July 21, 2015 – Les Schwab Amphitheater, Bend, OR

Set One

Sample in a Jar — 7:06
I always get the name of this song confused with Frank Zappa’s “Sleeping in a Jar”, and for a good reason: they have very similar names! The only difference is that “Sleeping in a Jar” is about your parents sleeping in a jar (the jar is under the bed), and “Sample in a Jar” is about cum. Probably.

Good way to start the show though! Let’s get people sleepy! Great idea, guys.

Sand — 9:59
Ah yes, the Trey Anastasio Band staple sees light on the first show of the 2015 summer tour! Its foundation lies on its slow disco vamp while Trey, I don’t know, sings about sand or some shit.

Clearly I’ve done my research on “Sand”.

555 — 6:24
The funk-laden Mike Gordon vehicle is named as such because it’s the number of women that Mike Gordon fucked on Halloween, 2013, when the song debuted! Of course, the number has grown exponentially larger for every Halloween that has passed since because, and let me tell you, Mike Gordon fucks.

Rift — 6:50
“Rift” is like “Scent of a Mule” in that they have a similar bluegrass sensibility that’s not entirely my bag, so it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure to hear those bending vocals and that ratatatat drum cadence. I feel like once you’ve heard one “Rift”, you’ve heard them all, so look forward to me saying this identical paragraph every single time I listen to the song!

Halfway to the Moon — 7:39
Page is singing a lot already so far! “Sample in a Jar”, part of “Rift”, and now “Halfway to the Moon”? Who let this guy on the microphone for serious? Jesus Hieronymus Bosch, dude. Get that guy back on the piano!

This song always has a pleasant, non-offensive, minor-key mood piece of a jam that is more CEREBRAL than FOR THE SOUL. It makes me want to travel to the moon until I get about halfway, then I turn back. It’s scary going all the way to the moon. That Buzz Aldrin had some cahones.

Horn — 3:45
For a long time I thought “Horn” was about a trumpet or something, not a car horn. This is my “Horn” Story of the Day™.

Devotion to a Dream — 8:44
I like this song. I was off of Phish for a few years before their Fuego album dropped in 2014 (which was fine all the same, those first few years of Phish 3.0 were rough anyway.) For some reason — maybe it was just the right time of my life — Fuego really blew my mind. Most the songs were just so… happy. And I liked it at the time.

“Devotion to a Dream” is my favorite song off of Fuego, and it’s this reason, of course, that the song has only been played 20 times and not once since 2016. Fuck my luck. Nobody likes this song but me! I get it. No, I get it. Fine. I’ll just enjoy it on my own, then.

Blaze On — 8:46
The debut! This song is about smoking blunts, which is rude, but at least it’s not like how Trey writes lyrics lately like “THE EARTH IS BEAUTIFUL, FOLLOW YOUR SOUL AND YOUR DREAMS AND FOLLOW THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS, LIFE IS WONDERFUL AND LOVE EVERY MINUTE, LET’S DANCE IN THE MEADOWS AND KISS IN THE MOONLIGHT.”

Instant crowd pleaser, though, “Blaze On” is! The audience sure likes their recreation hoodoo drugs!

Tube — 4:03
Fish wrote the lyrics to “Tube”, which means you get great gems like “There’s a mummy in the cabinet” and “Ten cents to a dollar now for a shelf of pregnant hens” and “Robert Palmer is a plorb.” Blaze on before listening to “Tube”, friends. That’s for sure.

Wolfman’s Brother — 9:33
I just looked up Wolfman Jack, and did you know he was the youngest of two children? No foolin’! Although it’s impossible to learn through a very cursory, low effort internet search whether or not his older sibling was indeed a brother, one thing is for certain: Wolfman’s brother went down on Trey. Now that’s love.

Anyway, the Wolfman jam is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SPECIAL! Type I jamming with no special out-there shit happening from anybody! Boo! End Set One!

Set Two

Ghost — 12:58
Get down with your funky ghost. Always fun, but this version never really goes anywhere. SURE, Page’s piano playing is top-notch. SURE, Mike’s bass playing is top-notch. SURE, Trey is a guy in the band. What of it? There’s no SOUL in this! A by-the-book “Ghost”! Boo! Heh heh.

Birds of a Feather — 6:24
The ripcord is pulled right into the most middling “Birds of a Feather” I’ve ever heard in my dang life, holy shit dude. Nuts to this!

Mike’s Song — 8:15
Yo, I heard that Mike has a song! It’s cool, he sings in it and then when the jam starts you can barely even hear his bass! But that’s ok, because this band is all about Trey, and Trey does a good job winding his way through Mike’s song called “Mike’s Song”. No one else gets a song! Maybe Mike whined loud enough until he got a song. He seems like the type.

The Wedge — 7:56
Weird placement for this. This is a Set One song through and through and it DEFINITELY doesn’t belong after “Mike’s Song”. This is the kind of fucked up bullshit that makes the first few shows of the legendary 2015 tour a steaming load of someone else’s turds.

I like “The Wedge” though! Good song, I’m happy they played it, but man was this sloppy. Stupid early 2015 jitters, I suppose.

Fuego — 11:08
After a couple of monster versions in 2014, I was hoping “Fuego” would be the sprawling jam vehicle that it seemed destined to become. But, alas, each “Fuego” seems to run through the motions. So, I guess a good “Fuego” comes down to its tightness, and this is as tight as yo mama’s pussy. In that it’s not tight, son. Sorry that I got you excited about yo mama’s pussy there for a hot minute.

Shade — 6:38
The antithesis of “Light” is “Shade”, at least in the Phish song catalogue. As in, Trey only likes the shade when you’re blocking the light. At any rate, this song is a complete snooze and you can tell the crowd got up to use the disease-ridden port-o-johns during this botched abortion of a song. There’s no room for extended jamming, there’s no room for anything tasteful. “Shade” blows.

Of course, it’s still in the rotation. How’s that for karma? I did something rancid in a past life.

No Men in No Man’s Land — 10:08
The last debut of the evening will become a comfortable mainstay for years to come. And for a good reason! It’s white-boy funky with some nonsense Trey lyrics about a no man’s land and how there are no men in it.

There is also about six minutes and thirty seconds of funky “Ghost”-like jamming, so it’s weird to have “Ghost” earlier in the same set. But I can dig it.

Weekapaug Groove — 7:40
This is kind of a fake-out “Weekapaug Groove” at first, so much so that Mike accidentally tries to continue the “No Men in No Man’s Land” chorus when the rest of the band has clearly moved on. Once it becomes recognizable, then the band is all in! And thank God for that, because a Phish that’s not all in is a friend indeed! That’s how that saying goes!

A real low energy bullshit Weekapaug Groove is what this is. I waited through four cuts after “Mike’s Song” for this? Suck my entire dick.

Boogie On Reggae Woman — 6:10
What? You think I have something to say about a middle-of-the-road “Boogie” when there is only one song and then an encore left? You’ve got another think coming, missy!

Chalk Dust Torture — 7:47
What’s with all these sort-of-but-not-really-energetic numbers here closing on the show? What happened to the days of yore when Trey wasn’t 94 years old and he was able to keep up with the tempo. Now he’s all like “blraabra hhrahbalbab” about it. I’m bored and I’m getting a sandwich.

Encore

Theme from the Bottom — 9:16
Hey, that sandwich was pretty damn good! See you next time!