…They sound more focused than on any of their ten previous studio offerings. Certainly, what's here is not for everybody, but this jumpy, well-constructed little set may even get Phish fans excited. As reunion sets go, this one is a winner.
Here's the thing. Mike Gordon is the bass player from Phish. Even though he is also a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, filmmaker, and a whole lot of other things, and has several solo albums and other projects under his belt, the frame of reference for Gordon is always going to be Phish, in the same way that whatever Ringo Starr does is always backlit by the fact that he was the drummer for the Beatles. Helping this perception along, though, is Gordon's penchant for mixing the same elements into his solo albums as Phish always did, crafting songs that ride on thick grooves, always shifting and expanding, full of space and turns, and lyrics as whimsical and fleeting as rainbow smoke.
Phish: Live in Vegas is a video of a complete live performance by the rock band Phish recorded on September 30, 2000, bandleader Trey Anastasio's 36th birthday. It includes many rarities and songs that were brought out of "retirement" after long periods of inactivity. The performance was originally a live Internet webcast that came just days after Phish officially announced an indefinite break from recording and touring.
By the time Jerry Garcia passed on in 1995, Phish had already been growing a remarkably devoted following of Phish-heads, moving in the same migration patterns that had been laid out by Deadheads in the decades preceding. While Garcia's passing didn't exactly symbolize a changing of the guard in the jam band kingdom, it did mark the end of the Grateful Dead's previously endless touring, and left tens of thousands of nomadic free spirits leaderless and drifting with no band to follow across the parking lots and stadiums of America…
All new 2-DVD set, recorded live on August 11, 1998 at Star Lake Amphitheatre in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. The Star Lake 98 show was the 20th of summer to display the loose, experimental vibe of a tour that began in Europe and jumped to the United States enroute to the summer’s ending Lemonwheel festival. "Star Lake 98" is the only full video show available in the Archives from Phish's Summer 1998 tour. The 2-DVD set was created from archival VHS videotapes of the 3-camera lawn screen feed. The audio was mixed from multi-track masters in stereo PCM and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround (aspect Ratio 4:3, regions 1-6 NTSC) and clocks in at just about 2 hours and 50 minutes.
Recorded at two separate Chicago dates for a constantly touring Hoist-era Phish, Chicago '94 captures every song recorded at each of the two-set gigs, as well as soundcheck material, amounting to over six hours of music in total…