Tag: 2014

An Overly Deep Dive into the History and Development of ‘McGrupp and The Watchful Hosemasters’ OR “How I Try to Get More McGrupp Jams Put on PJJ”

Every once in a while it is fun to take a song and really go deep with it, listening to every version that Phish has ever performed in order. Some may find this type of exercise pointless, tiring, ridiculous, boring, or even insane (or more probably a combination of all of the above and more)  but to me it offers a great way to track the development and progression of a song over the years as the band has worked through it and altered its course. There are some songs where this can get old pretty fast, particularly when the variation comes only in the few bars of Type I improv that come out of an otherwise standard performance for the tune but in many cases the song as debuted once upon a time has changed significantly over the course of time, sometimes adding or removing parts and other times becoming something entirely new along the way. One song that has had a fairly intriguing evolution (well, to me at least) is McGrupp And The Watchful Hosemasters (for the sake of brevity following this reference the song will be shown by its shorthand fan name ‘McGrupp‘), a song with a long history, connection to the Gamehendge saga, and just enough performances to make this little exercise worthwhile without becoming tedious.

 

In full disclosure, I will admit that some of my motivation in going down this path was in looking for the song on the wonderful resource that is www.phishjustjams.com I was shocked to discover they had only picked out a minuscule THREE performances of the song for inclusion in the jam files. Now, while the song is definitely not a big, open-jammed juggernaut I maintain that that list needs to be expanded a bit even if they don’t agree (hi, Verno!) with all that I write about the song’s jam and its 114 known performances, not to mention the four versions of the song as Skippy The Wonder Mouse (hereafter referred to as “Skippy”) before the name change and lyrical overwrite. Part of the complication here stems from the PJJ mission statement apparently forbids inclusion of anything pre 1993 and while I respect that and the reasoning behind it I will absolutely be focusing a lot on the progressions made with McGrupp in the years prior to that if for no other reason than 63 of the 114 versions of the song (plus those 4 Skippys!) occurred prior to 1993. To ignore all of that here would kind of defeat the purpose and really conflict my obsessive nature, people.

 

So where to start. Well, the first thing you should do is check out the Song History on phish.net which goes into a lot of the detail about how the song came to be (and check the brief Skippy Song History too since you are visiting .net). You might also want to take a gander at the Jamchart for the song as others have gone down this road before in their own way so if you find my nerdiness to be lacking check out someone else’s! Really cannot say enough about how privileged we are to have phish.net and other resources to help feed these obsessions of ours. Support them however you can!

 

With all of that out of the way let’s dive in! Fair warning, as I haven’t written much of late you can probably expect this one to be lengthy. I have some pent up prose to use here, people.

Continue reading “An Overly Deep Dive into the History and Development of ‘McGrupp and The Watchful Hosemasters’ OR “How I Try to Get More McGrupp Jams Put on PJJ”” →

Some Good Parts… – Phish and Great Woods

The Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts opened for the 1986 concert season with great regional access to many of the major population center in this part of New England being approximately 40 miles from Boston, Providence, Worcester, and Cape Cod. Situated between I-495, I-95 and the town of Mansfield the venue has reasonably strong regional access and even with newer venues having been built in the intervening years draws a consistently high level of performing group each summer. At opening the venue held approximately 12,000 people which was expanded to 19,000 in 1994 with further enhancements improving the access and comfort level for patrons. One challenge that still remains (and will forever be a problem at this venue) is the bottleneck parking situation where the majority of fans are parked around the back side of the venue and thus forced to wait out extremely long lines do get to the one main exit from the center. This is not always a bad thing for the Phish crowd who love to hang out and recreate before and after the show but when the band leaves the stage at just after 11pm and you are still waiting to get out at 1:30am it is safe to say there is a bit of a problem. Since debuting here with a single set opening performance for Santana in 1992 the band has played a total of seventeen shows with performances in all three of the main eras of the band’s history.

 

After that Santana single setter every show at Great Woods has been a two set performance as part of that year’s summer tour. 1992 and 1993 were single night stops and then the next five times the band came here was for a two night stand. Oddly, Tuesday holds the high mark for most days played at this venue with seven as the next two highest combined (Friday at 3 and Saturday at 4) total to that amount together. There has never been a Sunday night show (or a Thursday one for that matter) which should not be skipped per the axiom.

Here is your www.phishjustjams.com playlist for the Great Woods Jams.

 

Oh, hi there! Miss me? Well, life moves pretty fast and all that. And then Summer Tour comes and that whole new Phish thing gets in the way of worrying about shows from twenty or more years prior. But we are back! And I have another site update to add! I’m going to add a link to the stream of each show on phish.in for your use if you so choose. Note that this provides a good, quick way to spin each show but in most cases those are auds unless a soundboard copy leaked at some point or it was recorded by patch which would only be relevant in the old shows. Many of the shows reviewed here, particularly the ones since LivePhish was created and the band starting releasing full tours of shows, are available in remastered soundboard glory elsewhere. Join me below the fold…

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Feeeeel The Heat – Phish and American Airlines Arena

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming!

After so many years playing Holiday Runs in the Northeast with that one quite memorable stop in South Florida for Big Cypress, Phish decided that for their 2003 NYE Run they would play at the then relatively new American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL. A welcome change from the high cost hustle and bustle of New York City in late December, Miami offered up a new venue, new sights, and perhaps most enticingly warmth in a time of year we had grown accustomed to bundling up before and after sweating our asses off in the arenas of Boston and New York. The venue is home to the NBA’s Miami Heat but also has a rich history with music acts beginning on its opening night December 31, 1999 with local legend Gloria Estefan ringing in the new year while Phish played not that far away in the Everglades. Many many more have played the venue since with Phish stopping by for four night runs each of the three times they have visited the venue. And just recently an anecdote by the Dude of Life (aka Steve Pollak) on Tom Marshall’s enlightening podcast Under the Scales provides the connection we lacked for just why Phish started playing here. Apparently when Trey and Steve were both in high school at Taft Trey would stay up late playing music loudly and Eric, the guy who lived in the room below him, is (was?) now the President of AA Arena (not entirely sure on the actual position and such but the anecdote is around the 11:30 mark of the podcast linked above) and asked Trey to bring the band down to his arena which they did and now continue to do in rotation with MSG. And here twelve NYE Run shows later from the venue I think we would all agree that that connection opened the door for this venue to be considered as one of the most storied in the band’s history.

The twelve shows that Phish has played at this venue have all been as part of New Year’s Eve Runs with four played in 2003, four in 2009, and four for the 2014 Run which extended into 2015. The 2003 and 2009 runs fit the traditional format with the first show on the 28th and running through the big highlight three setter on the 31st while that 2014 run started on the 3st with the three subsequent shows falling on January 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of 2015. This wasn’t the first time the calendar influenced the sequencing of shows for a Holiday Run as for the 2002-2003 Run coming back from Hiatus which we just covered for the Hampton post had the same date layout. While it is unclear if and when the band might return to this venue if they stick to the not-quite-a-pattern it’ll probably be in 2019 or 2020 assuming they are still playing shows at that stage.

Here is your www.phishjustjams.com playlist for the Miami Jams. Now on to the shows!

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