Phish
October 31,2009
Festival 8
Indio, California

Set 1: Sample In A Jar, The Divided Sky, Lawn Boy, Kill Devil Falls, Bathtub Gin, The Squirming Coil, Runaway Jim, Possum, Run Like An Antelope

Set 2: Rocks Off, Rip This Joint, Shake Your Hips, Casino Boogie, Tumbling Dice, Sweet Virginia, Torn & Frayed, Sweet Black Angel, Loving Cup, Happy, Turd On The Run, Ventilator Blues, I Just Want To See His Face, Let It Loose, All Down The Line, Stop Breaking Down, Shine A Light, Soul Survivor

Set 3: Backwards Down The Number Line, Fluffhead, Story of the Ghost, When The Circus Comes, You Enjoy Myself

Encore: Suzie Greenberg

Notes: Phish played Exile On Main Street in its entirety for the second set featuring Sharon Jones, David Guy, Tony Jarvis, David Smith & Saundra Williams. Those musicians also joined the band for the encore.

• Phish @ Festival 8 Night One Setlist
• Previously on HT: Live Coverage From Indio

We’re back to live blog/chat about this night’s Phish concert in Indio, CA. CLICK THROUGH to participate in our second live blog/chat of the weekend.

Alright, everybody’s up and at them for day two and sets three, four & five of the weekend. I realize I didn’t speak to the actual music played last night, I figured everyone had access to a live stream and was forming their own opinions, but may as well get this down on paper:

[all photos by Regan Teti Marscher]

The music? A bit vanilla but had it’s moments. Major key-jam in Stash was money and the Wolfman’s was great. What was up with what Trey was singing in Piper? Sounded like Lizards for a split-second then went into a little chord progression that sounded a little rehearsed and then Trey stepped up to the microphone and everyone looked around hoping someone knew what song it was and an answer never came.

Trey joked in the Bowie intro that it was a hint as to what album they were covering for Halloween. Trey & Fish were uncharacteristically not on the same page as a couple of jams started to wrap up, just not the type of “mistakes” you normally see Phish make.

READ ON for more of Dave’s thoughts and Regan’s photos…

As has long been rumored, Phish will return to the American Airlines Arena in Miami for their traditional four-show New Year’s run. In typical prankster fashion the band put an ad for a four-show David Bowie/UB40 co-bill at the arena in Miami on those dates in their Playbill, which also details the album they will be covering tonight in Indio @ Festival 8.

• CLICK HERE TO SEE AD/ALBUM SPOILER

Phish’s last New Year’s run took place at the same venue in Miami back in 2003. The band hasn’t returned to the Sunshine State since.

Published: October 31, 2009

Before set one I had the opportunity to chat with a VP at AEG and he took me and a couple of friends over to their video trailer to show some us some 3D video footage recently shot at a Dave Matthews concert.

[Photos from Phish Festival 8 by Regan Teti Marscher]

Very cool technology, he said they’re shooting all eight sets in 3D and are hoping to have some sort of theatrical release in April or May of 2010. The couple tunes we watched were very well done, especially the shots taken from the side of the stage where there are objects like saxophones on stands in the foreground. They also some had Jay-Z footage playing later. Ridic.

Visually, the lights on the palm trees are something else, nicely done. The video screens are very large, very bright, and very clear. If you are situated anywhere in front of the SBD it feels like you’re already watching Phish “at the movies” as most people’s eyes are set on the screens and not the stage as a whole like you normally see.

Best quote of the night, for me anyway. A group of us were sitting down on the ground between sets one and two when a displaced girl rolled up and said, “Is there a dancing banana here by you guys?” Hilarity ensued. A few people already in costume tonight and in the spirit. Gotta call it a night and grab some much needed shut-eye before a day of three sets tomorrow.

• YEMblog: Festival 8 Audio, Video, Reviews and more

Check back later for more from Dave and Regan.

