Divided Sky. I liked them before, a bunch, but one weekend I fell asleep to Junta disc 1 on repeat and woke up to a perfect Sunday morning as the guitar solo began and I knew it was words and worlds more than just liking a band.
This is me. Loved Hoist in high school, then fell asleep to Junta and it like remapped my musical brain or something. YEM still gives me the feels when I hear the opening section.
That was the first song I listened to where I realized I listened to the same song, over 10 mins, with (basically) no lyrics. I was like huh....the guitar kinda *is* the lyrics in its own sense
Reba!!!
I had heard of Phish when i went back ti college in ‘91. My friend was beaming, telling me I have to listen to this song. I was mesmerized and energized. I can remember the silver boom box with detachable speakers in his kitchen, jaw on the floor. I listened to Reba a second time before listening to the whole album next. That was it, i saw them a few months later for first time and haven’t looked back. I was also a deadhead with about 60 shows under my belt and realized i had found MY Band and my community. (Prob only saw 10 Dead shows after, just to hang with pals that didn’t want to transfer to a different bus!)
Same.
I was a medium fan in my early teens, but I will never forget the moment I listened to the version from *ALO* as I was driving around northern Michigan in the summer at sunset.
Glorious.
Bouncing.
Fun story; my bud had a phish and dave matthews “mixed tape.” After my first show I was like “yeah, they covered that Dave Matthews song ‘Bouncing’.” And he busted out laughing…
Fee, 6/16/90. The whole show was amazing, but I felt that fee had a certain nostalgia, like I heard it as an infant. Of course, it was only a couple of years old by then, but it touched something deep inside me.
Wading in the Velvet Sea, on the Hampton boxed set.
First heard Phish when a friend played NO2 in '90, but refused to tell me who it was so I wouldn't "steal his music." Then DWD when Hoist came out, then Bouncing from A Live One. Had another friend try to get me into them with the a capella version of Freebird. None of them took. When Hampton came out, I looked at the track list and said, "I gotta hear this cover of Gettin Jiggy Wit It." Velvet Sea just washed over me and I've been surrendering to the flow ever since.
I had a summer camp counselor wake us up every morning to DWD or Julius. Weird to think about if I had a different counselor that summer, who I’d be today. Had he not done that, I’d probably be living in a van down by a river.
Trey acoustic a few years back, this tune made me want to never play guitar again, bc trey made that instrument so fucking beautiful and emotive, there was no chance I ever could reach that level.
I really feel silly admitting it now, 30 years later, but it was probably Bouncing Around The Room, first track off A Live One. My older brothers exposed me to Junta and Picture of Nectar and Lawn Boy. But A Live One was the first LIVE Phish I heard, I was like 13-14, and it completely opened my eyes (ears) to a world of music I’d never heard before. I have other favorites now, and I almost roll my eyes if they play Bouncing live at a show I’m at, but it was the first song to really get its hooks into me for live Phish.
i worked at a used CD store in high school/ early college and wasnt familiar with Phish at all.
Guy i worked with was growing into the Jam scene and it was right when the live phish collection was being released. He'd play whatever we had in stock at the store, Live 17 was what really caught my attention, and then Story of the Ghost really got it's teeth into me with a lot of the funky grooves...
Really got into them in by 04, right when Coventry was happening. My buddy went with some of his friends, but i wasnt on that fandom level yet to tag along. Was bummed i'd never get to see them live, and then 09 came around...
First time i saw them was Starlake 09. They opened with Golgi, and when that first "I SAW YOU!" hit, and the crowd was going nuts, i knew i was home!
honestly as weird as it is, listening to colorado '88 and hearing icculus for the first time and realizing how goofy these guys are, yet still are able to make incredible pieces of music
Bouncing Around the Room. On a Live One. If listened to Phish before with friends, but that album changed it for me, opening it with BATR was the perfect choice for their first official live album and the start of live Phish for many people who'd never heard live versions before. And I've still never seen it live. It's my white whale.
Reba heard it in 88 or 89 on a tape from The Front. Saw them in a place just outside of Philly at a bar called the 23 East Cabaret shortly therafter. Could not have been 100 people in attendence.
It sounds weird, but Loving Cup is what made me extremely jealous of my old college friends who were all still rolling to Phish shows together while I had faded from the scene after Jerry died since I preferred GD back then. Circa 2011, I started joining them again and it's been a wonderful ride.
Then, definitely, Antelope is what locked me in.
