Phish
“WHY WE CHASE”
7/25/1999 – Deer Creek
By Greg Peeler • Photos by Ryan Swerdlin
I often get asked why I see as many concerts as I do. Of course, trying to explain this to somebody who doesn’t understand the thrill of seeing live music in a setting where anything can happen is pretty much impossible. Even though I try to be eloquent when attempting to give a response, I find myself getting a lot of blank stares and empty nods in return.
People understand that you love the camaraderie of the people you meet– even people you’ve known for ages who you only get to see a few times a year at a concert. It makes sense to say you enjoy traveling across this great country and seeing such fascinating places as Birmingham, or Raleigh. But the concept of chasing that dream, THAT show, THAT moment, those few minutes where the music itself leaves the constraints of what you previously thought was possible and takes not just you, but the band themselves, to a place none of you could have expected when you walked through the gates of the venue — that’s what we chase. And unless you actually go to shows, you’ll probably never really understand. (And even then you still have to be open to it.)
7/25/99 Noblesville, Indiana. It is hot as the devils frying pan in the middle of the fields surrounding Deer Creek. The whole damn summer tour has just been a furnace from one stop to the next, and the tour closer is the culmination of all that. Everything is bleached out, as dry as discarded husks. Even Malachi wouldn’t feel much like walking behind the rows of central Indiana today. I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep either. Yeah I dozed a little on the drive down after Alpine Valley the night before, but really neither my tour partner nor I had really slept since we left Baltimore two days previous. Phish had just laid down maybe the single weirdest show I had ever seen them do the night before; but Alpine Valley is a different story. The point is, you weren’t getting much sleep in a tent at Deer Creek onsite camping.
By the time we put the tents up; it had to have been well over a hundred in those things, hardly conducive to rest. We managed to zap out for a couple hours in the car with the AC running, but that’s it. But this is the tour closing weekend, and rest is for the weak when you’re on tour, so you suck it up and do what you gotta do.
Deer Creek does both weird and wonderful things to Phish. Did it for the Grateful Dead too; but in their case it also led to something not so wonderful that fateful year of 95. I think it’s Indiana in general, to be honest. Something in the water perhaps, makes things next level weird and intense. But you’re crazy if you enjoy Phish shows and don’t make Deer Creek, it always gives at least SOMETHING worthwhile every run, and often, like 8/10/97 and 7/11/00 it takes things far beyond even those boundaries.
So I actually had a second row ticket for the first night. I had stopped going down front regardless of if I had a ticket down there a few years before. When the front rows at shows became some weird status thing for people who cared WAY too much about being down there, it really took a lot of the fun out of it. I know what they look like, and I’m the last dude they probably want to be looking at all night anyway. But this night, I decided to brave it. My brothaman and traveling companion for so many shows in the late 90’s, GB, he had a lawnie, and he was perfectly ok with being up there. I was wise enough to try to mark the spot where he was though.
I had a feeling I wasn’t gonna be down front the whole time. And remember: this was in the days before cell phones. When you left somebody there wasn’t any texting to find them again– you were on your own. I’m generally ok on my own though. I’ve done long runs by myself. It’s no big deal to solo a show if I have to. Hence why I took off and made my way down front.
About fifteen minutes later, I was done, had to get the hell out of there. It’s not that I’m agoraphobic or anything. I have no serious crowd issues or social problems. I just like my space when I’m at a show. I like to dance, and I’m not a small dude, and I like to have my space. I also don’t want to interfere with other people who are trying to peacefully have their space. Well, that’s why being down front isn’t any fun for me anymore. And the band was doing some weird, weird stuff, and it was messing with my head anyway. It was for my own sanity, I just had to bail.
I made it down front maybe 5 minutes before the lights go down, just enough time to get situated before the band comes out. The lights go down, and they walk out and open up with ”Meat.” Things are already in the weird zone. First time they ever used “Meat” as an opener (only twice overall) and it’s just a very odd way to start things off, not that “Meat” isn’t an odd song no matter how you cut it. But with Phish, I like odd. When they’re taking chances, it means all kinds of interesting things can happen.
