In Memoriam: 6/19/04 Piper Epicness

As preachers of improvisational rock, we try to prescribe patience to all those who wish to be converted (most people want nothing to do with this church). It’s patience that makes a group like the popular rock band Phish possible, the ability of its audience to wade through the trickling streams to reach the raging rapids.

PhishLights

Three years ago today, Phish rewarded everyone blessed with this kind of musical patience inside the Saratoga Performing Arts Center with a half-hour of a most impeccably delivered Piper, often the band’s sickest post-hiatus jam vehicle in its entire arsenal. This version, like many, starts off hot, then winds down while the band figures out which way it wishes to proceed, then eventually turns into one of those patented face-fucking ragers that makes your neck hurt for days.

And, yeah, it may take 16 minutes for the band to really kick it into that extra gear few bands possess, but once they reach that point it’s no holds barred for 600 straight seconds. There may not be a better example of the pure, unadulterated audio sodomy that emanated from those four dorks on a nightly basis. Get on it.

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0 Responses

  1. Nice. The last hurrah… this was sick.

    Glad they played something hellfire at the one Phish show I got to bring my little squirts to (of course, my not being able to find the car afterward was much more entertaining, but they were there, dammit!)

    Is memorium a word?

  2. The parking lot debacle was unprecedented. A perfectly ridiculous ending to a perfectly ridiculous evening.

    The post-show mess is probably worth a post/story of its own!

  3. Next night was fantastic as well. These shows along with Great Woods later on in the provided a nice bookend for the end of Phish for me. Coventry was – unfortunately – a messy afterthought.

  4. The ASIHTOS that precedes Piper is oft overlooked … that 50 min. of music is simply preposterous.

  5. I’d take it back to the Walls > Bowie to end the 1st set. Loads of monsters in this show, loads of ’em. Just picked up the noodling section in the middle and about to drop into dirty nasty funktwepriserage section. Here we go….

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