Umphrey's McGee 12/30/10 Riviera Theatre - Chicago, IL

Umphrey's McGee
12/30/10
Riviera Theatre
Chicago, IL

I: Prowler > The Bottom Half, 2 x 2, Jajunk, Apeman, Mulche's Odyssey

II: Preamble > Mantis > Hangover, Roundabout, Pay the Snucka, August, Gulf Stream, Fussy Dutchman > Mantis, The Floor

E: Resolution > Pay the Snucka


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We spent the day relaxing watching college football.  We ate delivery from the Fifty/50 for dinner.  The balcony was crowded when we arrived.  They started about 8:15.  The weather was rainy but obviously much more mild than what I'd experienced out east. 

Prowler was an old school start to the night.  The Bottom Half had a decent jam in the middle.  2x2 was another strong version.  Jajunk was the highlight of the show with several intersting grooves.  Apeman was a The Kinks cover that they hadn't played in ages.  I wasn't familiar with that one.  Mulche's Odyssey had some improv and was a nice high energy set closer.  This was a well played set of UM while those weren't my favorite songs necessarily.

The second set started with the Preamble to Mantis before they went off on a tangent into Hangover while leaving Mantis unfinished.  At this point they finally played a full on version of Yes's Roundabout.  This was well done.  It was a nice homage to one of their progressive rock influences.  They've teased around with Roundabout their whole career.  An improv heavy Snucka followed that they stopped after the Splittin' Aces part.  August also had plenty of jamming.  Gulf Stream was expected during the run at some point.  My frrend Jenny mentioned the 11/10/07 show when that "Jimmy Stewart" first appeared.  It's been fun to see that evolve.  That was a high octane rendition of Fussy Dutchman.  As soon as that ended they finished up Mantis.  I thought that would be the end of the set but they played The Floor to close things out which worked well.  Resolution had some nice improv even in the encore slot and predictably they finished up the Pay the Snucka pt. III to end the night.  This was a fun show but my initial thoughts were that I preferred Wednesday more.

Umphrey's McGee 12/29/10 Riviera Theatre - Chicago, IL

Umphrey's McGee
12/29/10
Riviera Theatre
Chicago, IL

I: Bridgeless > Conduit, Utopian Fir, Search 4, Push the Pig, Hollywood Nights

II: Much Obliged > Bridgeless, Bad Poker, Tribute to the Spinal Shaft > Made to Measure > 2nd Self, Peg, The Triple Wide > Ocean Billy

E: Hurt Bird Bath


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I hung out at my friend Steve's apartment in Wicker Park for awhile before we made our way to the Uptown neighborhood.  We found a spot near the Riv on the street.  It was raining as we entered the venue.  We found a spot in the balcony on the Jake side.  I was disappointed to see that Consider It Dan had reserved many of the best balcony seats for their VIP/fan fleecing.  They played "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" by Hall and Oats on the PA before the show and during setbreak.  UM took the stage around 7:35 to "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns 'n Roses.  This reminded me of the beginning of my favorite radio program The Jim Rome Show.  It was extremely hot in the venue. 

I was exahuasted from the drive from Massachusetts so I was in dire need of an energetic show. Thankfully that was what Umphrey's McGee delivered.  Barry Brown acted as the emcee of the event and let the crowd know of the aftershows going on down the street at the Kinetic Playground.  They briefly started playing along with the Guns 'n Roses then started up Bridgeless which they used to launch into their first jam of the night.  This piece of pre planned improv finally ended in Conduit.  This was by far the best version of this song they've done live so far.  The jamming in the middle was one of the highlights of the night.  Utopian Fir is always one of their biggest guns and this was another succesful exploration.  Search 4 was one I was really hoping for and this continued the energy with a crunchy rendition.  Push the Pig continued this improv heavy seat.  Finally they finshed off the stanza with the Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band cover, Hollywood Nights.  The part about heading west to meet up with some old friends was appropriate given the drive I'd accomplished the night/morning before.  I hadn't seen UM since Summer Camp and I was really impressed with the jamming in this first set of the New Years Run. 

