Five Years Ago: Phish Anniversary Run

You Enjoy Myself – 12/1/03 Albany

This show garnered reviews of all shapes and sizes. Some claim Jeff Holdsworth ruined the show. Others claim elements of this show are the stuff of legends. I fall somewhere in between. Granted, the Holdsworth portion of the show wasn’t much musically but this run was just as much about the band’s history and paying tribute as it was ripping it up on stage for 3 hours straight. All that aside, The YEM is a doozy – with lots of great build up and some thick Mike funk. The entire Tweezer > 2001 > YEM is great and well worth a listen.

Seven Below – 11/29/03 Philadelphia

I always thought Seven Below would make for a great “theme” set where the riff is injected in and throughout songs and jams in a set (similar to the Stash from the Orlando 1995 show or the recently released Tweezer show from Atlanta, 1993). This version of Seven Below is sharp and full of little pockets of groove. The show as a whole is pretty off but Seven Below was able to shine through.

Waves – 11/28/03 Nassau

The extended noodling intro makes this version stand out in a second set that was pretty damn poor. The band falls into a nice groove and the music seems to whirl and crash as waves in the ocean might. The lyrical sections of this song are always a little choppy but Trey screeches and soars his way through the jams, especially in this version.

Julius – 11/29/03 Philadelphia

After butchering Julius to pieces at the Spectrum in February, 2003, this version serves as sweet redemption. Just loose enough to be rocking and just precise enough to hold together a great rhythm, this Julius ended the first set on a high note after the band slopped its way through just about every note of this show.

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13 Responses

  1. Dude..are you sure you went to the Boston show? The Maze was pretty cookin, but the Piper jam was the stuff of lengends. Take another listen….I think the place that jam got to is the potential tip of the iceberg of what Phish 3.0 may be capable of. Also…the Frankenstein>Kung>Frankenstein was more mind shattering than the Maze. Anyhow…good piece. Can’t wait for Hamtpon, and those Gorge & Red Rocks rumors have me drooling all over myself.

    molx

  2. There’s gotta be a mention of the Wolfman’s from Albany…that shit had every single person in the place dancing as hard as they could and Trey was soaking it all in…I was literally out of breath for most of that show. Agreed, the Holdsworth section slowed it down a bit (which was probably needed at the time), but this was one of the most utterly fun Phish shows I’ve been to.

  3. i will be going to one of those sullivan hall shows should be the bomb. if were getting into best all time shows (is that the topic your starting? ginz?) i would have to say townshend family park 89

  4. if you want to read something nice about phish go to phishthoughts.com

    mr miner actually focuses on the good stuff and not ripping them apart.

    this was a worthless read imo.

  5. I was at the Boston show. I happened to be on an assignment in Foxboro, Mass that week and did one of my few solo treks to see Phish. But when you are within 100 miles of a Phish show, you do what you have to do. I remember hearing about all the great suprises at previous shows on the Anniversary Run (Dude of Life, Jeff Holdsworth, etc.) and being disappointed to find out that we got the set break conglomeration of movie clips of Phish memories rather than a great guest or even a Gamehendge (sounds crazy now, but freakin Jeff Holdsworth came out the show before so I thought anything was possible!). If I had known Phish would be dismantling the following summer, I would have enjoyed the movie more, but at the time I was pretty disappointed. The Kung was killer but not a very memorable show. The only thing that really sticks out…It was freezing!!!

    Anyway, I don’t have tickets yet for Hampton and haven’t bit the bullet yet on a $350 scalped ticket. I’m hoping black market tix dip in price.

    Keeping my fingers crossed…

    Ryan
    TheWeight

  6. These shows were pretty lackluster. The Twist > Simple is the clear highlight of the run. The Nassau show was pretty good, but Albany was not interesting and Boston was a colossal letdown for a 20th anniversary show…all in all, these 4 days don’t hold up to the rest of 2003.

    Twist > Simple is the shizznit though

  7. Next time the kidz on PT give you shit for being so damn positive (when did this become a bad thing?), point ’em towards this comment!

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