Phish
October 30, 2009
Festival 8
Indio, CA

Set 1: Party Time, Chalk Dust Torture, The Moma Dance, NICU, Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan, Stash, I Didn’t Know, Poor Heart, Cavern, Beauty Of A Broken Heart, Ocelot, Time Turns Elastic

Set 2: Punch You In The Eye, Down With Disease -> Prince Caspian > Wolfman’s Brother -> Piper -> Joy, David Bowie, Harry Hood, Golgi Apparatus

Encore: Character Zero

October 31

Set 1: Sample In A Jar, The Divided Sky, Lawn Boy, Kill Devil Falls, Bathtub Gin, The Squirming Coil, Runaway Jim, Possum, Run Like An Antelope

Set 2: Rocks Off, Rip This Joint, Shake Your Hips, Casino Boogie, Tumbling Dice, Sweet Virginia, Torn & Frayed, Sweet Black Angel, Loving Cup, Happy, Turd On The Run, Ventilator Blues, I Just Want To See His Face, Let It Loose, All Down The Line, Stop Breaking Down, Shine A Light, Soul Survivor

Set 3: Backwards Down The Number Line, Fluffhead, Story of the Ghost, When The Circus Comes, You Enjoy Myself

Encore: Suzie Greenberg

Notes: Phish played Exile On Main Street in its entirety for the second set featuring Sharon Jones, David Guy, Tony Jarvis, David Smith & Saundra Williams. Those musicians also joined the band for the encore.

November 1

Acoustic

Set: Water In The Sky, Back On The Train, Brian and Robert, Invisible, Strange Design, Mountains In The Mist, The Curtain With, Army of One, Sleep Again, My Sweet One, Let Me Lie, Bouncing Around The Room, Train Song, Wilson, McGrupp

Encore: Driver, Talk, Secret Smile

Electric

Set 1: AC/DC Bag, Rift, Gotta Jibboo, Heavy Things, Reba, The Wedge, Guelah Papyrus, Undermind, Sparkle, Split Open and Melt

Set 2: Tweezer -> Maze, Free, Sugar Shack, Limb By Limb, Theme From The Bottom, Mike’s Song > 2001 > Light > Slave to the Traffic Light

Encore: Grind, Esther, Tweezer Reprise

Welcome to the first-ever Hidden Track live blog using CoverItLive. With the use of CoverItLive we’ll be able to discuss tonight’s Phish concert with our readers while watching a few of the Twitter feeds come through from Indio in real time.

CLICK THROUGH to participate in the F8 Live Blog…

5:30PM PDT:  Two hours until Phish takes the stage and everything here is very laid back. Drinking my first Sierra FOAM and it’s delicious. There’s maybe a couple thousand already situated in position in front of the stage, but as of now – tons of space on either Page side or Fish side to go stake out a spot directly in line with a speaker stack and close to the stage. I think spacious is going to be a theme here. Thus far, Valley Music Travel – very on point with the shuttling of fans to/from the site, actually haven’t heard anyone say a bad word about really anything related to the festival just yet.

Just the two setter tonight, everyone here is sharing a mellow enthusiastic vibe, hopefully Phish can fire up this crowd up with their opening segment. We’re about to start betting on this shit, openers – pick 5, etc. Chris calls Tweezer opener but I’m sticking with my Kids, Chalkdust 1-2 combo! Pre-show music as of right now we’re on the second side of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Plenty more updates coming throughout the weekend and I hear ScottyB is doing some pretty cool shit tonight once the music starts. I’ll be back later with more.

Just a quick note that livephish.com will be streaming the action live from Indio as a simulcast of The Bunny. Those who had server issues should be all set moving forward. Also, the second installment of Festival 8 From The Archives – which was incredible – finished up a few minutes ago.

Here’s the playlist and a download link of a webrip (via Duanebase)

• Wilson 08/03/1991
• Divided Sky 11/19/1992
• McGrupp -> Possum Jam -> Stir It Up Jam 08/21/1987
• Stash 10/10/1999
• Makisupa -> Piggies -> Makisupa (Acoustic) 11/19/1985
• Tweezer 12/02/1995
• Ghost 07/02/1998
• Birdwatcher – from Party Time

We’re closing in on the official start of the action at Festival 8 after last night’s private soundcheck that was broadcast over The Bunny. We’ll be kicking off our interactive live blog at 10PM. In the meantime, feast your ears on last night’s first of three From The Archives installments.

[3D Festival 8 Pollock via Jason K.]

You can stream the FTA broadcast here or download it here.

