Hot 'Lanta

Status

On yet another flight, this time from Atlanta to Ohio. It has been a series of planes, trains and automobiles taking me across the country following Phish. Major props to the people doing large chunks of this tour by car. Phish has not made the routing easy. At all.

Intro

I have really been looking forward to the southern swing this year, especially Atlanta. I graduated from Emory University, lived and worked in the A-T-L throughout college, sold tickets at Lakewood for a minute and had my first taste of Phish in The A. I was the box office manager at the Roxy for nearly 4 years and got to see (and comp my buddies) hundreds of shows including some band named Phish in 93 that I really didn't get at the time. However my deadhead buddies liked them enough that I would go and see them every time they played in Atlanta and they obviously grew on me...just a little bit. 

It was also special being able to spend time with Valerie on her home turf, she is an incredible hostess. She had a crew of people in her home including Elliot and Jayme and finally the first appearance of my tour wife Jaclyn. Lance, Hamilton, Scott & Brenda, McG, Miki, Panda Dan, Michael, Ilana for one show, Adam and Jess were also jumping on board for the run. Atlanta was setting up for a beautiful collision of the past and the present. 

Activity Summary

Once again this section will be sparse... with all of the travel, music, food and fun life has provided I haven't had as much time to explore. That being said my favorite extracurricular activity was spending time with all of my friends, especially Valerie, McG and the Gingolds. Friends and family make my world go round. Playing catch with Graham and doing handstands with Isla brought me so much joy and happiness. They are a couple of awesome little people. 

Grinds

Gunshow. It's quite possible that I had the best meal of my life during the Atlanta run. Valerie set up a beautiful surprise by arranging dinner at Gunshow with the Gingolds. Pardon me as I am about to go into way too much detail about this meal but it was so ridiculously good it deserves a few sentences. Kevin Gillespie is the owner and head chef. Dishes are presented to your table by the chef that prepared that specific dish and offered to you dim sum style. I noticed that each chef (the restaurant is wide open and you see exactly what everyone is doing) was only preparing their own items - no line cooking here. We ordered at least one of everything on the menu and some of the items (the short ribs dish, chicken sandwich, duck and banana pudding in particular - see the menu in the pictures) were some of the best bites of food I have ever experienced. This was the tahoe tweezer of dinners - incredible food in a great setting with amazing company. 

Royal China. Valerie's go to dim sum spot. Jaclyn, Valerie and I had an awesome and very authentic dim sum meal. How many times can I say dim sum in a post? It's always a good sign when you walk into an Asian restaurant and you are the only round eyes in the place. Solid meal.  

Harry & Sons. Sounds like bar food but it's actually Thai and sushi (weird combo anyway) in the highlands. Did the job but wouldn't go out of my way to eat here again.

Cracker Barrel. I always try to hit a Cracker Barrel on my southern road trips and this trip was no exception. You know what you are getting here, no surprises. 

Wrecking Bar Brewpub. Underwhelming meal, didn't have all the ingredients on the dish listed on the menu, too salty. Probably should've just drank our dinner as their beers are well respected.

Tee Shirt Time 

Friday: I loved my meal so much at gunshow I bought a shirt and wore it to the show the next night. It was light grey but quickly turned dark from the insane amount of sweat pouring out of my body (and the show hadn't even started yet). I also quickly realized people might think my ego is even bigger than it already is as two people commented on me wearing a shirt about my "guns". 

Saturday: I can't even begin to tell you how hot it was in Atlanta in the pit both nights. As such for Saturday I ditched my planned shirt and just wore a sweat absorbing work out shirt. Much to Lance's chagrin it is an Adidas shirt. I support and love lance big time but still buy most of my clothes at Costco. Don't let the tee shirt time section fool you...I have very limited style or patience for shopping. 

Shenanigans 

The highlight of the Shenanigans was taking a bus down to the show. Smithers organized a fur bus that scooped us up in the highlands and took us to the show and brought us back post show. Big thanks to my man for hooking that up, we had a great time and it was super easy. He also granted me DJ duties so I was stoked to control the music...post show Loring park sessions for the win, as always. 

Otherwise we had some fun hanging at Valeries, Elliot and Jayme were coloring and hitting the highland tap post show (more below under DJ section). 

Phishing Report

Both nights we sent people in as the doors opened and set up a great spot dead center about 15 rows back of Trey. We had a pretty large crew of about 20. Always fun to catch phish (see what I did there?) with a big crew of homeboys and homegirls. Also bonded with the moo crew...in a small world they also have a panda dan who happened to be the connection sign guy (see previous Dallas post). 

7/31/15. Why we do what we do. 

