Customer Reviews

Live Phish Vol. 7: 8/14/93, World Music Theatre, Tinley Park, Illinois

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The packaging: It's the same as the last batch. The discs are on a page
meant for a binder. What makes this release different is that instead of
photos of the band inside the booklet is bassist Mike Gordon's journal entry from that day
which chronicle his thoughts on the show. This is great! It gives the
listener a new way to hear the music.

The sound: This sounds like a straight soundboard recording. Any ambient
crowd noise seems to be coming through the band's vocal microphones. You
can barely hear them between songs. Since it's a soundboard recording, the
stereo effects are really nice. This is most noticable in Page's keyboards.
The instruments all sound very clear and are generally well-mixed. The only
downside (as far as I can tell) is that the reverb effects used on the
vocals are a bit too much. While I'm sure the crowd at the show wasn't as
aware of it as I am now, it's very obvious on the recording. Thankfully,
it's only a minor thing and generally this release sounds great.

The muisic: This show has a lot of songs. The first set features many of
the staples of that era -- lots of songs from Rift or Picture of Nectar.
There's a very nice It's Ice as well as a killer Split Open and Melt. Trey
still used an acoustic guitar during that period on The Horse and it's nice
to hear that again.
The second set is truly wonderful. They start with 2001 and segue it into
Run Like An Antelope then in and out of Antelope. The segue-fest ends with
Have Mercy > Antelope (which is excellent and must be heard). A beautiful
Squirming Coil follows not long after. Near the end of Daniel Saw the
Stone, Trey announces the current score of the Bears/Cardinals game. It's
pretty funny. YEM features a full-band Smoke On The Water (Deep Purple)
tease as well as Mystery Achievement (Pretenders). The rest of the YEM jam
is pretty non-standard in that it still follows the typical lead-instrument
order (keys, guitar, bass) but it deviates pretty far from the original groove.
Trey also sings a few verses of Kool Thing (Sonic Youth) before the vocal
jam. The vocal jam itself is comeplete
with looping and other effects. Very spacey. Out of nowhere, Page begins
Purple Rain -- which has a really meoldious vaccum solo.

The filler on this show is from 8/11/1993 (Grand Rapids, MI -- set 2). Mike
mentions this show in his journal entry and that's probably why they
included this Mike's Song > Great Gig in the Sky > Weekapaug Groove. It's
pretty solid. Great Gig is just okay but the Weekapaug is excellent.

Final Decision: Highly recommended.

I had never heard this show prior to its release. What I did know was that August of 1993 was one of the most highly acclaimed periods for live Phish. The previos night's show seems to be the one most folks go ga-ga over but this one holds up just fine. Phish still had a lot to prove in 1993 (only 5,000 of the 25,000 seats were filled at this show) and there was far more conviction in their playing back then than there was in their later tours. This is easily on par with my other favorites (volumes 1 & 6).

The first set starts out with an excellent Chalkdust. An equal great Quela Papyrus follows that. And just when you think it can't get any cooler. Divided Sky kicks in and it is very alive. I love the it's ice and esther later on in the set. The second set is like one big segue with 2001, antelope, walk away, and more; its descent. The third set is ok but its got a killer filler. The golgi on the third set has a lot of energy and has a fast tempo but the vocals and guitar are faint. Like I said, the filler is killer with a great mike's song and an excellent weekapaug groove.

BUY THIS AND JAM TO IT

This was am amazing set list and I was all set to rock once I put this into my CD player for the first time. What I got was some excellent music by other standards but not the best Phish in the sea. It seems like this was a low energy night. The jams are there but they aren't up to regular Phish standards. The Walk Away in the middle of the Run Like An Antelope medley is the highlight and the dispicable/embarrassing Purple Rain is the lowlight.

Bottom Line: A great setlist and an important concert for die hard fans to have. Not the best place to start for beginners. Being the Phish fanatic that I am, I thin this is better than most CD's that I own but I gave it 3.5 because it is my least favorite of the Live Series.

Alright just to start off phish is my favorite band, and i have listened to quite a lot of there shows. But just because there my favorite band i dont think automatically anything they do is gold, on the contrary i have become more critical of phish. alright now on to the show.

this show has a lovely setlist. Basically all of the first set is comprized (i dont know if thats a word) are good songs ranging from classics (chalkdust, Split open and melt) to raritities (esther), except sparkle, and cavern (personally i have heard these songs enough, especially sparkle). To tell you the truth i dont really listen to the first set very often. Its a very good first set and a pretty good introduction to phish, but the second set...