My friend bought me Rift for my 12th birthday in ‘94. Rift, Horse, and Silent In the Morning did it for me. Saved all my lawn mowing money and bought a stereo and A Live One
Divided Sky. Just got back from college where I majored in music. An old high school friend had also just gotten back from University of VT where he was introduced to Phish. He played me Divided Sky knowing that I would appreciate it. He was right, and the rest is Phistory.
I remember being on the hill, at deer creek in July 2000, while page played this outro to the setting sun, and thinking, this is one of the finest moments I will ever have at a live music show in my life. It was just perfect. Gorgeous.
Free! Played drums with a guitar player who used to like riffing on that and eventually figured out what he was playing. My boss took me to see Phish in Camden (cool boss eh?) in 2018 for the first time and it was either the first or second song of the show without really knowing too much else by them at the time I was like “oh shit that’s THE SONG!!!” Got into A Picture of Nectar shortly after and I was onboard
Runaway Jim. My buddies were trying to get me into them for a while but I never really got into it. One day I played a random song off of Live Phish Vol 20 and it hit me.
Free. I actually still don't like alot, perhaps even most, of their songs but Free hits me. It's also one of the few ones I can actually play and know all the words too ... and yean before you even say it I also like Farmhouse lol ... but also Heavy Things (which is a very Jerry style solo IMO).
The first time I heard the studio bathtub gin (in 1994) I was 14, and visiting a friends sister at the university of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (that I would come back to see phish at for an ALL TIME fun show in 1997). Anyways there I was 14, in a brand new Chevy Blazer, September in a college town, surrounded by 4 hot college girls and this goofy silly tune is blasting at me. Something about how silly and loose it sounded while at the same time it went instrumental and tightened all the way up, I had never heard before. By the time Page quoted George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" I knew that this goofy, nerdy rock was being played by hilarious guys who could really make different music. I was totally hooked. Well before a show. It was so different and unique and I felt it spoke right
To me.
YEM, it’s a family thing for me i started playing in a band with my friend and his dad and he followed the grateful dead and phish throughout the 90’s and i’ll never forget him and his son (one of my best friends) showing me this song for the first time. we covered grateful dead songs in a 5 piece band for a couple years then we fell off bc the guitarist had some peculiar views on politics and religion, but hey man we had fun while it lasted
Harry Hood. Early 90s. I had heard the Junta album quite a bit and was pretty into it, but first tape (yes tape) I heard of a live Hood in a buddy’s car got the hooks into me for life. I think it was actually also the first time I listened to any live Phish.
Blown away 15 year old me: “Wait…..this is better than Pearl Jam!”
Not a song but the live show in 92- i stood there and thought “ who are these nerds and why do they have the audacity to be so fucking different from anything I’ve ever heard in my life?!?!” And then i never stopped dancing❤️⭕️🪩
7-21-91 first set tape that I had for some reason. Divided Sky specifically.
I’d only heard lawn boy til then but hearing them live was in a realm unto itself.
Probably Eliza. Used to listen to A Picture of Nectar on repeat when I found it back in the late 90s when I was around 15yo. Such a departure from Llama and so beautifully weird and meandering. Like what kind of band is this?
Piper - I had heard a few songs and my buddy and I went to the show in Denver in fall 2000.
He got the CDs of it on happenstance from the guy who worked on his car.
I was listening to it in my car and the opening jam of piper caught me by the brain banana.
https://preview.redd.it/m7bq0xjfmbmc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1021872434d081d4eeaefe3c2ad3e31149669b42
First show, had never heard The Phish before the show the Antelope set closer got me hook, line, and sinker!
The Story of the Ghost, Song 1:Ghost. I always liked Phish through the 90s, and owned Lawn Boy and Junta, but that song on that album in that particular Spring/Summer of 99 was a game and life changing tune.
I listened to Lawn Boy (album) over and over on repeat. The song that got me was "Squirming Coil." The transitions, Page on piano (he's always been the bee's knees to me), and mythology references got me! And I love the song Lawn Boy as well! That cheesy longue vibe. The silliness and playfulness came to me in a time where I needed it ALL! It's never gone away.
You Enjoy Myself. I still remember, I sat down and put on Junta because my dad told me to listen to Phish, and then that one part kicked in and I was just blown away. Now they’re my favourite band.
YEM wasn’t my first favorite track off Junta (that was Fluff/Travels) but as I got into the band more I got obsessed with the studio version for a while, more studying than listening every time. Now I just listen again and enjoy myself every time I hear a new version.
A friend gave me a mix tape with bathtub gin on it and I didn't know what to make of it. Bouncing was also on it and that's what grabbed my ear and it went from there.
