Subject: (Dizzily) Drinking 12/30/92 Gin
Date: 16 Jan 1997 15:59:44 GMT
From: benjy eisen <[email protected]>
BathtubGinFiles #3 12/30/92 Symphony Hall; Springfield, MA
Stats: Set II Total Time: 7:35 This whole show is a keeper, btw. I had been looking for this show for awhiile, passively, and it was well worth the wait (thanks Craig Delooosha the Ph.D/SQ or whatever :]) Anyway, I've never heard this Gin before and so we really are all in this together...let's see just how much we love to take this bath: Opening follows Rift (no segue, nanosecond pause) 0:00 I like Trey's tone, Fish's accents, mmmm.....at O:18 page jumps in - SWELL! More Page till 0:49, just being, well, *swell*. Sounds/Feels like bubbles! So I guess this is a buBbLe bath type deal..:) Lyrics Segment 0:49, standard with normal goings-on. 1:22->1:29 more bubbles from Page. Trey almost burps (I mean it) and Trey means it too -- he says "We're all in the bathtub drinking BATHTUB GIN" after a lyric flub, and sings now with a tone of voice that comes straight from the vibration...of DEATH, ha ha har! 2:02-2:17 more splendid bubbles from Page, just splendid! So splendid in-fact that "We all must laugh" FAUCET at 2:33. Semi-botched first run, fairly clean after that but certainly not impeccable. SINGING w/ Faucet at: 3:15. Nothing too crazy...some nice vocal takes on the psuedo-vamps at 3:37. It picks up a little (still merely *hinting* at craziness) past the 3:48 mark...nothing obscenely insane though, but still certainly welcome. WATER from the Faucet: 4:30, as the Jam segment begins. First Trey does some Faucet Oriented licks then gets slightly more, (a'hem), dizzy with them at 4:47. "Dizzy Faucet Dis-Oriented" is the only way I can describe this...like Trey wanted to spurt out the Classic Faucet Lick, but somebody swirled him around real fast first...maybe he met a spinner :) ...or maybe it's that *new* Coca-cola stuff. I dunno. Fish rides the cymbals and other treblish coloration. Mike does some nice suspension of called-for bass-lines and Page funking away on the chordal work. At 5:59 Trey gets interested in getting low...on the 'doc that is, *Maybe* a tease. Or maybe just a theme of sorts. Some rough-around the-edges "Let's jump off the cliff...is everyone with me? Yes? no? MAYBE!!!" Some jump, some are left still standing, but confused and know they're gonna get it for giving a "fake-out" to the others. Trey is left with nothing but to do but trill, trill, trill. Then at 6:49 it all comes back 'round again, the circle is completed, the band is together - that was close but we're all together again. Whew. That was close! At 7:05 Mike lets out the Bathtub singing . Buuuut, at 7:15 Fish tells him loud and clear "I'll have none of that" via some fucking with the rhythm. Trey's siding with Fish but, alas...against the odds, Mike wins in the end as he lets loose the final refrain: "Bathtub *gin*" hitting the 7:36 mark. A short pause and then Trey counts out the beginning of YEM. Pleasant and interesting Gin but BY FAR not great. Interesting but not entirely satisfying might just be the way to describe it to the veteran or more experienced Phish listener. Would I play this version for someone who had never heard Phish? Probably not if it'd be a virgin exposure. If I did, they may think Phish is a good, or above average band at any rate. Hell, they should even think Phish is a great band. But a band worthy of the type of devoted following that they have? No way -- other Gin's take care of that, in the "impressing people" category. Yet, if I had heard only a couple Gins, I'd probably think this version *great* if onlyu becuase at that stage I may think of anything Phish-played as being great (it is). But all the same, this Gin just shows their potential. Hell, when I saw Stash, the Phish tribute band, last month they did a better job of it than the Phish real band did here. Then again, we're only in '92. Initial gut-reaction rating: 77 Proof. (C/C+) As long as there is expermentation, and risk involved, it can't really get lower than somewhere in the C's. And as long as their is *some* deviation from the norm, it really deserves a 76proof at the lowest, if only for effort. And thus: 76Proof drinks for those Bathtub folk of 12/30/92...(but a grat show all round.) Walk with light my friends, Benjy