Let’s take one more look at what we missed this week…

• Perpetual Groove pay tribute to John Hughes on Halloween
• Gail Zappa penned a column on the music biz for Huffington
• The reviews from last night’s R&RHOF concert are glowing
• Bob Weir will scare the children for charity on Sunday night
• Dead Weather spring Live From Third Man West EP on fans
• Foo Fighters celebrate 15 years with a new Storytellers taping
• Rank the remaining albums that Phish may play on Saturday

Finally, our friends at Charity Folks are working on an auction to benefit the Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project that includes items from a number of bands you may enjoy.  You can bid on a variety of items including a bike ride around the streets of Brooklyn with Matisyahu, a signed Umphrey’s Mantis deluxe box and Dave Matthews Band tickets.

As a quick housekeeping matter of interest, I’m thinking I’ll stick with this new music theme for my turns on the Friday Mix Tape from here on out. Since we don’t really do a whole lot by way of album reviews, it seems like a good way to help get the word out on quality new releases. Plus, it’s a lot of fun to put together and folks seems to like it. If you ever have anything you’d like to see included, you’re welcome to shoot me an email at ryan@glidemagazine.com. Alright, now to the tunes…

This week, we kick off with one of my absolute favorite songs of the year called When You’ve No Eyes by Alec Ounsworth, one of the driving forces behind Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Ounsworth killed it on his solo debut Mo Beauty with a terrific concept; record an album in New Orleans with a crew of funk legends (George Porter Jr., Robert Walter, and Stanton Moore) and let them spread their wings on a clever and entirely non-funk record. Next, we head to a track off another of my favorites this year, Devendra Banhart’s major label debut What Will We Be called Angelika.

READ ON for more of Ryan’s description of the tracks on FMT…

Over the last couple of weekends, I have been exploring different parts of Harlem, taking in the nice weather and heading to parts of the neighborhood that I hadn’t been to in a long time. One of the streets that I have been enjoying walking up from Central Park North (110th St) is Lenox Ave aka Malcom X Boulevard. As I was walking, my hunger started building up and it was then that I stumbled upon a hidden treasure, Edmonds Cafe.

The number 1966 in the top left corner is NOT the address of the restaurant, it is the year that this small family owned and run business opened in Harlem. Sure, when you think of Soul Food in Harlem Sylvia’s and Amy Ruth’s come to mind. Those two places are well known, with a large following amongst locals and tourists alike and most times have lines of people waiting to get in.

However when it comes to the real deal, you know the kind of place that people stop in after church or for a quick family meal, my money, palate and hunger keep on bringing me back to Edmonds. My last two trips to Edmonds were both on Sunday afternoons and it was nice to see most of the people who were coming in greeted by their name with the staff/family who own and run it asking questions about their guest’s families, treating them like they are part of the extended Edmond’s family. READ ON for more…

The producers of the two-night extravaganza at Madison Square Garden to celebrate the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th Anniversary promised tons on surprises and they came through in a big way. From the moment special guest Jerry Lee Lewis kicked things off with Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On through the all-star finale of Darlene Love, John Fogerty, Tom Morello, Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, Peter Wolf and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performing (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher to end things well after midnight, night one was a full-on blowout.

Just check out the incredible setlist [via NY Times]:

Jerry Lee Lewis :
Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On

Crosby, Stills and Nash:
Woodstock
Marrakech Express
Almost Cut My Hair

Bonnie Raitt with David Crosby and Graham Nash:
Love Has No Pride

Bonnie Raitt and Crosby, Stills and Nash:
Midnight Rider

READ ON for the rest of last night’s setlist…

The Black Crowes are putting out a DVD documenting their experience recording Before the Frost…Until the Freeze at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock and it looks fantastic. The DVD hits stores and mailboxes 11/24. Here’s a look at the trailer for The Black Crowes – Cabin Fever…

The Black Crowes – Cabin Fever

Earlier this evening, part of Phish’s soundcheck from Festival 8 was streamed over The Bunny through 959jackfm.com on the eve of the band’s first two sets at the beautiful Empire Polo Fields in Indio, CA.

The quartet originally took the stage in the early afternoon for an acoustic soundcheck that included Back On The Train and Let Me Lie that wasn’t broadcast, but around 9:45 The Bunny came alive with the sounds of Phish.

After starting this “electric soundcheck” with an intense jam the group moved onto a typically funky version of the title track from 2004′s Undermind. Trey picked up on the similarities between Undermind and Mitch Rydell’s Devil With A Blue Dress and the rest of the band followed him for a quick run through the chorus and a half a verse of so.

READ ON for more from Scotty on the soundcheck…