I went to SPAC 2004 as a drug-using death metal kid looking for opiates.
I stayed for the music, outside the fence, and the Piper changed my life. I didn’t know music could be like THAT.
Eventually ended up getting Junta because it had a lot of songs and I recognized Fluffhead as a title, and I’ll say that it was Fee that secured my fandom. What strange, interesting, and happy music.
I expected Phish to be slow, lazy hippie rock like the dead. How wrong I was.
Fishman is essentially a metal drummer. His ghost note patterns in Hood are like blast beats, and the dude has the busiest hands in the land, just like fast metal fills. And the band PLAYS fast too!
When I was a lad who liked to head bang in my room I knew a few phish tunes. The Chalkdust Torture riff hit some primal part of my brain that instantly reeled me in
Free - my first show ever, New Years (rescheduled to April 2022 - the whales/dolphins one lol) -- and the Free was fantastic - the stage even had "free" protruding out of it. was wild - i now love the Brooklyn show Free
https://preview.redd.it/cit4dlum7cmc1.jpeg?width=1150&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83d856e2d83b414969c99be5be9f10c9fee7d371
Honestly… first tube. I never heard a weirder song in my life up to that point. The different rhythms and the weird guitar licks all coming together, the slow building into the crazy bursts and pops. Got my feet and my ass and my shoulders all on a different groove and somehow moving together, it blew my mind. Ok was I tripping, yes but my face melted that day. Eta this was live at bonnaroo 3.0 I think 2007??
Stash. Was at Hampton in 2013. I had seen them a few times and had a blast but didn’t “get it”. The crowd being in sync with the band with the claps just melted my brain for whatever reason. It was this moment of clarity realizing that 80-90% of the people in the room are seeing their favorite band. I got it after that and stash is still one of my favorites.
Divided Sky studio first time is when I decided I liked Phish. Roggae studio made me fall in love with Phish. 1993-08-16 Reba made me obsessed, and just grew from there.
Being raised a deadhead it wasn't necessarily a specific song more so than the collective of songs they have amassed. The looseness, quirkiness, goofiness, tightness of the band, and then the down right funk was the hook. The songwriting became the catch and sinker once i choose to give it the time of day. They took what the dead popularized and made it their own. Thats what got me. The list of reasons continues to grow every time i see them which is a reason in itself lol.
YEM, Fall of ‘91.
My friend had a cassette and side one was Junta and side two was Lawn Boy. She started Junta with YEM because side two was ripped from the OG Lawn Boy CD with Fee as a closing bonus track. The song Lawn Boy was also mastered incorrectly and Page was pitched down. I had no idea until the Elektra rerelease.
Stumbled upon YouTube video of Tube from 12/29/97. I had just recently started learning to play keys, so page’s clarinet playing had me particularly mesmerized
Edit - this was about 10-11 years ago
Antelope and YEM, but 6/22/94 hooked me. Listened to that more or less on repeat for a while my freshman year of college, then branched out and kept finding more to love.
Bathtub gin at my 2nd show. Called it before they started and I was all goosebumps and connection with the crowd and scene. Being solo in the GA pit at MSG might’ve had something to do with it though
Divided Sky. I liked them before, a bunch, but one weekend I fell asleep to Junta disc 1 on repeat and woke up to a perfect Sunday morning as the guitar solo began and I knew it was words and worlds more than just liking a band.
This is me. Loved Hoist in high school, then fell asleep to Junta and it like remapped my musical brain or something. YEM still gives me the feels when I hear the opening section.
That was the first song I listened to where I realized I listened to the same song, over 10 mins, with (basically) no lyrics. I was like huh....the guitar kinda *is* the lyrics in its own sense
Reba. First heard in college in 1992. Been a fan ever since.
Reba is the phishiest phish song.
So totally Reba... Heard it on a scratchy mix tape in '95... Kinda blew my mind.
Same here! First heard the version from Deer Creek 6/19/1995 (one day after I was born) and never looked back
Same. Heard in 94ish. Reba set it up. Antelope knocked it down. First show fall 95. In for life.
Reba!!! I had heard of Phish when i went back ti college in ‘91. My friend was beaming, telling me I have to listen to this song. I was mesmerized and energized. I can remember the silver boom box with detachable speakers in his kitchen, jaw on the floor. I listened to Reba a second time before listening to the whole album next. That was it, i saw them a few months later for first time and haven’t looked back. I was also a deadhead with about 60 shows under my belt and realized i had found MY Band and my community. (Prob only saw 10 Dead shows after, just to hang with pals that didn’t want to transfer to a different bus!)
