Welcome to part 151 of Phish.net's Mystery Jam Monday. Once again, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip and win one MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. Each person gets one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday.

Answer: By, er, discerning this week's Mystery Jam (the 7/8/03 Discern -- played ten years ago to the day it was posted), @mainegabe wins this week's MP3 download. Great job!

See you all next week for number 152.

The last time Phish ended a run at SPAC, it was the cherry on top of a sweet 2012 first leg. This time around, the band is still gearing up for the summer and their 30th anniversary, as well as adjusting to a new/old configuration with Fish in the middle. In short, tours rarely seem to hit the jackpot right off the bat. SPAC3 2013 cashes in on a few jams, breaks even on others, and occasionally loses out. The takeaway from the evening, though, is that this slightly-above-average-great show means that the big bucks are still on the way.

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You know the drill, so let’s cut right to the action from SPAC2.

“Crowd Control” starts off in its now-traditional show-opening slot (it has opened the show in each of its six appearances since Phish returned to the stage in 2009), giving way to a spirited if standard “Chalk Dust Torture,” the first repeat of the tour. “The Wedge” and “Funky Bitch” maintain an upbeat and solidly played opening stanza.

“Heavy Things” saw some minor vocal struggles from Trey but was otherwise well-played, and was followed by a one-two punch from Farmhouse with an unexpected “Bug,” the first performance of the song in the first set in over a dozen years (9/25/00, Bonner Springs, KS). The first set seems like a potentially better fit for “Bug” – a song that many fans (including this one) love, but that can often fall fairly flat when positioned in the more common prominent, late-second-set or encore slots. “Bouncing” offers a breather before “Tube” that teases at some delicious grooves that could have offered the first extended improv of the set, but is cut far too short (and even at 6:44 is comparatively long for 3.0). Then the best “Julius” EVER... hint: they are all the “best ever” – “Julius” rarely varies, and always rages.

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Phish is sort of like golf.

It’s hard to step onto the tee box after six months without swinging a club and blast a drive right down the middle. Hitting buckets in the off-season can help keep the swing in tune, but sometimes it’s hard to make time for that when you’re a parent, or you just debuted your first Broadway musical, or there are elite symphonies who want to play with you. That kind of stuff.

Phish didn’t slice one out of bounds in Bangor on Wednesday, but let’s just say they missed the fairway wide right and dropped an uneven tour opener that was destined to be largely forgotten by time Dick’s rolls around, save for a few sparkling moments. But if anybody deserves a mulligan now and then, it’s Phish, no?

Fore!

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PHISH began their 30th Anniversary year by opening their Summer Tour with a three hour show for over 16,000 people on a muddy field in Bangor, Maine. Fortunately for attendees, the thunderstorm never came, and the gorgeous weather, with its blue sky and cool, periodic breeze, accompanied the music quite well, as the mighty Penobscot River flowed adjacent to the venue, stage right. Most of the songs performed were debuted by the band before 1996, giving the show a profoundly retrospective (if not nostalgic) flavor, a flavor only enhanced by a “Golden Age” second set opener and an excellent performance of “Backwards Down The Number Line.”

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Happy "Tour Opener Week", and welcome to Phish.net's Mystery Jam Monday Part 150! As we did when MJM hit the century mark, the winner will be awarded with one MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net, along with a "Famous Mockingbird" pin designed by AJ Masthay in the color of your choice (silver or gold).

Regarding the Mystery Jam itself, as with MJM #100 and the Hampton/Winston-Salem MJ, this clip has multiple songs on it that you'll need to identify. Therefore, we will not be using the comments to guess this week. Instead, send your SINGLE guess to [email protected]. If you have any questions, you can post those in the comments section. The first person to correctly identify the song and the date of each jam will be the winner. One guess per person per day, with the second "day" starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday if necessary, and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. In the event that no one guesses all of the Mystery Jams, the winner will be selected by the Blog at its sole discretion. To start you off with a little help, here's a spreadsheet with the all-time MJM results. Note the number of blank slots for this week's contest, and be assured that each of this week's jams has not been used previously. Good luck!

Tuesday Update: Since no one's submitted an email that includes a guess for all included jams, the hint will be posted at noon ET on Wednesday. You will have until then to submit your first batch of guesses.

Wednesday Hint (note the answer will be posted Friday morning): The years of the seven jams in the clip — in chronological order (these are not necessarily in the order they are played in the clip) — are 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2003, 2009, and 2010. One jam is from a song that is almost never a jam vehicle. Two jams were played in venues owned by or located on college campuses. Three jams were in venues last played in "1.0". Four jams were played in the second half of the year. Five jams were played in the Eastern Time Zone. Six jams were played indoors. All seven jams were played at Phish shows.

Answer: Seven mystery jams was admittedly a tall order, but the Blog pulls out the victory! By IDing four of the seven (#1, 4, 6 & 7), @ucpete had the most accurate entry and is also a winner, as he'll receive the MP3 DL and Masthay pin -- great job! The results sheet now contains all seven answers. MJM returns on Monday.

Over the past 4 years CashorTrade.org has been completely free. Dusty and Brando have spent hours upon hours coding the site, working with members to solidify trades, building the mobile app, setting up the trading tent on tour, and so much more. As the community reaches 25,000 members, it has become difficult for them to progress it on their own and without funding.

Brando says, "We see so many ways in which we could advance the program and supply more tickets to more events, yet time and money is limited. In an effort to keep CashorTrade alive and to bring it to the next level we need your help. We are just now releasing our new Gold Membership to help fund the launch of our new trade tools."

Gold Membership will hopefully revolutionize the way fans communicate about tickets, while making it social. With the donations, COT will be able to finish the development of useful tools, such as mobile notifications, buyer/seller protections, and suggested trades. For example, you could be sitting on a beach, and receive a text message alerting you to the availability of a ticket to a sold-out show -- a ticket you'd been dying to score for weeks!

