Cover Wars March Madness: Championship
We started our Cover Wars March Madness tournament with 32 different winners of Cover Wars over the past year. We broke those down into two separate portions as to not overwhelm our voters. Then, we had our Sweet Sixteen, our Elite Eight, the Final Four, and now there are two. It all comes down to this, and it’s a battle of jamband quartets.
PGroove – This Must Be The Place vs. Phish – Curtis Loew
Hailing from Savannah, GA; Perpetual Groove offers up their cover of The Talking Heads’ This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody). The first known performance of this cover took place at The Georgia Theater in Athens on September 5th, 2002. PGroove has gone on to play it over 100 times since. The vocal duties are handled by guitarist and lead singer Brock Butler.
Perpetual Groove – This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
Audio: 2-10-2007
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Video: 12-13-2009
Hailing from Vermont, Phish offers up their cover of Lynryd Skynryd’s The Ballad Of Curtis Loew. The first known performance of the cover took place on a Wednesday Night in the Spring of 1987 at Burlington’s famed Nectar’s. It was pretty regular in the rotation for the next few years. The first notable gap was from 10/30/1990 to 3/14/1993, a 290 show gap. It was played three times in 1993 and disappeared for the next six years. Though not an official performance, The Ballad Of Curtis Loew was soundchecked at Big Cypress in 1999. And then Phish brought it back at Fenway Park in Boston on May 31st of last year for a glorious bust out, and we haven’t seen Curtis Loew since. The lead vocals are handled by keyboardist Page McConnell and it’s part of a rare group of songs in Phish’s repertoire where guitarist Trey Anastasio doesn’t sing a single note.
READ ON to listen and watch Phish’s Curtis Loew and to vote…
Phish – The Ballad of Curtis Loew
Audio: 3-14-1993
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Video: 5-31-2009
Voting for this round is open until Monday at 11:59PM EDT.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Not only was Cutis Loew a huge bust-out… but it was really well played! I also love Destiny Unbound from this show…
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Awesome match-up here, but without a doubt in my mind…this should go to Pgroove. Not only do they perform “This Must Be The Place” to the T (and better than the TH IMO) but I think that they also drive the energy up of any show that it’s performed.
I love Phish, but Curtis Lowe isn’t really a energy boosting song, other than the energy that comes along with a bust out. Naive Melody is a tune that brings the crowd together and the way that it’s delivered by Butler can sometimes bring goosebumps to everybody in the room.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 2:18 pm
i voted for pgroove/this must be the place…if we were voting for best band my vote would be different, but deciding on these songs- i love the performance of the talking heads classic
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 2:31 pm
better than the talking heads? oh spacey you sooooo crazy.
pgroove should win this one in any event, but better than the talking heads is just boulderdash!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 3:56 pm
If I were voting on my favorite song of the two, it goes to Naive Melody, no doubt. When it comes down to who performed the song better, it goes to the boys from Vermont. It’s a toss up but I’m going with who played it better.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 8:08 pm
you guys are fucking nutz…PGroove over Phish in any category is fucking BLASPHEMY.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 8:09 pm
BLASPHEMY!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 9:43 am
P groove ought to win this one, however, picking curtis loew out of all the songs phish has covered is fairly weak. how about putting 2001(also sprach zarathrustra) up or rock and roll. something in their regular rotation, or I’d just say anything from 10-31-96 or 11-2-98. just a thought, love curtis loew but phish has done way better
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 10:28 am
Cory – This isn’t a competition of which band does the best cover out of all the covers in their repertoire. Every week we post a Cover Wars column where we ask our readers to vote on which band does a particular cover best.
For this tournament, we put 32 Cover Wars winners from the past 12 months against each other. Curtis Loew happened to be one of the covers we featured in Cover Wars and our readers have voted this cover into the finals.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 10:43 am
@scott
alright, i got ya, thats pretty cool, il have to start checking it out
Monday, April 5, 2010 at 10:20 pm
they should of had phish playing cities or cross eyed and painless