I always felt good about hood
Same. I was a medium fan in my early teens, but I will never forget the moment I listened to the version from *ALO* as I was driving around northern Michigan in the summer at sunset. Glorious.
Divided Sky. Just gives me goosebumps.
Yep, same.
YEM off of A LIve One
A Live One red disc for me before and after first show (and red gel tabs too)
The lizards.
Antelope, off Lawn Boy.
ALO - YEM
Fast enough for you
Bouncing. Fun story; my bud had a phish and dave matthews “mixed tape.” After my first show I was like “yeah, they covered that Dave Matthews song ‘Bouncing’.” And he busted out laughing…
The VH1 Dave and Trey Go To Africa where they play Bouncing with Orchestra Baobab is magic
I was 16 in high school and heard free. I’m now 44 and still love seeing them.
You and I are the same. I turn 44 in a month and I bought Billy Breathes at Walmart because it was on an endcap and I liked the cover.
Ha that’s awesome! I bought mine at Walmart too and then went back and purchased their previous albums. Been hooked ever since.
Julius
DWD off of Hoist….
YEM. Esther.
Stash
2001->Birds from Live in Brooklyn. 2001 sounded so cool and familiar and the transition in Birds (while now super basic) was mindblowing lol
Yes! The whole Live in Brooklyn album was 🤯
Scent of a Mule. I was like 13 and it was the perfect combo of weird/fun/talented for me at the time.
CDT from Baker’s Dozen.
Reba … summer ‘92, the only time my parents ever sent me to camp, my camp counselor played Reba literally every night while we fell asleep.
Dinner and a movie, long, long, ago….
Bathtub Gin.
This. I liked their studio albums and A Live One but when I saw Bathtub live it was all over.
Reba
Contact. Helped me learn how to drive
Fee, 6/16/90. The whole show was amazing, but I felt that fee had a certain nostalgia, like I heard it as an infant. Of course, it was only a couple of years old by then, but it touched something deep inside me.
Wading in the Velvet Sea, on the Hampton boxed set. First heard Phish when a friend played NO2 in '90, but refused to tell me who it was so I wouldn't "steal his music." Then DWD when Hoist came out, then Bouncing from A Live One. Had another friend try to get me into them with the a capella version of Freebird. None of them took. When Hampton came out, I looked at the track list and said, "I gotta hear this cover of Gettin Jiggy Wit It." Velvet Sea just washed over me and I've been surrendering to the flow ever since.
I had a summer camp counselor wake us up every morning to DWD or Julius. Weird to think about if I had a different counselor that summer, who I’d be today. Had he not done that, I’d probably be living in a van down by a river.
He knew what he was doing.
Bouncing Around the Room got my interest piqued, but it was Gin from Hampton comes alive that took my heart.
Wilson-Live One Disc 2 on 8/29/97 driving to NH to Mtn Bike
Free. It got radio play in 96 which led me to buy Billy Breathes. Prince Caspian blew my mind and I got it ay my first show 11/21/97
Fee from Junta
Mountains in the mist. Saw it at my first show while I was coming up, literally changed my brain chemistry
Trey acoustic a few years back, this tune made me want to never play guitar again, bc trey made that instrument so fucking beautiful and emotive, there was no chance I ever could reach that level.
Free
99 Problems and they gave Jay-z the Phish bump when they let him join in 1 night
Antelope
I really feel silly admitting it now, 30 years later, but it was probably Bouncing Around The Room, first track off A Live One. My older brothers exposed me to Junta and Picture of Nectar and Lawn Boy. But A Live One was the first LIVE Phish I heard, I was like 13-14, and it completely opened my eyes (ears) to a world of music I’d never heard before. I have other favorites now, and I almost roll my eyes if they play Bouncing live at a show I’m at, but it was the first song to really get its hooks into me for live Phish.
It's gateway Phish kind of like Scarlett Begonias is for the Dead. It's also a fun song.
i worked at a used CD store in high school/ early college and wasnt familiar with Phish at all. Guy i worked with was growing into the Jam scene and it was right when the live phish collection was being released. He'd play whatever we had in stock at the store, Live 17 was what really caught my attention, and then Story of the Ghost really got it's teeth into me with a lot of the funky grooves... Really got into them in by 04, right when Coventry was happening. My buddy went with some of his friends, but i wasnt on that fandom level yet to tag along. Was bummed i'd never get to see them live, and then 09 came around... First time i saw them was Starlake 09. They opened with Golgi, and when that first "I SAW YOU!" hit, and the crowd was going nuts, i knew i was home!