Along with the Gold Membership tools, COT is offering limited edition merchandise, too. They have a CashorTrade Pin, T-Shirt, and Hat only available to the backers of their project. You can back their project by clicking here: http://cashortrade.org/donate

If you are a fan who believes in face value tickets, please support this idea. Tell your friends by posting their donate page in your social networks. The more we help each other with the supply of face value tickets, the more we strengthen, and benefit, as a community. As they say at COT, #EmbracetheFace!

I previously wrote about how the summer of 1987 was a transformative period in Phish’s career - a point where the band would take the leap between playing occasionally at random bars, and becoming a full-time band. I think an equally important transition point for Phish was the summer of 1993. The 93 summer tour is definitively the most frequently mentioned date I hear when people talk or write about the band making the next leap, from a good touring band to a world-class act. So, as I became slightly overwhelmed by the monotony of reviewing shows from the late 80s, I decided that I may as well jump straight to this point in time. I figured it would give me a good foundation to start with, and also highlight a series of shows that will always have something of interest.

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Ode to Dick's

When Phish’s summer 2013 tour dates were announced, many fans expressed dismay at the lack of a 30th anniversary festival. Ever since they reinvented the modern rock festival with the Clifford Ball in 1996, Phish's festival shows have been among the most anticipated and cherished concert experiences of many fans. Before the 2004 breakup, these shows almost always occurred at the end of the summer in out of the way locales. Plattsburgh. Limestone. Big Cypress. Coventry. The festivals almost always took place in the "corners" of this fair country.

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Summer 2013 marks Phish’s second visit to the Hollywood Bowl, a beloved concert destination for artists and patrons tucked squarely in the heart of America’s pop-cultural capital. L.A. is my home, and the Hollywood Bowl is my backyard venue, so when we decided to run a blog series on summer tour venues, I called "dibs" quickly. It's a special place, and it's my humble pleasure to tell you about it.

The Hollywood Bowl debuted as a proper venue in 1922 and evolved organically over the decades, hosting larger audiences and shedding its iconic band shells from time to time for sleeker and more acoustically pure upgrades. While its location in Hollywood’s heavily trafficked Cahuenga Pass (along the 101 Freeway) is conspicuously urban, the experience of attending a show at the Bowl is more akin to a retreat: once you’ve climbed the hill from the busy street below and passed through the gates, you enter an open, manicured, meditative space designed to minimize sensory friction between audience and performer.

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From the editors: For this installment of our Summer Tour Venue Revue, the editors of Phish.net wanted to extend an invitation to Craig Hillwig (aka @chillwig) to offer his perspective on Phish’s return to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Craig is a longtime fan and taper, who has generously shared countless recordings with the fan community over the years.

Phish returns to the historic Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco for three nights on August 2-4, 2013. Thanks to phish.net for inviting me to guest post about it.

For Phish fans who are also Deadheads, a San Francisco run during the first week of August is highly symbolic. Of course, I'm referring to the “Days Between” - the period between Jerry Garcia's August 1 birthday and the August 9 anniversary of his death in 1995. Eighteen years later, it's still a pretty big deal in the Bay Area. For some sobering context, consider that some of this June's high school graduates were born after Garcia's passing.

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Note received today from Melinda Jennis of Pathways for Exceptional Children (Montville, NJ).

"I wanted to keep you up to date on what is going on with the grant the Mockingbird Foundation gave to us. The concert the Pathways' Rock Band had on April 27th was amazing. The kids sold over 400 tickets and the concert was considered one of the best in the area. We just had Kevin Jonas from the Jonas Brothers come to visit our studio last week and he was so impressed he is coming back in a few weeks to play with our band and practice with them. I have attached our latest newsletter that tells about it all. One of the kids on the rock band was awarded the Hasbro Community Action Hero Award for the Project Win-Win program that the rock band is a part of. Thank you again for all of your help. The grant has helped a purchase a new guitar amp, keyboard, and Presonas mixer/recorder. It has helped us go from good to great!

Thanks you so much again!

Melinda Jennis, Pathways for Exceptional Children"

Your donations, purchases of "The Phish Companion", LivePhish.com downloads, and Phish.net store goods make this possible!

Today marks the 149th episode of Phish.net's longest running game show, Mystery Jam Monday! Once again, be the first person to identify the source (song and date will suffice) of the mystery clip and win one MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. Each of you get one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday. Now bust out those cotton swabs, clean out those ears, and get ready to listen!

Answer: With an impressive fourth win over the last fourteen MJMs, @PhreePhish is on the fast track to emeritus status. The vague teasing of "Ramble On" in the 12/31/97 Mike's Song initially fooled some contestants, but ultimately the Blog's record dropped to 9-126-14 (that's wins, losses, and hint-aided wins, respectively).

Next week, we'll be celebrating both Phish's return to the stage and the 150th edition of Mystery Jam Monday. Stay tuned.

The Outdoor Arena at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe Casino and Resort is one of the smallest venues Phish currently plays at around 7000 seats. Built on an old parking lot sandwiched between the Harvey’s hotel tower and a golf course, it sits only a few feet inside the Nevada State Line and about 900 feet from the shore of Lake Tahoe. As of June 2013 Phish has only made one stop there, for two shows in August of 2011. They are scheduled for two more shows this summer, July 30th and 31st. It’s one of only 3 venues in Nevada that Phish has ever played; the other two being the Alladin Theater and the Thomas & Mack Center, both in Las Vegas. Since they have only played one recent set of shows at Harvey’s, there is no grand history. But, there are some things that make this venue unique and particularly enjoyable.

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