| 11/13/04 -Arlene Schnitzer Auditorium - Portland, OR |
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| Go to review 11/15/04 |
| Performing as Assface Set I: +Cinnamon Girl, Taste-> What's The Use->Theme From The Bottom->What's The Use, Mock Song, Brother Set II: Waves->The Moma Dance,Tela, Walls of The Cave#->Cavern->Camel Walk, McGrupp & The Watchful Hosemasters Encore: Amoreena +PA introduces Neil Young after lights go down, before the band takes the stage # Norwegian Wood teases Well the Pacific NW finally gets its "Just Desserts". I must admit I couldn't believe it when Phish left the PNW off of its latest tour. I'm up for traveling as much as the next guy. I'm always game for Vegas show, but sometimes its nice to see a hometown show. Phish hasn't played in Portland since 1999, and the closest they've been since then is The Gorge in '03 and that's 5 hours away. I'm also currently getting my Masters degree, so it's virtually impossible to leave town during the week, and only mostly impossible on the weekends. So, I'm having some beers with my old buddy Matt on Friday evening and he's scanning the Oregonian's Arts & Entertainment section. He notices that there is a funny typo in the rock listings. He mentions that there's some band called Assface playing at the Schnitzer. You see the Schnitz is the classiest venue in Portland. It's where the symphony plays. I perked up and told him about the Assface-Phish connection. I grabbed my cellphone and called my buddy Road-dog. I used to work with Road-dog when I was the stage manager at the Crystal Ballroom, he's a surly old local roady who's dialed right into the heart of the concert scene (when he's coherent). He tell's me my suspicion is right and they have a 10am call on Saturday to load in Phish. I yell at him for not letting me know sooner, and he tells me that he meant to call. He puts his old lady Ruth on the phone and she gives us the skinny on tix. She says I'm the first to call so she'll put me on the guest list and that if I have any friends who want to go that tix go on sale the morning of the show at 9am, and noone will know tix are on sale until the radio announces the show @10am. Needless to say everyone I know gets good tix and we're on our way to the show. We get down to the Schnitz pretty early after a fat dinner at Jake's and have some cocktails in the ritzy Schnitz. The atmosphere is festive to say the least, people are high fiving and grinning from ear to ear. I ran into my buddy Brad who flew in from LA that day after catching the Friday night show. He tells me the band is in the stratosphere and really reminds him of days gone by. I reminded Brad about the hot show we saw at the Schnitz in '93 and we had a good laugh about where we're at now, and all that's happened in those eleven years. We made our way to our 5th row seats (Thanks Ruth!) and found them just as the lights went down. In the darkened Schnitz the PA booms, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Neil Young!". The lights come on and Phish is in place, playing Cinnamon Girl. The boys are still at it with an old joke. Trey is yucking it up with a big goofy look as he barely holds back his laughter. Despite the joke the boys rage through the tune with a tightness and conviction I haven't heard from them since Fall of '99. They jam it out but restrain themselves at the eight minute mark and bring it to a full stop. I know that the band isn't playing any repeats, but I'll be damned if Taste doesn't follow me around. I've loved the tune ever since that hot Bosie tour opener in '95, but enough is enough. The only thing with that kind of attitude is to bitch slap it and Trey politely smacked that attitude of mine into the dirt. The Taste was HUGE. The epic classical momentum at the end of the composition combined with the beauty of the theater was simply indescribable. As the jam built and built in intensity the tempo got slower and slower and melted into What's the Use. This was some seriously psychedelic shit. The entire room was locked on the band and the walls were dripping. As the dynamic got quiet, Page softly chimed in with the opening chords of Theme. I haven't seen Theme since before the hiatus, it was spot on, polished. I'm a sucker for the composed Phish and I was getting the full treatment. I almost fell to the ground as the intensity of Theme rolled back into the final section of What's The Use. The band came to a full stop after What's the Use and I was glad...I needed to catch my breath. I looked down at my watch and was amazed that we were already fifty minutes into the show. The boys posseed up for a moment and I thought we'd get some comic relief via the vacuum cleaner, but no instead some mellow Mike Gordon comedy instead. Mike must have some new pedal, because his bass tone was louder and clearer than I had ever heard, almost as if every note was made out of glass. The band came to a full stop, but only for a split second and then Gordo started driving his bass to the twisted cadence of Brother. I haven't seen the Brother since Sacto in '96 and it was a sight for sore eyes. The place went nuts and I danced my ass off. Brother swelled in intensity and the shrill vocal alteration ended the first set. Set break was a party, we were all in the lobby and the bars were swamped. I ran into my old friend Kim and we rapped about what we were up to. Set two lilted into existence with the delicate Waves. This version reminded me of the version at It with a huge space jam outro. Then Gordon and Fishman hooked up with the Moma love and there we were on the deck of the ship. This Moma was a funk monster. I love the rocking glory Momas. but I'd much rather get my booty shaking and shake it did. Trey busted out some old '99 loops on this one and we spun round and round. After the war horse funk Moma, Page took the lead with an unbelievable Tela. We were getting hooked up in a way I didn't ever imagine was possible. This was a PHISH show, not a compromise or a cover, a dyed in the wool Phish show. Page decided that he didn't want to let it go and he lead the band into Walls of The Cave. I like this song, but have felt the band had yet to play the definitive version. This WOTC hit that spot that Gin hits sometimes, where it's pure joy and you can't believe how incredible this small collection of notes properly spaced can sound. Very indicative of that were the Norwegian Wood teases which dripped with Hendrix style feedback. This caused my wife to laugh her ass off due to a trip we had a couple of years ago where we argued till 4am about if What's the Use was inspired by Norwegian Wood or not. Boom into Cavern!!!! I've been waiting for a WOTC->Cavern but only in an academic sense, I never thought they would actually play it. Cavern got way funky ala Island Tour '98 and just went on and on getting nastier by the second until down it slid into Camel Walk. This tune is rapidly becoming a bust out tune that I see all the time and isn't really such a bust out anymore. Anyone else catch a number of Camel Walks post hiatus, maybe it just the shows I'm seeing? Anways I'm still into dancin' the Camel Walk, so I got down with my bad self until I was all tuckered out. Just as Camel Walk finished, Page grabbed the reins again and there we were in McGrupp. I just about fainted. It couldn't really get any better for me, wow, just incredible. This show was about the best show I've seen for at least six years. Damn! As the boys came back the crowd was deafening. I'd like to say that the encore supports the notion that this was Page's show, he really carried the day. Amoreena also settled a long debate I've had with my friend Matt about Elton John's standing in the pantheon of rock gods. Thanks for picking Portland, Assface. |