11/16/94 Hill AUditorium, Ann Arbor, MI (Rvwd 12/95) Some laughing from Trey in the upbeat opening (I don't know
what he is laughing AT). Thanks to JR Trimpe for this ultra-crispy DAUD. Mike and Page in the opening few of the tramps
segment jam, as usual. Trey comes in off-key sustaining, not doing anything harmonious, but he lets fly a few quick jams here
and there... some distortion. Decent MikeS. Nothing outrageous. Beautiful segue into Simple.. so smooth that I zoned out
completely. It came around 6:45 or so, I think. This is a perfectly good Fall Simple. Very nice harmonies, not too strained or
forced. This is a very nice Simple, folks.. really. At 11:30, the jam quiets down gently and beautifully.. Trey's noodling in here is
gorgeous! At just after 12 minutes, Trey starts repetitively hitting a note, and the jam dives into space (Fish is absent). This stuff
can only be referred to as a spacey jam. Setlists should read MikeS -> Simple -> Jam. Mike drops a few bombs. Early in this
jam (13 mins), Page Mike and Trey groove a little bit on this spooky theme. At 14:15 or so, Trey starts this eerie chord jam
that is reminiscent of Velvet Underground. Fish soon kicks in a beat... At 14:50 everyone starts raging darkly, as if to segue into
BBFCFM, but noooo... they just tool around for awhile on this groove. Trey is noodling a lot.. great accompaniment from the
others. The jam goes into a fiery, intense groove around 16 mins which is one of my favorite Phish jams. Fantastic Phish in
here.. too bad it is surrounded by too much shaky, "where do we go from here" sort of improv. (good improv sounds like it
knows where it is going when you listen to it, even though the Creators of it may not have a clue where it is going.. and are also,
like you, along for the ride) I can't describe this jam well, and I'm sorry. This FIERY jam dies out after two minutes or so,
unfortunately.. I wish they had chosen to build this more, but whatever. The jam drops into a Bangoresque Cheese mode (i.e.,
goofy spaciness, weird effects from Trey.. incoherent... miscellaneous stuff from everyone, but nonetheless engaging to some
people, I'm sure (not too me)). At 19:30 Trey gets into a theme that sounds reminiscent of Wagner for a few seconds... this
short little groove segues mightily into yet another spectacularly splendorous jam. God this is hot (Fish is laying down a quick,
jazzy beat). Trey teases the Suzy Greenberg jam in here a bit around 21:20 and thereabouts. EVERYONE MUST HEAR
THIS JAM! Page starts funking out on the Clavinet organ, or whatever you call that funky little organ of his that he uses for
Frankenstein and other jams. Another inspired jam, then yet another magical segue into a slightly spacey interlude.. and then
another jam (Fish goes from a Hydrogenesque beat into a more jazzy beat, and Mike accompanies him around 24 minutes,
laying down some exceedingly jazzy bass!! yikes!). The jam is very mellow here.. jazzy! Well, Trey and Page aren't especially
jazzy, but Mike and Fish are. Trey and Page are just spitting out these quick climbing crescendo bits.. some distortion from
Trey here and there, as well.. Mike and Fish are still jazzily grooving (26 minutes). At 27 minutes, Fish kicks in a R&B beat,
after Trey leads him into it... (you can sing George Thoroughgood (sp?) in here.. "I drink alone.. yeah yeah with nobody else.."
;^). Trey then starts chording rather harshly. Mike and Page are just hitting notes here and there. Fish has picked up the old
R&B beat.. by 29 minutes, the groove is again more upbeat and beginning to frenzy... buuut, they don't really go anywhere. The
jam gets quiet.. but is still quick... this ends around 30:30 and the jam kicks back into yet another spacey interlude.. with misc.
tooling around (somewhat melodic, actually!). At 32 minutes, damn! A new inspired jam! Very funky licks from Mike. This is
yet another kickass jam in this set.. this jam just rages!! At 36 minutes, there is _practically_ a tease of Hendrix's Isabella... this
jam cools off at around 37 minutes and segues into a precious, soft Floyd-like melodious jam, very short-lived.. ends at 38:17..
the last ten seconds were just Mike. What a god-damned jam this was! To the person who emailed me that this had a YES
"Fish" tease: I've been listening to YES for 15 years, and I assure you, this did NOT have a tease of the YES song Schindleria
Praematurus. I didn't hear anything even resembling "The Fish" in here.. Oh well.. if you want to give me a precise timing of
where you thought you heard it, I'm all ears. I've been wrong before. (right, Ivan?) I'm sorry this is such a lame "review" ... I
can't do this stuff justice. You have got to hear it for yourself. The jamming in here is profoundly better than most of the jamming
in the experimental Tweezers that I have reviewed (even though the serious jams in this version tend to be surrounded by typical
'94-'95 Spacey Tweezer schtuphf). Use all means available to you to get this set. Since this wasn't a MikeSGroove, I'm not
going to rate it. Sorry. And if I were to just rate the actual Mike's Song it would get a C+, which I refuse to do, as a matter of
principle (since the jam that segues out of Simple is so glorious, at times). To all the people blessed enough to have heard this
amazing JAM **live**, you lucky bastards! (thanks, Phish, for giving all of us the opportunity to hear it on tape..) two cents
charlie