But I wasn’t able to find my personal rhythm through it. I think I needed a straight blast to the face from the band to get me in the right place. But Phish is gonna do it their way. And they want to mess with my head. The dark vibes continue as they drop into a savage “My Friend.” That’s an opening I would have expected, but after Meat, I just feel dark and paranoid. I don’t know why but some of the most dark and odd times I’ve had at Phish have been at Deer Creek: I came within a hair of running from the venue during a disjointed, dark, and jarring SOAM at the insane 8/10/97 show. It’s actually my favorite Melt ever, but it literally scared the hell out of me at the time because it was so good. And here we are again. MF/MF is just screaming out of the speakers and into my face. I’ve got no room whatsoever to be able to stretch out and find my groove and I don’t know anybody around me to try to work with to make it all better. I’m about to have a pretty bad night.
Then, coming out of MF/MF, they don’t finish the song, but they trail off into this ambient space. They would do this in ‘99 early in the first set, sometimes it was just a jam, like the Alpine Fluffhead, or the Virginia Beach Fee; but I vaguely recognized this as My Left Toe from seeing it in Charlotte. In my head, I know if I want to do something, now is the time. I can either ride this out down front and try to carve out my niche, or I can just bail and head for the lawn, try and find GB, or just go all the way up where I can take a breather from the pit.
I decide to bail. So, crap, now to make my way from all the way down front Page side, to halfway up the damn lawn on what was, in summer ‘99, Trey side. I gather my stuff, suck it up, nod sadly at the stage because I’m giving up this awesome seat, and head for the lawn.
Slow songs make navigating through a crowd so much easier. When things are moving real fast, people get a little nuts and unfocused, but the slow, dreamy sounds of MLT are really kinda perfect for scooting through the aisle dancers, not that it still isn’t awkward trying to find your way through a crowd regardless, it’s a maze of people who really aren’t paying any attention to anything but their own muse.
But I managed to glide through the pavilion and the moat with no major hassles. The music was just flowing behind me, wafting me along in its dreamscape. As I came to the lawn entrance where I thought I needed to be to find my buddy, there was a slight rumbling in the music behind me. Things are starting to pick up, which made me anxious and paranoid again. If something interesting is about to happen, I don’t want to be distracted. I looked up at this sea of people thinking, “Oh man, I gotta find one person up there…”
I hit the lawn, where the aisle was, and I could feel the music behind me starting to build, gel, and surge. It picked up a very Dead/Allmans vibe. Something is definitely coming, I thought, heading up the grass. Mike is starting to really pick things up. Where the hell is he, I don’t want to have my back to this band right now, if I do, they’re going to kick me in the ass, I know it…
The music is getting stronger, almost recognizable. AHA! There he is! Oddly enough, exactly where I had left him 25 minutes before, but at the time it felt like some sort of major cosmic achievement. I was filled with overwhelming joy, and I could now focus on this bad ass jam that is taking shape from the stage. That ambient wash is just starting to get nasty, and now that I can pay attention, that but I had heard from Gordon a minute ago…
We turned to each other with eyes wide as the sky: “Dude, is that Whipping Post?” “Holy shit that’s Whipping Post!” “If they actually bust that…” And then Trey catches it, and the entire jam just morphs into what is either a jam on Whipping Post or the start of an absolutely amazing bustout. They hadn’t played that jank since 96, and even then, they hadn’t played a Whipping Post that wasn’t a Fishman joke since 1990. (at the time, I thought it was 91, but I was wrong by a few months) This was HUGE, and the music from the stage was turning to a roaring surge and you could FEEL the wave hit the crowd as 20,000 people figure out what the hell is going on and react as a mass. It just lifts you up and takes you on the swell. It takes all of us, because we’re all about to see something off the hook that doesn’t happen every day and we know it. THAT is the feeling of catching what you’re chasing. THAT is the feeling you can’t even begin to describe. This is off the hook, and the entire venue is losing their collective minds. And hell yeah, they’re definitely busting out “Whipping Post.” This is stuff that got left on the stage of Nectars, or at the very least The Front. That wall of sound is unmistakable. Oh wow. When Trey hits the vocal the place just explodes! It’s official now folks.