This was as complete a phish show as I have seen since the FYF dicks show. Opening with Caspian was bizarre but it actually fit well in that slot and gave both the band and the fans a chance to settle in. The only disadvantage was that it was too early for a piss break. 

After Caspian came a great set of phish, especially considering recent first set vintages. No men is quickly becoming a song that the fans love hearing and the band loves playing. Phish has dropped it in the two hole twice so far this tour with great results. It really got the party started in Atlanta. An early Ghost is always a sign the boys mean business and for a first set ghost this was super solid. Almost nailed the drop, neat changes of pace, a really solid version. Although I haven't confirmed with memo yet for his take. You can tell early on that the band is comfortable, confident, locked in. What a smoking way to start the show. 

A really good Wedge (with personal shout outs to the Great Divide) is followed by an above average Moma, a song that I always gets down to. That was followed by a new Gordon song that repeats the title How Many People Are You over and over. I like the song, some in our crew don't. However we all joked that it sounds like the maitre d at a restaurant asking how many people are in your party. Table of 555 please. 

Are we going to get standard first set fare to close the set? Nope! A fiery and true Mikes Groove because it included (a somewhat butchered) hydrogen into Paug closed the set in style. Phish came to Atlanta and immediately announced that they meant serious business with one of the best first sets (containing lots of second set tunes) in recent memory. 

Two years to the day after the Tahoe Tweezer - the best single song I have ever experienced live - the second set opens with Kill Devil Falls. This version immediately jumps to the discussion of best jams of 3.0. It is absolutely incredible. One trend I have noticed this tour is that Phish/Trey are not afraid to go dark and dirty. The past few years have been musically a much happier phish. They go evil here and really take the song out for a spin. The Lakewood Kill Devil Falls (has this jam been named yet? This jam is deserving of a name) immediately became an instant classic jam. 

After that insane jam a mellow number will follow...right? Wrong! Martian monster out of nowhere. Incredible playing on this song from Halloween. I really wish more tunes were played from Halloween...very long fuse, your pet cat, etc. This includes the weird trey and mike bass/guitar thing. While its impressive that they switch instruments it kind of makes me uncomfortable. Once was ok, the second time I really didn't enjoy the somewhat gay (not that there is anything wrong with that) exchange. 

Twist was another great effort, not quite on par with shoreline for me (although that's more because how incredible shorelines was, not a diss on this one) but a nice call in the slot and always special to hear with Valerie. Love me some back on the train, time to boogie down and have some dancing fun. If BOTT is the slow down song in the set you know phish is crushing it. 

Reba was pretty solid although it did contain some flubs. It appeared the whistling was not going to happen and then it happened in the Gin. I love me some gin and late second set gin is just what the doc ordered. I loved that they were taking chances, changing the structure, playing around with the song and going out there on a limb on this gin although it didn't always connect. Still a monster effort, monster song in the Wood KDF, monster set, monster, monster show. 

Farmhouse was only the second bathroom song of the night and similar to Caspian was played at a time that really wasn't appropriate to pee. Standard Zero closed out a superb effort by Phish. What an amazing show. 

8/1/15 Biscuits and gravy 

After everything that went down the night before, anything awesome that happened night 2 in Atlanta was going to be gravy (on biscuits because we are in south and I seem to be eating way more biscuits and gravy than I should down here). 

We were back in our center spot and added Sharon to the crew. Always an incredible addition especially when you don't have to put up with Chachi. Mckenzie aka donuts also joined us Saturday. It was good to see her and the joy and happiness of phish was exactly what she needed after the sadness of a very difficult day for her. 

Things get started with our first Jim of the tour. Always a fun, if standard, opener. After that Undermind batting second. This has become a jam slot this tour. I'm really ready for them to take this jam out for another big spin again similar dicks 2012. Nellie Kane was one of the first bluegrass tunes all tour. With all of the dead Trey played this year I though this tour would have more bluegrass, I thought (incorrectly it turns out) maybe they were saving it for Nashville. Anyway not many knee slapping opportunities thus far. 

Speaking of the dead it was Jerry's birthday. We hadn't heard any actual dead tunes up until this point so people were thinking perhaps today was the day (note: I had given up any hope that we were going to hear any dead this tour by now). I think rather than play the actual dead phish played two songs in their catalog that are very dead like: Blaze on (sounds like the dead, written while trey was rehearsing for gd50) and our first ocelot of the tour (always reminds me of the dead). Both pretty standard but felt like a mini tribute. 

Not much else to report from the first set however as usual we did a big group hug during theme....keep what's important and know who's your friend. Cheesy but I always enjoy the theme hug. 

