[Stream provided by www.phishtracks.com]

Recently released on DVD, this was the second trip to this Pittsburgh area amphitheater for the band. Their first visit almost exactly one year ago and it has been a staple almost every tour since. Up till this point the last two shows clearly set the bar high for new cover songs. As mentioned earlier, this was the summer tour full of new covers played every night by the band. The question is, how can you top Beastie Boys and the Grateful Dead? You could...

Download Show (link sourced from The Spreadsheet)

Set 1: Trench Town Rock > Julius, Wolfman's Brother -> Time Loves a Hero, Bittersweet Motel, Reba, The Sloth, Ginseng Sullivan, Fee > Maze, Sample in a Jar

...cover Bob Marley. What better to spread the Summer time vibe then Bob. Now, as much as I wholeheartedly enjoyed this live, listening back is a tad painful. Lets face it, Bob Marley's vocals are one of a kind so no matter who you are, it's damn hard to cover and have it coming out sounding any where near as good as the original. But huge points for the selection in and of itself. 

Moving from the unconventional to the as conventional as it gets Phish rock song, Julius does what it typically would do back in the 90's - rock the house. A solid 5 minutes of straight Trey shredfest, this Julius has a lot of good punch that takes the excitement induced in the crowd from the surprise cover and whips them further into a frenzy. To then follow up with a jam vehicle such as Wolfman's Brother is simply icing on the cake for this opening sequence. 

Watch this version of Julius at Phish's official Vimeo page

With the jam portion of Wolfman's commencing at around the 4 minute mark, this short but sweet version is highly danceable with some fantastic interplay between all four members. especially from around the 6:30 mark. Things start to quite down a bit around 8 minutes in where everyone seems to be laying back a bit to allow Trey to do his noodle magic and eventually Trey takes a back seat as well so that everyone can find a common groove. While they find this common groove, it doesn't last long as Trey comes roaring back out to the front but as quickly as he returns, he retreats for one more full band groove for a few more stanzas. One more Trey lash out then a cool down that leads them into the second cover of the night. 

A nice segue into Time Loves A Hero. And this is one segue where I would agree to include a "->". Listening back to this Little Feet cover I can't help but think about the Atlantic City Halloween show where they covered Waiting for Columbus. The influences this band had and continues to have on Phish is striking. It's also fun to note that this was the first time since 11/5/88 that Phish played this particular song live so big bonus points for this bust out. 

Bittersweet Motel was debuted in the summer of 98 and as the band stated right after playing it this night, "they had been waiting to play this all tour at this show". Mainly because of the lyric, "halfway between Erie and Pittsburgh", which of course got a big roar from the crowd when sung. At this point in the show it seemed to have closed a chapter on an already epic night where Bob Marley was covered and they revived an old Little Feet cover. The next chapter would start off with a bang in a rousing rendition of Reba. 

Page's tickling of the electric keys out of the gate for this Reba jam sets a nice warm tone to the groove. The typical Trey noodling over top of everyone is on point and quite extended. The first move towards the finish line doesn't come until about 12 minutes in to the song and this turn would prove to be slow, like a giant tanker making it's way into a small port. The best part about Reba is the reach to the finish line and the rocket fire licks pumped out by Trey. With the extended jamming in this version it's surprising that the climax doesn't last longer. All in all this is a great version but it deserved a more climatic ending. 

For a song that only clocks in at around 4 minutes, The Sloth sure has a lot of character. From dark driving chords, to jazzy organ beats and dissonant guitar lines, a lot happens in those 4 minutes.

Ginseng adds the standard bluegrass breakdown, which is almost essential at any Phish summer time show.

Love Fee and love it even more when the ending is extended. While not as extensive as say the Virgnia Beach from the following year or perhaps the more recent version from Alpine Valley this past summer, it's still a very chill jam that comes out of this one. Trey hits his octaves while Fishman lightly taps around his kit and Gordo bounces his fingers off his bass's high notes. The crowd really gets into this chill groove, too, as they start up a rhythmic clap half way through this jam. 

As Fee's slow jam fades out, Maze's eerie intro fades in. 

Page's organ solo kicks off around the 4 minute mark with Trey's choppy chord comps in tow. Trey uses a distorting effect on his comps in this version that gives the song an even eerier vibe then usual. After almost 4 minutes of Page shredding the organ, we get the first Maze climax that leads to Trey's solo section. And boy, what a section it is.

Someone definitely ate their Wheaties before this show as Trey shows off his stamina in this Maze jam. With set already clocking in over an hour, Trey kept dragging this one out. At about the 13 minute mark is when he finally moves it towards the "take off" riff that always whips the crowd into a frenzy. My only qualm with this version is the "take off" riff only peaks it's head out once and the chaos comes to end a bit too soon. Similar to Reba, for a version that had so much going in the right direction I would have hoped for a stronger ending. 

