the band would type-II this version into the realm of legend. Now, before I talk about what I like about this version, let me say a few things. Firstly, I know that there are many great Pipers. I saw Merriwether in ’98 and was in the front row for the mammoth Oswego and Cypress versions. Although I was not on the west coast for the predecessor of this version earlier in the tour, and there have been many great Pipers since, I think this may be one of the best Pipers, if not, the finest Piper, that the band has played. Sure, I was right there. In fact, I can see myself throughout the entire video and I’m clearly biased both because I was present and also because I’ve listened to the version a hundred times, but this Piper really deserves a listen.

Now that you are forewarned, back to the show. Right around 23:00, Fishman started this shuffle beat, and Trey fiddled around with this funky little groove. It slowly morphed into what is listed as the Oye Como Va chords, but I just remember this bouncy, funky, lilting groove with no set pattern. You can hear it distinctly at about 24:00. This is also right about the time that Trey turned facing stage left and stared straight at me. Now, I still don’t know if he was locked into how I was dancing, or what. He likely wasn’t even looking at me. I don’t know, but what I do know is that the following 10 minutes or so were just pure hose and at the time I was grooving back and forth staring up with Trey grinning and then he begins a soft solo right on top of the jam, with Page moving in support. The jam just bounced and twisted around until about 26:00 when it took on a ferocity and things picked up. So there I was, bouncing around, listening to this great type II, and this jam is coming together. The band was completely in tune with each other and then they finally break it down. Right about 27:00, we move back into the jam-chords! Yes! Things hadn’t ended in Rock N Roll after all! Right around 27:50, Trey backs off to the bottom, Fish is holding down this funky lilting beat, and suddenly Page is building tension. All of the sudden, here come these back and forth lights from Kurouda that just capture everything. This back and forth pattern. You can see it at about 28:15. At that time, I remember thinking that this was as locked in as the band could get, and then of course, things get even funkier and Kurouda lights up the back of the stage. Things kind of wash away into space for a bit before the band brings the jam full circle and there’s this Trey shred, the lights go wild, and the jam screams to a conclusion. Pure hose.

This all felt like quite a ride, but the ride ended and things moved to space. At that point, I’m convinced that Trey wanted to use his loop pedal but couldn’t quite get it working right. At the time I wasn’t really not where things were going to go. They were funky enough to go anywhere, really, but Trey couldn’t quite work his pedalsland there was a little stall. An extremely funky 2001 followed, and included one of my favorite light shows I’ve ever seen Kurouda do, mainly because he worked with so little. Things were quite dark for this 2001. The camera zooms out so you can really see some of the nice patterns. I love the rig CK had for this run. Wolfman’s was extra funky, and Mike really took hold of things from this point onward and singlehandedly moved into Boogie On. Somewhere in there there was a Velvet Sea, but what I remember mostly at the end was the pure and total chaos that the Antelope brought. Sometimes there are just those Antelopes when you are convinced that things are getting evil, and this was one of them. Right around the 1:13:00 mark, you’ll see what I mean. Things got totally atonal, and I just remember feeling like things were about to explode, including just about everyone around me.
The Carolina closer made the night special and hey, First Tube is fun, don’t get me wrong. But at the time I was convinced that this show had been wonderful, and I was hoping that the band wouldn’t just end with it. Amazingly, Trey decided to start up YEM, and the crowd went bezerk. A perfect choice, and a wonderful way to end a tour. This was a strong YEM and with the Proud Mary vocal jam, it ended things just the way I was hoping.

So, about 24 hours after I had begun to make my way to this show, things finally ended. We made our way to Checkers and finally ate something (it had been about 14 hours since our last meal) and tried to figure out what had just happened.

Seeing this video is a fantastic memory. These days I couldn’t imagine getting in line a full day ahead of time (sleeping on the pavement) and waiting that long to get in the front. In fact, I’m pretty sure that may be the longest someone has ever waited in line at the front of the venue to get a front row seat. Nowadays I like to arrive at my seats about 5 minutes before the band starts, just about 8:10. But, back then, I didn’t want anything to interfere with a direct sightline into the hose. It was a great experience and one that I will treasure.

So, I know that this is a pretty long recap for a Friday video, but I wanted to thank everyone for reading and the Phish.net community for letting me share it. I’m pretty sure lots of people will disagree about this Piper being one of the best, but it was and still is to me, and I think it deserves a listen.

“Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning”

Complete Set 2 LINK

Every Friday, we highlight a video with a brief recap of the show it is from and what makes it interesting, noteworthy or simply fun. With the help of Dan Saewitz from Phishvids.com, we hope to keep the stream of videos coming at you entertaining and interesting. Have a cool video you’d like to suggest? Interested in contributing a review yourself? Submit ideas here.