Sunday 07/03/2011 by zzyzx

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE 4TH SET

Ball Square has a building labeled USA storage. It has 4 sides, each with some doors. Some of them were open over the weekend for various art thingies.

After the show What Cheer played by one of the sides, drawing people in. Then a lot of mist came out of the roof of the building. And then a guy on stilts in a patriotic outfit started walking around.

Then after all of the lights at Ball Square went out and an announcement went out over the PA that the power was out and therefore the factories would no longer be able to make their product, which is the ultimate product. Then for some reason I didn't quite get, it suddenly worked and a box was handed to the stilt guy who put it on a ramp which carried it up to the roof of the building and dropped it over. Sometime during all of this, music started playing over the PA and after a few minutes it became apparent that it was Phish. Doors opened so we could see inside, but all we could see was silhouettes due to screens blocking our view as the band member you could see from your side played; each one had their own house, so to speak.

The jam went on for an hour or so, started out very dark and mainly effects based, but sometimes Floyd-esque. There's an amazing 4-5 minute section about a half hour in that really does sound like Pink Floyd. It then went into another sound effects jam before they started playing the most bizarre version of Sleeping Monkey ever.

There was a lot of confusion going around with people thinking that they chose the wrong spot to stand in - no one could move to a different side since due to the location of the secret set, What Cheer attracting people, the timing of the set (not long after the show) and the rumor getting out, it was easily the best attended secret set (note that the Lemonwheel 4th set was not secret. It was announced from the stage) - because their view was blocked, not knowing that that was true for everyone. Moreover the speakers were surrounding the building in a circle, pointing in, making it sound like the music was coming from behind the crowd instead of in front of them, a very surreal effect.

It was very weird and very cool, easily the highlight of the weekend so far.

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Comments

, comment by AltimusJones
AltimusJones thanks for the description. a lot of us here at home are waking up knowing there probably was a secret set last night and trying to piece together the details... this helps :)
, comment by tmwsiy
tmwsiy thanks zzyzx for taking the time to get this recap up... sounds like a blast
, comment by jugglerswithfire
jugglerswithfire WHAT? :)
, comment by MomaDan
MomaDan It sounded awesome on the stream. Easily the highlight of the festie so far
, comment by muckster
muckster Thanks for that - couldn't figure it out from photos on twitter. It sounds like perhaps the band members couldn't see each other either?
, comment by hrc333
hrc333 A couple more details:

The power came back because a guy across the field was working one of the power machines. This slowly brought the power back up.

There was definitely a rotation jam for part. We could easily see it was Gordon for a bit on the keys.

Page spent about a quarter o the jam on the Theomon.
, comment by sharininthegroove09
sharininthegroove09 Yeah, word is there was much instrument switching. Brilliant jam. Thank you Phish!! Amazing.
, comment by pzerbo
pzerbo Just finished listening... awesome stuff! So ironic that THIS happened, well, literally "inside the box!" :-)
, comment by lumpblockclod
lumpblockclod @pzerbo said:
Just finished listening... awesome stuff! So ironic that THIS happened, well, literally "inside the box!" :-)
(Literally) LOL!
, comment by User_11821_
User_11821_ So how do we grab a listen?
, comment by tmwsiy
tmwsiy @Peacey said:
So how do we grab a listen?
d/l the show from LP would be one way.

PhishTwit has a video, not sure about audio quality.

Will likely eventually find its way to etree as well.
, comment by HARRYHOOD213
HARRYHOOD213 You can buy the whole 1:02:00 piece for $.99 on Live Phish.
, comment by mksn2h2
mksn2h2 Just get the livephish app and is is still currently the featured show
, comment by nichobert
nichobert Not a statement on quality, but from the perspective of "How abstract was this jam?" it made the Tower Jam sound like Sparke!

For fans of instrument switching & rotation jams, check out the pre-Rockawilliam jam from 8/10/97 Deer Creek. I can't think of another "normal" rotation jam that is this cohesive and interesting.
, comment by Coconut_Phil
Coconut_Phil Just tuned in to the Ball square jam on the livePhish App, the crowd was digging it for sure. I'm sure a few folks had a nice recreational chemistry experience. I'm on the couch tour like many of you, saving a lot of $, still want to be there. Jam on!
, comment by forbin1
forbin1 got to listen to it on sirius last night as well as watch it on hoodstream...both went nicely hand in hand...amazing performance...surely the buzz of the phish land this morning...no one expected sleeping monkey to emerge from that monster...truly incredible what these guys could do...made it even more special..when Trey gave the background story for it...wish I could have attended..as do all of the posters on the net this weekend...thanks again Phish for such a great performance...also to @zzyzx for such a great decription on what it was like to be there...
, comment by uglypigggg
uglypigggg thanks david!see you at the gorge!
, comment by itsnotme
itsnotme I had a dream about this exact sort of thing back in 1996 or so, complete with separate "rooms" for each band member. I've thought about it now an then ever since. Weird.

I can't wait to listen.
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