"Fee > Maze" - Star Lake 98 DVD from Phish on Vimeo.

The stamina continues as apparently Maze wasn't enough to close the set so why not Sample In A Jar. 

All in all, this is by far the best first set of this 3 night run I had seen up till this point in the summer. It had an amazing cover selection, a great Little Feet bust out and fantastic versions of Reba and Maze, two of my favorite songs in their book. Not to mention a set that simply didn't want to quit (88 minutes). A far cry from the under an hour set from Merriweather. 

Set 2: Runaway Jim, Meat > Limb By Limb, When the Circus Comes > Down with Disease

Encore: Wilson > Golgi Apparatus

Well, to put it bluntly, the second set opens with the second longest Runaway Jim ever played - at least as of this review. While the length is all fine and dandy, it doesn't mean much if there isn't anything special to note within the mix. 

Four minutes in to Jim and the standard jam gets started but at about the 6 minute mark or so things begin to get a little darker and slower. But there's still a chance that this Jim stays within the boundaries and comes roaring back to the main theme. It's at about 10 minutes or so in where all gets very quite where decisions are made - to pull back or not to pull back, that is the question. The answer of course is to keep on pushing and at 11:30 you can hear it in Trey's tone - this is just the calm before the storm. 

A lot of spacey, ambient sounds are created from here on out. As we would later find out at Lemonwheel, Brian Eno was having a big effect on their sound around this time. This jam is perhaps their preamble to the Lemonwhee's Ambient Jam. The first real segment that arises from the ambient occurs around the 15 minute mark. It starts to pick up energy at about 16:30 where all members start to provide their own interpretation of where this segment was heading. The crowd reacts for perhaps the first time since we left the standard Jim jam. 

At 19 minutes we really start to hit a stride with Trey playing with a fun melody and some effects. This is the loudest the band has sounded since starting the ambient jamming so I guess you could call this a peak moment if there ever is one in an ambient jam. It goes back in the ambiance for a minute but then comes roaring back out with Trey lifting the jam out into a standard rocking Phish jam getting the crowd into a real frenzy. One might suspect we are hitting a home stretch. Not so fast. 

Fishman starts hitting his crash symbols and Trey pumps out a few heavy metal chords only to lead us back into the quiet. We are now 24 minutes into the jam and the quite now includes some silent funk from Trey and Page. Gordon drops a slick walking bass line underneath their funk while Fishman leaves his symbols alone for awhile and focuses on his bass drums and cow bell. Out of all this Trey starts pulling out some choice notes that turn into a sharp descending melody. He continues with this melody pattern until it snowballs into a full force band onslaught that has one heck of a menacing vibe.

We are now 30+ minutes into this jam and this menacing sound eventually retreats back into the ether of the ambient jam. It's at this point, around 32 minutes where Trey begins to tease "Maria" from West Side Story. My theory here is that they said this would be their signal that it's time to head back home, back into Jim. And slowly but surely the Jim chorus comes alive and the crowd goes wild as it was quite unsuspecting to pull this 30 minute long jam back into the original song but listening back, there is no other way they could have ended this song as segueing it would have be an injustice. 

With no Story Of The Ghost songs played in the first set, both Meat and Limb By Limb come next to represent the upcoming fall release. While not my favorite song in the world, Meat's pounding beat adds a nice sharp contrast to the looseness that was the Jim jam. This Meat also has a little extra funk to it then some other versions. 

The segue that Phish.net puts here for Limb By Limb is a good example of over usage of the segue. But I digress. This is a well executive Limb but it stays within the confines of the jam. Good peak to give us another lift after the cool down from Meat. 

When The Circus Comes to Town is a great Los Lobos cover that hasn't gotten as much play in the 3.0 era as I would like. 

After three songs that were primarily fillers for the two bookends, we get our set closer - Down With Disease. With the set about an hour deep, you know you are not going to get some crazy exploratory song. Instead we get a tightly packaged Disease with tons of energy from start to finish. Clocking in at just over 10 minutes, they leave the stage with everyone satisfied with the two sets of exceptional music. 

A rare Wilson encore keeps the energy that has been buzzing throughout this show in high gear. Since the songs debut in 1986, it's only showed up in the encore 5 times. For some reason they decided to do it twice in the summer of 98 (Portland Meadows was the other show this tour).It doesn't get any better or more classic then to get a Golgi closer. With the sing-a-long verse, "I saw you with a ticket stub in your hand", and the fantastic energy building climax, this is how you put an exclamation point at the end of a great fucking show. 

Watch Down With Disease on their Vimeo page

The Verdict - 9/10 

This show has just about everything you want in a Phish show - unexpected covers (Trench Town), bust outs (Time Loves a Hero), long exploratory jams (Jim) and an encore that keeps your toes tapping as you leave the venue. I could have gone higher if the Reba and Maze endings received better treatment.