Now, Trey isn’t Gregg Allman, nobody is except for the man himself, and a white boy from central Jersey is never gonna be a blues man; but he can make up for it in his puppy dog enthusiasm, and that’s what he gets here. He gets caught up with the rest of us, and he puts that energy into the vocals. The guy is having as much fun as anybody in the building, and that’s a lot of fun. This is as awesome for him (and the rest of the band, I imagine) as it is for us.
That’s another thing that makes this all great. There wasn’t that wall between them and us, if Trey was in the audience in our shoes/sandals, he’d completely be losing it too. They blast through the first verse and Page takes a nice little solo. It’s always so wild that they don’t practice this (that anybody knows of), yet Page can whip out a capable solo on a song he hasn’t performed live in about a decade.
Trey just nails the second verse, particularly the “drown myself in sorrow” line, and then takes an intense solo leading up to the peak. No, this isn’t Live at Fillmore East, or even Nectars 5/24/88, so we’re not talking about any twenty minute workouts here, after all, they just pulled this thing out of their behinds, but there’s not a single note that you can complain about.
But when they hit the end of the jam, the whole venue peaked with it, and there was such a next level kick, you can even feel it on the recordings– not a common occurrence, especially today with soundboards on demand where you can’t feel that audience, but that place was just burning. The closing chorus had even the most jaded vets singing along at the tops of their shriveled lungs right along with the newbiest of newbs. The sad thing about those cathartic moments is they have to end. There’s no getting around it, even if they had jammed Whipping Post till 11:30, the venue still would have pulled the plug. It’s the fluid nature of music, but for those ten minutes we all got to experience something really special.
And that, my friends, is why we do what we do and why we keep doing it.
* Video by OhKeePahBlog
Make no mistake; the rest of that show is no joke. For Pete’s sake, after all that complete and utter insanity they immediately followed up with a Rasta themed Makisupa Policeman for CK5’s birthday, and I got another “Oh my God” moment in the second set when they dropped the Walk Away I had been chasing for over 6 years, but this is about THAT moment, and THAT moment here is that build up from My Left Toe into that Whipping Post. Coincidentally, that was the last time either of those songs were played, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for either to turn up anytime soon; but if they do, well, that’s the reason we do what we do, and why we keep doing it. And I damn sure hope I’m there for it.
Setlist via Phish.net
Sunday, 07/25/1999
Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN
Soundcheck: Mike’s Song, Back at the Chicken Shack, Beauty of My Dreams, Day Tripper
Set 1: Meat, My Friend, My Friend[1] -> My Left Toe -> Whipping Post > Makisupa Policeman[2] > Happy Birthday to You[3], Makisupa Policeman, Saw It Again, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Cavern
Set 2: Birds of a Feather[4] -> Walk Away > Run Like an Antelope > Suzy Greenberg[5] > Hold Your Head Up > Purple Rain[6] > Hold Your Head Up, You Enjoy Myself
Encore: Loving Cup
[1] No “Myfe” lyric.
[2] Key words were “gooballs, brownies, stink, kind nugs… keef!”
[3] Instrumental from Trey and then “rasta style” sung (with a We’re gonna get you so wasted tonight after the show” lyric), Mike took a bass solo, Fish also sung a verse in a mock Jamaican accent (with a “you roll up a big spleef and you don’t pass it with no one” lyric). Kuroda then took a one-minute light solo.
[4] Unfinished.
[5] Syncopated jam based around Page.
[6] Fish forgot the words and subsequently thanked the crowd for supporting his vacuum cleaner habit.
Teases:
· My Left Toe tease in Birds of a Feather
· Stash tease in Run Like an Antelope
· I Wish tease in Suzy Greenberg
· Boogie On Reggae Woman jam in You Enjoy Myself