Much Obliged acted as a launching pad to fresh sounding improv that eventually built to a peak that worked as a perfect transition back into the end of Bridgeless.  I liked the juxtapostion of Bad Poker to the beginning of th set.  Tribute was better played on this ocasion to when I heard them play it earlier in the year up in Madison.  It had yet another interesting jam that morphed into Made to Measure.  They teased around heavily with 2nd Self before staring the up the actual song.  Peg is one of my favorites by Steely Dan and this was a masterful cover version for which UM should be commended.  Triple Wide had a cool jam that led into the set closing Ocean Billy.  HBB was a strong encore.  This was a strong effort by UM.  Each set was filled with improvisation and the performance as a whole kept me engaged the entire time.

Phish 12/28/10 DCU Center - Worcester, MA

PHISH
12/28/10
DCU Center
Worcester, MA

I: Kill Devil Falls, My Mind's Got A Mind Of Its Own, Alaska, She Caught the Katy, Wolfman's Brother, Pigtail*, Stash, Bouncing Around the Room, Rift, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, Birdwatcher*

II: Carini, Backwards Down the Number Line, Back on the Train > Limb by Limb > Wedge, Frankie Says > Albuquerque, Harry Hood, Bug

E: Shine A Light


* first time played


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We slept most of the day getting much needed rest.  Dunkin Donuts came through in the clutch with a box o' joe courtesy of Cory.  We said goodbye to Cory and his two friends at the hotey and at this point it was just Jamie and I.  We ate at Wendy's and fueled up preparing to make a quick getaway after the show.  On Tuesday we found a better spot in the parking garage.  For this show we found a vantage point on the Page side where as the night before we were on Fishman side.  Phish hit the stage shortly after 8:15 once again.  The crowd was a strong showing but not quite sold out. 

I could identify the KDF opener from the tuning.  That's a song that continues to improve.  My Mind was a nice bluegrass interlude between the heavy doses of blues rock in the forms of KDF and Alaska.  She Caught the Katy is a rarely played Taj Mahal tune that hadn't seen the light of day since Big Cypress.  It was also featured in The Blues Brothers which was fitting with us heading back to Chicago that night.  Wolfman's Brother was possibly the highlight of the run.  It featured some great full band communication and several amazing peaks of energy.  Pigtail was a new Tom/Trey tune that featured a nice repeating vocals of "conscious again".  You could sense that Stash was going to played in that slot and this was another in a series of recent great versions.  Bouncing is a song that I've always enjoyed.  Rift was a nice call.  Stealing Time was more blues rock.  To end the set they played the Phish debut of the acapella Birdwatcher which was featured on their Joy bonus album, Party Time.  This was a better first set than the night before. 

The second set began with another of their best tunes currently, Carini.  On the fall tour that song was really given the treatment.  This rendition though stretched beyond its former self was not as strong as the one I heard in Providence, RI in October.  I was a bit disappointed that #Line was another standard version in such a vital slot.  Similiar to what they did in Amherst.  I really enjoyed the Back on the Train > Limb by Limb > Wedge sequence.  "Take the highway...".  Frankie Says is a song that I've always enjoyed from The Story of the Ghost.  This morphed into the Neil Young cover Albuquerque.   Coincidentally this was played in the final show I saw from Phish in 2009 in Cincinnati and this was the case this year in 2010 up in Worcester.  Harry Hood was a very strong version in the home state of Hood Milk.  Massachusetts native Michael Gordon started a very interesting groove and Anastasio took it the rest of the way until we all felt good about Hood.  Bug and its soaring outro solo worked in this slot similiar to the Saturday Alpine Valley show.  Shine A Light was encored in nearby Amherst on Fall Tour so I question that choice.  They played a one song encore cover by The Rolling Stones each night.  Overall this show was better than the night before.  After the show concluded I drove us all through the night through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and finally back in Illinois where I dropped off Jamie at Union Station in downtown Chicago around 3:30 pm and sent him home on the train.  Then I made my way to Wicker Park to the Chicagoland Jamband Headquarters at my buddy Steve's apartment. 

pictures taken by Dave Vann (phish.com)

Phish 12/27/10 DCU Center - Worcester, MA

PHISH
12/27/10
DCU Center
Worcester, MA

I: Sample in a Jar, Funky Bitch, Cool It Down, Roggae, Heavy Things, What Things Seem, Roses Are Free, It's Ice, Mist, Julius

II: Mike's Song > Mound > Weekapaug Groove, Farmhouse, Seven Below > What's the Use > Twenty Years Later, Wading in the Velvet Sea, Possum, Cavern, David Bowie

