MIKE GORDON @ THE APOLLO PROJECT 2012-01-06
From Mike's Facebook page: This Friday, January 6, 2012 8pm / WFC Winter Garden, NY, NY in honor of the 30th anniversary of Brian Eno's tribute to the NASA moon landings, Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks, the New York Guitar Festival presents a live re-imagining of this sonic masterpiece featuring the ambient ensemble itsnotyouitsme, Mike Gordon, Larry Campbell, and special guests including Noveller and Tortoise’s Jeff Parker. This is a free performance.
INTRODUCING PHISH.NET ACHIEVEMENTS
To celebrate the start of 2012, today, we are introducing a new feature: Phish.net Achievements. In the same vein as the hundreds of iOS and Android apps, you can now collect achievement badges from Phish.net. With increased participation and utilization of features on the site, you can earn additional achievements.
Phish.net is one of the largest online Phish communities in the world. By participating, you know you're helping to build a strong community of the most passionate Phish fans out there.
Over time, we expect to significantly expand these features, adding new achievements, individual badges, and hopefully, some rewards for those reaching certain milestones.
You can view your own achievements - or others' - on the user profile page.
YEMSG4 - NYE RECAP
Happy 2012, Phish fans! Apologies for being tardy with this better-late-than-never recap, though we assume many of you were also raging/recovering/traveling. Perspectives on the first three shows of the run up to NYE varied widely from total love to moderate puzzlement to mild disappointment. To be fair there has been something to justify all of those opinions; as always, the only opinion that should matter to you is your own. Let’s walk through the action as we finish our trip around the sun and flip the calendar!
A compact and rollicking “AC/DC Bag” gets the NYE show on the road, followed swiftly by “Wolfman's Brother” with a strong if brief type-I jam. Solid if uneventful versions of “Scent of a Mule” and “Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan” keep the high-energy opening sequence flowing, before dropping down to the NYE stand-by breather “Lawn Boy,” making its seventh NYE appearance. “Gotta Jibboo” and “Farmhouse” then settle the set into a more sustainable groove.
MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 80
Happy New Year and welcome to the 80th installment of the Mystery Jam Monday series here at Phish.net. Hope everyone had a great time at the shows and/or on #couchtour. As usual, we will be playing for a free MP3 download, courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. The rules haven't changed: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. Good luck...
Wednesday Answer: Congrats to Phshrman for correctly ID'ing the 7/30/03 "Scents and Subtle Sounds." If you haven't heard this version, or the whole show really, you should absolutely seek it out. It's a scorcher, "Secret Smile" encore and all. The Blog will be back on Monday with another Mystery Jam.
YEMSG 2011-12-30 RECAP
Anticipation grows with each passing night of Phish’s annual new year’s run. Each night also carries with it the weight of past glories. December 30th holds a special place in Phishstory. On 12/30/93 the band played one of the greatest shows of their career to that point and a show that still holds up eighteen years later. A year later, Phish made their Madison Square Garden debut. The highlights of 12/30/97 are almost too numerous to mention: among them a mesmerizing “AC/DC Bag,” an epic “Harpua,” and two bustouts of “Sneaking Sally.” It’s possible the fog still hasn’t cleared from the 12/30/99 Big Cypress “Mike’s Song” and, more recently, 12/30/09 is one of the finest shows of the band’s 3.0 era. So expectations always run high on December 30th. Sometimes those expectations are met, and other times... not so much.
YEMSG 2011-12-29 RECAP
Thursday night Phish took the stage at Madison Square Garden for the second of four shows to close out 2011. After a first night where most people had very warm reviews, the second night seems to be a bit more puzzling. After a series of passionate emails among staff here at Phish.net last night fits somewhere comfortably between "amazing" and "frustrating." I mean, we certainly used both words with great frequency but upon further review it's hard to pick which end of the level has more weight. I can probably name more "good" moments than "bad" but for some reason I'm left feeling a bit conflicted. Why is that?
YEMSG 2011-12-28 RECAP
Alongside the storied Phish traditions of Halloween and the summer festivals, the New Year’s Eve run of shows are the most eagerly anticipated by fans in any year. When this run takes place at Madison Square Garden – the world’s most famous arena, in the epicenter of the Phish fan base – the level of pre-show hype is practically off-the-charts. Performing their 20th show at MSG tonight, it is like entering their own post-season, after a very successful year. Three and a half months off their last performance – 9/14/11, the benefit for Vermont flood victims – and on the heels of a strong end to the last tour including several strong performances in Chicago and Denver, would Phish come exploding out of the gates? Or would the “marathon not a sprint” mentality give us the proverbial warm-up show? The turnstiles crank on 7th avenue, while couch tour nation settles in at home. Let’s do this.
RIP VIC HARRIS
We join in mourning the loss of fellow fan Victor Harris.
TICKET MASTERS: BOOK REVIEW
My love of music—particularly live music—led me to Ticket Masters, but the type-A, business geek in me ended-up being just as satisfied. Budnick and Baron hit it out of the park with a multi-faceted piece that moves seamlessly between interesting anecdotes, thoroughly researched facts and rich, colorful presentations of characters that at times feel more supernatural than non-fiction. The result is a book that I not only recommend highly to the core readership of this blog (rabid music fans), but also to business folk I interact with in “my other life”.
TICKETMASTER SETTLEMENT WILL BE GOOD FOR CONCERT GOERS, ESPECIALLY CLUB ACTS
"In the last few weeks, nearly every warm-blooded American who’s ponied up for a big-ticket event in the 21st century has received an email alerting them to a proposed settlement of a lawsuit against Ticketmaster few had ever heard of.
Particularly in the wake of Ticketmaster’s controversial merger with concert promoter Live Nation two years ago, the near-monopolist has earned a poor reputation for its high online purchase fees and bad relationships with venues and consumers. While the settlement may offer a measure of public retribution for its unhappy customers, it’s not going to line their pockets—but it might be a wake-up call for a troubled industry."
-Good magazine (12/13/11)
MYSTERY JAM MONDAY PART 79
Welcome to the MJM79 here at Phish.net. As usual, we will be playing for a free MP3 download, courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. The rules haven't changed: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. Good luck...
Wednesday Hint and Answer: The Hint is that if RabeldyNugs takes a guess, that's probably the right answer. It certainly was this week, with the 7/1/98 "Disease." Congrats, once again, Rabeldy. The Mystery Jam will be taking Xmas off, so see you all in 2012...
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