This second set is magic. Starts of with a wonderful opener, 2001 which goes into run like an antelope. Antelope is one of my all time favorite phish songs, and this one of my favorite antelopes. the first bit of the jam in this song is not the most pleasing antelope to your ears (kind of sloppy at points, but i mean come on your gonna get some sloppiness from phish in 93), but it is a really interesting and unique jam to me, and i have grown to love it. but why is this antelope so great? i'll tell you why. a little before the 9 minutes mark its starts to build up, and oh my god, it just goes into some of the sickest stuff i have heard. everyone is playing on fire and perfectly with eachother. trey is playing a catchy riff while page adds on to it perfectly, fishman is REALLY getting into it, and mike... does mike every have a bad day? i mean this song is absolutely RAGING. page takes over the reins at one point and does a fanatastic job. this is some energetic piano playing, even though he screws up a bit at one point, he picks it back up with the organ. this jam gives me the bumps almost everytime i listen to it. it finally slows down a little... just to go into sparks (by the who)! what an awesome song. sparks segues into walk away (dont care too much for this song), that goes into a wacky jam that starts to pickup intensity toward the end of the which goes back into antelope (which is still raging). the mellow reggae tune have mercy comes up next. i really like this song and it is the perfect breather. have mercy winds down to a nice ambient point which goes into the ending of antelope perfectly. another thing to point out about this whole shibang is that all of the segues are pretty fluent. the rest of the set is pretty good too with a bunch of great songs, most notably the squirming coil, and YEM.

sorry that i didnt get into the specifics of the other parts of this show besides the first half of the second set, but that would of taken a really long time.

all that with a mike's groove filler(even if it is only so-so) and youve got yourself, one of the better live phish volumes.

Props to Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro for this excellent choice. In the great month of 8/93 this show was almost forgotten, lost in the shadow of the previous night (which featured the famous Murat Bathtub Gin) and the show at Red Rocks a week later.
This is a nice first set featuring a unique "It's Ice." The first set also has great versions of "The Divided Sky" and "Split Open and Melt."
The second set's "Run Like an Antelope" is what this show is all about. The intro contains some nice melodic bass by Mike Gordon. As the band heads into the jam they quicky stray from typical Antelope territory. It's great to hear the band members tossing out ideas and listening very closely to one another, which has become rarer in recent years. After a few minutes of experimentation the band arrives at a memorable theme at about 9:30 that segues into the Who's "Sparks" and then into the James Gang's "Walk Away." The "Tinley Park Jam" is beautifully constructed, almost too good to be improvised, and then all of a sudden they're back into Antelope for a few minutes before settling into "Have Mercy," a nice reggae number. Antelope's "Rye Rye Rocco" lyrics are sung over the Have Mercy melody before the final Run Like an Antelope chorus.
The nice thing about this show is that it manages to keep from being anticlimatic after that great Antelope. Check out "The Squirming Coil" and "You Enjoy Myself," which has a tease of a famous rock song that I just can't put my finger on. A nice "La Grange" ends the show.
There has to be something better from 8/93 that they could have used as filler beside the 8/11/93 "Mike's Groove." Sure it's not bad, the "Mike's Song" is nice, but "Great Gig in the Sky" gets boring and "Weekapaug Groove" features some very strange stuff from Trey.
But the filler certainly doesn't detract from this otherwise awesome release. Way to go Phish!

I am a phan. I love the way that their music takes me to a higher plain of thought. I have listened to a few recordings of shows and vol. 7 is one of the best I have heard. Buy it!

This might be the best of the Live Phish releases to date. It's representative of everything Phish put out at a live show. It's got covers, great segues, killer jamming, and great musicianship. Jon Fishman is especially solid here with in the pocket rhythm and Mike Gordon throws down some very cool bass lines. There are tons of songs and great transitions: i.e. ALL of disc 2! There really isn't all that much to say about it except listen to it if you can!
Highlights for me include: Guelah, Divided Sky, It's Ice, SOAM, disc 2, and the great YEM and Mike's filler on disc 3.

This is one of the best concerts I have ever heard. "The Horse" into "Silent in the Morning" was great, the "Chalk Dust Torture" was awesome, the "Divided Sky" was lovely and the "Cavern" was fierce. The highlight would have to be "2001" into a racing "Run Like an Antelope" into "Sparks" (by the Who!!!!)and then a jam that interwieves into other songs (a fun "Walk Away", a mellow "Have Mercy") before finally getting back to Antelope. Talk about setting the gear shift to the high gear of my soul!! That amazing jam goes into an up-beat, fun "Mound", and I loved how Trey gave the football up-date during a crazy "Daniel Saw the Stone". The multi-tease "You Enjoy Myself" into a hysterical "Purple Rain" was nice, and the "Golgi Apparatus" to end was great. The ZZ Top cover was sweet. The Mike's Groove filler was interesting. A good "Mike's Song" and an experimental "Weekapaug Groove", but the "Great Gig in the Sky" (by Pink Floyd off the greatest album ever made) made me pee my pants. Up until this point, I've just downloaded concerts off of livephish.com (check the site out if you want all the newest Phish stuff), but I'm gonna start buying the cd realeases! Go Phish!!!!

