well, here we are at the final day of bonnaroo. its been pretty crazy so far and we’ve done a lot of things we never thought we would do and seen a lot of things we. again this is all based on assumptions and expectations, but i hope it was all awesome. what i do know for sure that this excellent weekend will be closed out with a second performance by phish. ive seen phish probably about 10 times total over the past several years including the mud-laden coventry festival, which im praying has not been repeated these past few days. while im partially talking about the music and the performance, im mostly referring to the ridiculous insane crazy quicksand mud that seemed to engulf everything and everyone in its path. while it sucks being all muddy, the real problem i have is that youre already completely exhausted from walking, standing and dancing all day at these fests, and to have to trudge through the mud the entire day only saps away lots of that precious festival energy that youve been stocking up on for the last few weeks. it definitely wouldnt ruin my time there, but id really prefer it to not even have the chance.
phishs time slot tonight is 8pm-12am and then im sure there will be some crazy partying and then we will pass out forever and have to drive home 10 hours tomorrow. im hoping theyll be in top form after playing a few shows in the week before but anythings possible really. im looking forward to their famous light show, which you get a glimpse of above. the shot at the top of this post was my computer background for quite some time back in the day and one of my favorites, but there are a multitude of moments like this in the course of any show of theirs.
ironically, the phish track im bringing you today isnt a phish track at all. its a cover of frank zappas “peaches en regalia”. they used to play it all the time, but the legend goes that zappas family asked the quartet to refrain from performing the song in the future. im not sure why, but supposedly they did, and i dont think theyve played it since. trey has been quoted as saying that he drew a lot of inspiration from frank zappa. namely in that he inspired him to use instruments in ways they arent typically used (on a side note, i believe st. vincent aka annie clark has said the same thing about all the instrumentation on her latest album “actor”). for example, in one of his recent solo tours, he performed “sultans of swing” by dire straits regularly. instead of playing the crazy guitar solo himself, however, it was played note for note by an entire brass section. its pretty cool to hear. anyway, enjoy the track below. and dont ask what show this is from because i have no idea. i think theres also a little blip in the middle, so please ignore that.
phish – peaches en regalia
buy this track on itunes (another live version)
buy this track on amazon (another live version)
BONUS!!!! since phish played twice at bonnaroo, im providing you with another track thats pretty neato. its called talk from the billy breathes album. soft chromatic descending baselines overlayed with jazzed up piano chords? youll like it. and it will quietly close out the weekend just as our exhausted drive home will close out our weekend. have no fear, i will spend all of tuesday at rest.
phish – talk
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I for one thought the Phish performances were lackluster when compared to the many other acts that blew me away at Bonnaroo.
I can’t say I was very familiar with Phish’s material, but after listening to them for an hour and a half on Friday and Sunday, I can honestly say that I enjoyed the half hour acoustic set from MyNameIsJohnMichael, some mediocre Conor Oberst wannabe, much more than Phish’s set.
Maybe I’m being harsh, but I expected much more from a band that headlined not one, but two nights. Bonnaroo should have given Trent Reznor a two hour set on the main stage instead of another mundane Phish performance.
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chris Reply:
June 17th, 2009 at 11:44 am
thanks for reading the site. my opinion of sunday nights show may have been a little biased because they played some of my favorite songs that ive never seen live before (punch you in the eye, the horse>silent in the morning), but i thought it was just all out high energy most of the time (with the exception of a few moments in the second set). the past shows ive seen start out strong then lull you to sleep at times just when everyones ready to go nuts but i felt like this one didnt do that, at least for me.
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