E: Loving Cup


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We left Geneseo around noon on Sunday.  My neighbor Jamie and my friend from high school Cory were my traveling companions on this journey.  We listened to the Bears defeat the Jets on the radio on the way through Illinois.  The news of an impending blizzard that was about the crush the east coast had me very stressed out.  I handled the driving until we got to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.  This was when Cory stepped up and handled the rest of the drive which would turn out to be a winter nightmare.  There were stretches of the Poconos where we couldn't see anything.  It was very scary.  Plow crews and emergency rescure units were out in full force but there was simply too much snow. 

By the time we stopped at Cory's apartment in Hoboken, NJ that city was in a state of disaster.  Side roads were simply impassible.  At this point we headed north taking an extremely roundabout route that took us around New York City because the George Washington Bridge was backed up for miles.  We had to dig our way onto the Jersey Turnpike literally with a shovel that I brought.  The sun was shining on Monday morning but as we got into central Connecticut we began to catch back up with the storm.  Finally we made our way to the Fairfield Suites in Auburn which is the town adjacent to Worcester.  We parked in the garage across the street from the Centrum.  This venue which has since been renamed the DCU Center is an early 80s antiquated minor league hockey arena that houses the AHL affiliate of the San Jose Sharks. 

Phish hit the stage around 8:15 after the crowd had been worked up by some Talking Heads on the P.A. system.  Sample in a Jar was a bit of an anticlimatic beginning.  "The simple smiles and good times seem all wrong" was appropriate given my change in personnel for this trip from what I originally had planned.  Trey seemed to give his solo an extra go around.  Funky Bitch really allowed Page to shine for the first time of the evening.  Cool It Down was a great choice.  This produced the only real jam of the first set.  I hadn't heard that since Target Center '00 in Minneapolis.  Roggae is a song I love to hear and this produced an interesting jam during the outro similiar to what they did in Amherst.  Heavy Things brought about the best playing of the set.  Trey absolutely owned his solo.  As cheesy as that song is it consistently brings strong playing from Trey.  What Things Seem is the defacto title track from Moss.  It climaxed with Gordo yelling the final vocals.  I'm glad they allowed Mike an opportunity to shine with his new material.  Roses Are Free though always welcome was akin to the Providence Fall Tour version with no jam.  It's Ice in retrospect seems like an obvious choice given the weather. Mist provided some absolutely gorgeous playing from Anastasio during the outro.  "I'm on the road again" made me smile.  This was extremely soulful.  They blew the roof off the building with a smoking Julius to finish off the stanza.  This was a fun set.  It was song oriented for the most part and had some impressive playing along with a few moments of awkwardness. 

This show was going to need a good second set to warrant it a winner and that's exactly what they did.  This was a particularly fiery version of Mike's Song though it still did not contain the second jam portion that it once did.  When they dropped into Mound that was the highlight of the entire show.  The winter lyrics were perfect for the situation.  I hadn't heard that since MSG 12/31/02.   Weekapaug was an energetic version to finish off yet another interesting 2010 Mike's Groove.  The choice of Farmhouse in this slot was questionable.  While a ballad in this slot worked this song that strongly resembles No Woman No Cry provided a lull in a set that had been balls out up until that point.  Seven Below had the most interesting improvisation of the night.  Kuroda did a great job of using white lights during this part of illustrate the crystals of snow that are spoken of in the lyrics.  Trey's emotive playing eventually led into territory very similar to What's the Use.  Trey began teasing it heavily.  After bringing the jam to a conclusion they started up the song proper.  They allowed What's the Use to come to a natural conclusion before morphing into Twenty Years Later.  I thought Trey's guitar sounded a bit off during the verses.  Wading in the Velvet Sea provided an opportunity to get some water from the fountain.  Possum got things going again.  "You end is the road!".  Cavern worked well in the false set closer spot.  You could sense that David Bowie was on its way.  I've heard Trey shred the final codas better than he did last night.  It was the first show of the run and they hadn't played since Halloween.  There was some moments when that seemed to be apparent.  I called the Loving Cup encore.  This was a really fun show with several highlights.  The references to the blizzard that we all drove through made this a unique performance.

pictures taken by Dave Vann (phish.com)

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