Phish, 11.21.09

Phish
U.S. Bank Arena
Cincinnati, Ohio
November 21, 2009

Jam band road warriors, Phish, ended their two-night stand last night at Cincinnati’s U.S. Bank Arena, to another sold-out crowd. They had nothing to prove, as their twenty-five year-plus career speaks for itself (also add in a couple of breaks here and there), but they did show that even after a five-year break, why they are still one of the hottest and most successful touring bands of all-time. A lot of that has to do with their dedicated, cult-like following, many of whom travel all around the country just to see them.

The parking lots and garages under and around Pete Rose Way were full with massive herds of all types of people ranging from both the young and old; hippies, hipsters, and even business men and women. To me, the scene down there felt much like a little version of Bonnnaroo that had been moved to the streets of the city, simply because the only time I’ve ever seen Phish was at Bonnaroo, and this was my first Phish-only show. The lots even managed to turn into Shakedown Street (named after the Grateful Dead song), which is basically the area where you’ll find everyone hanging out (including artists, musicians and vendors) and where you can buy your “psychedelics”, veggie burritos, t-shirts, hemp products and anything else you can think of.

There was also a large authority presence of policemen and security guards, who noted that the night ran rather quiet and smoothly, with just about ten arrests. The lines were long and slow getting up the stairs and into the venue, and I knew once we got inside it wouldn’t be that long. After seeing Friday night’s setlist, I often wondered about the possibilities of what we may hear, but with a catalogue as big as Phish’s, anyone’s guess is as good as the next person’s.

The lights went off and Phish took the stage around 8 pm, inside the smokey, noisy arena. I immediately knew they were changing things up a bit, when I heard the opening bass lines to “Wilson”, a song typically reserved for later on in the night. A few curveballs were thrown during the first set, including covers of the Rolling Stones “Torn and Frayed” and Neil Young’s “Albuquerque”, the mellow and quieter “Dirt”, and “Ginseng Sullivan”, which was brought back to life for the first time since 2004. Their magnificent light show accompanied the music quite well, bouncing around from soft colors of red, blue, green, yellow, pink and purple during extended jams of phan phavorites like “Split Open and Melt” and “Run Like An Antelope”, both clocking in at over ten-minutes in length.

The band kicked things into a higher gear when they came back for set two, starting off with a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Rock & Roll” which turned into a completely new improv jam, appropriately titled “Cincinnati Jam” before going into the near-eleven minute, rare “Ghost.” They also played a couple of cuts from their latest release, Joy, with only one song in each of the two sets. “Ocelot” and “Backwards Down the Number Line”, both with that classic Phish sound, should see plenty of time down the road, becoming some of the hotter, new selections.

But the most intense part of the night for me personally, came in the second half of Set Two. Beginning with songs like “Prince Caspian”, followed by “Suzy Greenberg”, followed by “Also Sprach Zapathustra (Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey)”, and ending with “The Squirming Coil”, which was topped off by pianist Page McConnell playing onstage alone. As strong as they were when they kicked off the night, Phish somehow managed to finish even stronger.

They came back onstage for the encore just a couple minutes later, with songs like “Sleeping Monkey” and “Axilla I”, which was requested from someone down in front, something that typically doesn’t happen. Before I knew it, the show was over, and I thought that the night seemed to go by much too quickly. As it turns out, they played for nearly three hours, which is a little short for Phish, but about twice as long as most bands manage to play for. With twenty-three songs and jams in all, most of the songs seemed to fall closer to the five-minute range, with only a few going over ten minutes, for an average of just a little over seven minutes per song.

Set One
Wilson
NICU
Wolfman’s Brother
Ocelot
Torn and Frayed (Rolling Stones cover)
Strange Design
Ginseng Sullivan
Albuquerque (Neil Young cover)
Split Open and Melt
Dirt
Limb By Limb
Run Like An Antelope

Set Two
Rock & Roll (Velvet Underground cover)>
Cincinnati Jam>
Ghost
If I Could
Backwards Down the Number Line
Prince Caspian
Suzy Greenberg
Also Sprach Zarathustra, Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey
The Squirming Coil

Encore
Sleeping Monkey
Axilla I

>denotes jam into another song