Second set gets started with a huge tweezer. People in my online phish world seem to really love this tweezer but it never connected for me. I love that they are experimenting and trying new things but sometimes you miss shots that you take and for me this was a miss. Note: while on tour I don't listen to much phish and rarely relisten to shows until after the tour is over. Perhaps I will change my tune when I give this a relisten but live it didn't do it for me. I was surprised post show to see that it was 25 minutes long however as Tina says girth is more important than length. Then they drop into a waiting all night (enough with this song, especially in the second set) and started number line. I thought the set might be in some trouble. 

At this point I whispered to McG that what we will hear people say after the show is, "Yeah they played number line but the jam was great." Well there is a reason people say this, the number line jam is usually pretty solid and this one was actually great. I'm about to say something shocking to me: this number line was awesome and it really turned the set around for me. Carini is probably my favorite phish song and this one was nasty, gnarly, vicious. No happy carini here as the boys went dark and deep. The temperature and humidity in the venue combined with my propensity to overheat caused sweat to fly off every square inch of my body as I was head banging like a mad man for the entire song.

I have a theory that anytime Phish goes really dark and dirty they have to follow that up with something light and happy and this was no exception. I dug the choice of waste in this slot and it was great to hear with Valerie. Note that sweat was still pouring off my body like a broken faucet but she still slow danced with me. Thanks towel!

Following Waste was one of the most funky and super danceable songs I have ever witnessed. Lance and I were getting the funk down to Sand. This was one of the most fun songs I have ever experienced at phish. We were boogieing down as hard as you possibly could. I lost 5 pounds during this number alone. Run, do not walk, to listen to this version. However make sure you have room to get down because it is impossible not to dance to this song. The Atlanta Sand (again we need a name here) immediately is in the discussion for best ever versions along with cypress, dicks, Portsmouth for me.

The dance party didn't stop with the greatest 3 minutes in rock n roll - tweeprise. I thought playing it post sand pre encore and closing out the set with it was the right call. What an incredible 4th quarter to that show. 

I like the call of limited covers being played, I also like them in the encore. Rock n roll was a surprise call here. To be fair this was a pretty rough version and it appears they haven't really been practicing it much. But still a fun way to cap off the evening and an absolutely incredible two night run of music. I am prone to hyperbole but this really was a two show run for the ages. 

DJ Phink

After night two of Atlanta we went to the Highland Tap for post show drinks. In college 20 years ago we would go to the highland tap for serious adult beverages. When we got tired of shitty drinks and beer at taco mac, Maggie's or PJ's and actually had a few extra dollars to spend we would head over to the Highland Tap and order big boy drinks. Valerie lives in the highlands so I suggested we head over for dark cocktails. This ended up being a good call as we gathered at a booth in the corner, the staff was awesome and put up with us and they had an "internet jukebox". Note this seemed to be the precursor and less successful brother of touch tunes (couldn't operate this one from my phone) but they still had a pretty good collection of music. I put in $5 and selected the following tunes....

(1) The Other One from winterland 77. Fuck it, it was Jerry's birthday and as my buddy Brady says time to JPTFD (just play the fucking dead). Long jammy version, our group loved it but the bar probably didn't like it too much as it pretty much cleared the place out. 

(2). Beastie boys Get It Together. One of my favorites. Figured I owed the bar after playing a 20 min dead jam. Didn't realize everyone would've been gone already or I probably would've stuck with the dead. 

(3). Elton John Funeral for a friend. The song that convinced me Elton John actually has talent. Incredible tune, haunting in the beginning and epic piano in the end. Was appropriate given the McKenzie situation. 

(4). The weekend, Can't Feel my Face. Jayme turned me onto this new tune. Really dig it. 

(5). Reba 12/31/95 MSG. We were going to end this trip with Phish and my all time favorite Reba ever. Duh

Summary

This was one of the best two night runs in Phishtory. 

Musically Phish laid down an amazingly complete show from start to finish night one and a segment of music that I will be listening and dancing to for the rest of my life. The band is healthy, happy and comfortable being Phish. A veteran ball player that can see the court, knows where the other players will be and still has the game and skills to match, Phish is right in a perfect sweet spot right now. Not afraid to take risks, while they miss a few shots they are also taking the shots and making a lot of them. Our community is happy, healthy, mature, comfortable. Go see as much phish as you can right now. It is a beautiful time to be a Phan. We are so lucky. 

On a personal level, I had such a beautiful time. Valerie was the hostess with the mostess, we had such an incredible experience outside of Phish for her hometown shows. I had one of the best meals of my life with people that I truly love. We had a huge crew with tons of space in a great spot on the floor. The experience of being with people you love, watching a band you love, in a city that you love... life is beautiful.