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.
Phish were primed to step up to this challenge, and already at the height of their powers at the time
Hampton/Winston-Salem '97 was put to tape. Recorded over the course of three November nights in 1997, this sprawling, seven-disc set opens with a 17-plus-minute cover of the
Rolling Stones' disco-era non-hit "Emotional Rescue," and just gets wilder, weirder, and jammier from there.
Phish's sometimes-goofy, sometimes-sophisticated vernacular is in its most refined form here, as the band maneuvers through slippery neo-roots rock workouts and lysergic jazz-pop, jamming in and out of different repeating themes and covers. Crowd favorites like "Run Like an Antelope" and "Halley's Comet" intertwine with extended jams on covers by
Hendrix,
Clifton Chenier and
War. The sheer volume of music here will be daunting by almost anyone's standards; there's an incredibly high number of tracks over 12 minutes long, and the group's stamina for meandering jamming was rivaled at that point only by
the Dead themselves. That said, this is definitely a treat for the die-hards with, excellent sound and even the inclusion of sound check recordings from both shows. As for those newbies curious to investigate what
Phish were all about in their best moments, those moments are definitely tucked in here amid these seven discs. ~ Fred Thomas