If there has been a band that has had the most success of being an "underground" band, it would have to be Phish. Phish has long had the reputation of being a band with an "open audio taping" policy and as a result they built up a great following - especially as a live act. . In fairness to the quartet, this is a band that produces some of the most innovative music anywhere on the music scene. With the wealth of bootleg recordings that existed from Phish concerts, it did make sense when Phish launched the "Live Phish" series starting in 2001. This is a twenty volume set that provides some of the great Phish concerts - in their entirety. With the proceedings going to charity, it also gave an opportunity to cleanup and master these recordings. One of the more famous ones of the "Live Phish" series is "Live Phish Volume 7" -recorded August 14, 1993 at the World Music Theatre in Tinley Park, Illinois. This is the third oldest recording of the Live Phish series, but no doubt it is one of the better ones. This particular set showcases why Phish has such a great live reputation.

The reason why the Tinley Park performance works so well is because it contains a solid set list (since this was performed in 1993, this was the tour in support of "Rift", so that is the "newest" material). It was around this time when Phish had clearly cemented themselves as a jam band, and now were moving in the direction of improvisational music. This was also the time where Phish was building a reputation for doing covers. The Tinley Park performance is going to showcase all of the jam and improvisational skills. It is also going to have its share of covers.

Here are ten thoughts on this concert to support the points above. These are listed in no particular order:

1-I loved the fact that this collection opened up with "Chalk Dust Torture". This is a great song and immediately sets the intensity the band would deliver throughout this particular performance. I love how "Guelah Papyrus" follows this song up.

2-When looking at each of the four members of Phish, they clearly bring there "A" game to Tinley Park. In general, while I think drummer Jon Fishman had one of his better performances, I think the "MVP" of the band on this night was keyboardist Page McConnnell. His keyboards were simply "lights out" at this performance.

3-The nice thing about the "Live Phish" collection as opposed to many other live collections from other artists, is that you are getting the complete Phish concert from a single night - delivered in the order in which it was performed. I prefer this approach as opposed to a live album that puts together "best of" live performances from several nights on a tour. By showcasing the concert - in its entirety on a single night, you are able to capture the "magic" of the performance. The Tinley Park shows clearly had that magic.

4-The one point of reality as that the "Live Phish" series wasn't really planned to be released - and considering that, the sound quality is pretty good. However, on "The Horse" you do hear some feedback on the microphone.

5-There are two "sets" performed at Tinley Park. It is perhaps the second set that really steals the show. This features a 35+ minute jam/medley by the band. At the core of this eight-song medley includes "Run Like An Antelope", a song in which the band comes "in and out" of several times. While swapping out of "Antelope", the band does covers such as "2001", Joe Walsh's "Walk Away", the Who's "Sparks", and the Mighty Diamonds' "Have Mercy". It is this type of medley that truly defines the legacy of Phish.

6-"2001" is a cover that Phish has done throughout their careers and it is one of the great covers of the evening. The other standout one is a humorous cover of Prince's "Purple Rain". Despite the humor, Phish covers "Purple Rain" very well and it proves why they have been able to emerge as one of the great improvisational bands of all-time.

7-There are plenty of other Phish classics included. Standout performances (in addition to above) include: "The Divided Sky", "Split Open and Melt", "Esther", "The Squirming Coil", "Cavern", and "Golgi Apparatus".

8-In the middle of "Daniel Saw the Stone", Trey Anastasio announces the score of the Chicago Bears' game against the Cardinals (must have been a preseason game). This "break" again highlights how well the band improvises during a performance.

9-"Volume 7" also includes "filler" material from a Phish concert three nights before in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is perhaps one of the best bonus' ever! The "filler" consists of a rendition of "Mike's Groove" (featuring "Mike's Song", a cover of Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky", and "Weekapaug Groove"). And this is "filler"???? This is great stuff! I can never get tired of the classic chords of "Mike's Song" and this performance truly stands out. I heard some negative feedback on the inclusion of this set - and I really can't understand this. Add on a cover from Pink Floyd - it just doesn't get any better than that. Overall, this "filler" strengthens an already very strong collection.

10-The Liner Notes include some journal entries by Mike Gordon on the performance. It's nothing major, but it was good enough for myself to want more notes from Gordon.

Overall, this is nothing short of a legendary performance by Phish. While there are many good live recordings made available by Phish (such as "Hampton Comes Alive" and "Live at Madison Square Garden"), this performance at Tinley Park definitely takes its place among those. I would highly recommend this collection.