PHISH
6/30/12
Alpine Valley Music Theatre
East Troy, WI
I: My Soul, Daniel Saw the Stone, AC/DC Bag, Moma Dance, Runaway Jim, Let It Loose, Reba, Kill Devil Falls, Sloth, Ocelot, Poor Heart, Circus Comes to Town, Timber Ho!, Oh Kee Pah Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg
II: Backwards Down the Number Line, Carini > Wilson, Golden Age > 2001, Rock and Roll > Steam > Piper > Quinn the Eskimo, Harry Hood, Character Zero
E: Good Times Bad Times
The drive from Deer Creek to Alpine Valley is a route I know very well. This is a famous stretch of highway on Phish tour. I always take I-39 and avoid Chicago, though this way is a bit longer. It goes near many of our research sites for the company where I work. After this summer I hope to find employment somewhere else so all the driving around Illinois and Iowa is coming to an end. I feel like its time to move forward to new challenges. After this summer I am going to scale back my Phish tours so I can find a place of my own. It's been a great journey these past 13 years of seeing live music. Alpine Valley is where the story started for me with Phish in 1999. We were a bunch of high school noobs with lawn tickets who drove home that night. This time around I had pit tickets and stayed at the Alpine Valley Resort. Saturday was my 90th time seeing Phish.
We had a suite at the Alpine Valley Resort. It was the three of us who stayed at the hotel for Deer Creek plus my friend Steve from Chicago who drove up and met us. We ate lunch next to the pool. Many of our Phish friends were around and many fans were still talking about the great show from Thursday in Noblesville. We heard the soundcheck during the afternoon from the parking lot of the lodge. Around 7 pm I made the short walk across the fairway to the side entrance to the pavilion and made my way down to the pit. It was fun watching the show with my friend Jenna.
It's always good to see the familiar wooden roof up above. If you have good seats at Alpine and stay at the lodge it can be one of the best amphitheatres in the United States. There is a certain vibe to a Saturday night show at Alpine. I've heard the band and their family looks forward to this weekend every summer and that they stay at a nice condo in Lake Geneva, WI. The obvious highlights for me was The Rolling Stones cover Let It Loose followed by an emotive Reba. They dropped a Timber Ho! which I thought may end the set but they included a spirited Oh Kee Pah > Suzy. Some of the set seemed like filler to be honest. We'd heard them soundcheck Daniel Saw the Stone earlier in the day so that wasn't a surprise.
The second set doesn't appear to be anything too outrageous just by judging the setlist but it had a tremendous flow that was unmatched in the run of shows I saw this summer. To be honest #Line was a bit disappointing but once they got to the uplifting ending it was on as they crashed into the intro of Carini. This Carini had a distinctive Tweezer-esque feel to it. The drop into Wilson was abrupt but it worked on this Saturday night at Alpine as this didn't hurt the energy. Golden Age is being overplayed at this point and this version didn't compare to the one they played at Cuyahoga Falls but it had a decent groove that extended into 2001. Kuroda flexed his muscles at this point and the approximately 30,000 Phish fans in attendance danced in approval. Rock and Roll was the third Velvet Underground cover in as many nights from the Loaded album. Page always does a good job with that one and this morphed into the only Steam of the tour which was basically the only song I wanted to hear so that made my night. Steam segued into the best jam of the night, Piper. This had several themes and featured some amazing work by Page when the rest of the band allowed him to towards the end of the improvisation. Quinn the Eskimo is a song that was played by The Grateful Dead in "89 at this venue. Hood in dairyland makes sense. There's a dairy farm next to the yellow lot, however, this wasn't the best buildup to the "you can feel good" part by any means. Character Zero was almost guaranteed at this point. It's Trey's favorite rocker and he loves it on Saturday at Alpine. GTBT was a fairly straight forward one and done encore. I had a great time during this show and I was surprised to hear fans criticize the performance.
PHISH
7/1/12
Alpine Valley Music Theatre
East Troy, WI
I: Soul Shakedown Party, Lonesome Cowboy Bill, Vultures, Gotta Jibboo, Dirt, A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing, Access Me, Meat, Frankenstein, Fee, Maze, Squirming Coil
II: Crosseyed and Painless > No Quarter, Light > Ghost > Back on the Train, Farmhouse, 46 Days, Heavy Things, Joy, Julius
E: Meatstick
postshow P.A. music was Heatwave "Boogie Nights"
We spent the day watching the EURO 2012 Final. Spain dominated Germany to an easy 4-nil victory. My friends from Ames stopped by. Once again we listened to the soundcheck. All the Upstaging semis were parked back by the resort. The evening before I saw the police escort for the tour bus. I was tired and ready to head home with this having been a long stretch of midwest Phish shows. It was nice to finally get caught up with my sleep the last evening.
The first set on Sunday was more to my liking than the evening before. Overall, it had more cohesion. Soul Shakedown Party is a rarity for an opener. Lonesome Cowboy Bill made it four different songs off that album during the four Deer Creek/Alpine Valley shows. Jibboo was a well played concise version. We had heard them soundcheck A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing and that turned out to be the only time played during the tour. It was good to hear Access Me and Meat. That allowed Mike to shine. Frankenstein featured Page on his James Brown white keytar. Fee was unquestionably the highlight of the set. The outro was amazing. Coil to end the set with Page by himself is always a treat.
Crosseyed has been a little stale lately and when it segued into No Quarter it was fun but still a repeat of what they did recently at UIC Pavilion. Light was the highlight of the second set and this transitioned into Ghost. This featured some four on the floor dance beats that you wouldn't usually associate with Phish. Fishman and Gordon were locked in. They're the best Jewish rhythm section in the business. Back on the Train was a repeat from Deer Creek and did not compare to the version from Noblesville. Farmhouse worked as a breather in this spot but the rest of the playcalling left a lot to be desired. This set needed a YEM or a Slave to finish it out. Instead we got 46, Heavy Things, Joy, Julius with an encore of Meatstick. The encore had the same schtick of crowd dancers that they did the previous Sunday in Cuyahoga Falls. 46 Days had a lot of energy but in general I felt like everyone was waiting for something that never materialized. "Still waiting..." That's why we keep chasing these guys though. It's the mystery and suspense. Seeing what happens next is a big part of why we keep coming back. See you in Kansas City in August!
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