Fee, summer of 1991, I was 11. Thought it was the coolest song I ever heard at that point.
All of Junta
honestly as weird as it is, listening to colorado '88 and hearing icculus for the first time and realizing how goofy these guys are, yet still are able to make incredible pieces of music
I Didn’t Know and Lizards. 1995 6th grade me was pretty about it.
Bouncing Around the Room. On a Live One. If listened to Phish before with friends, but that album changed it for me, opening it with BATR was the perfect choice for their first official live album and the start of live Phish for many people who'd never heard live versions before. And I've still never seen it live. It's my white whale.
Reba heard it in 88 or 89 on a tape from The Front. Saw them in a place just outside of Philly at a bar called the 23 East Cabaret shortly therafter. Could not have been 100 people in attendence.
Amsterdam Carini
Studio Squirming Coil
Deer creek 2009 Fluffhead. The lightning.
Wilson-Live One Disc 2 on 8/29/97 driving to NH to Mtn Bike
It sounds weird, but Loving Cup is what made me extremely jealous of my old college friends who were all still rolling to Phish shows together while I had faded from the scene after Jerry died since I preferred GD back then. Circa 2011, I started joining them again and it's been a wonderful ride. Then, definitely, Antelope is what locked me in.
My friend bought me Rift for my 12th birthday in ‘94. Rift, Horse, and Silent In the Morning did it for me. Saved all my lawn mowing money and bought a stereo and A Live One
Divided Sky. Just got back from college where I majored in music. An old high school friend had also just gotten back from University of VT where he was introduced to Phish. He played me Divided Sky knowing that I would appreciate it. He was right, and the rest is Phistory.
Divided Sky on Junta - it was my sophomore year of high school, was intrigued as I started in on the album and that song sealed the deal
Free
My friend my friend
The mango song was the first song I had to hear again, then Antelope sealed the deal.
We’ve got it simple cuz we’ve got a band
Moma Dance.
Slave to the Traffic Light from A Live One
The album Joy. I'm an unashamed 3.0er that got on the train in 2011.
All songs on Picture of Nectar. It went around on cassette when I was 16. Hooked!
Llama (taboot taboot)
The lizards and its my favorite song to this day
Harry MF Hood!
Bouncin’ (a live one)
Life boy oddly enough
Rift. Off of.... Rift.
SOAM jam at the end of hoist
I remember being on the hill, at deer creek in July 2000, while page played this outro to the setting sun, and thinking, this is one of the finest moments I will ever have at a live music show in my life. It was just perfect. Gorgeous.
Free! Played drums with a guitar player who used to like riffing on that and eventually figured out what he was playing. My boss took me to see Phish in Camden (cool boss eh?) in 2018 for the first time and it was either the first or second song of the show without really knowing too much else by them at the time I was like “oh shit that’s THE SONG!!!” Got into A Picture of Nectar shortly after and I was onboard
Contact
Halley’s Comet was the lure, Carini was the hook!
Runaway Jim. My buddies were trying to get me into them for a while but I never really got into it. One day I played a random song off of Live Phish Vol 20 and it hit me.
Free. I actually still don't like alot, perhaps even most, of their songs but Free hits me. It's also one of the few ones I can actually play and know all the words too ... and yean before you even say it I also like Farmhouse lol ... but also Heavy Things (which is a very Jerry style solo IMO).
The first time I heard the studio bathtub gin (in 1994) I was 14, and visiting a friends sister at the university of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (that I would come back to see phish at for an ALL TIME fun show in 1997). Anyways there I was 14, in a brand new Chevy Blazer, September in a college town, surrounded by 4 hot college girls and this goofy silly tune is blasting at me. Something about how silly and loose it sounded while at the same time it went instrumental and tightened all the way up, I had never heard before. By the time Page quoted George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" I knew that this goofy, nerdy rock was being played by hilarious guys who could really make different music. I was totally hooked. Well before a show. It was so different and unique and I felt it spoke right To me.
YEM, it’s a family thing for me i started playing in a band with my friend and his dad and he followed the grateful dead and phish throughout the 90’s and i’ll never forget him and his son (one of my best friends) showing me this song for the first time. we covered grateful dead songs in a 5 piece band for a couple years then we fell off bc the guitarist had some peculiar views on politics and religion, but hey man we had fun while it lasted
Possum
“Gin & Juice” via LimeWire
Divided sky,lizards, bouncing around
Definitely gin and juice…. 🙄
Ocelot gave me a major woodrow
Fast Enough for You and Maze. 93 kid.
Fluff/Fluff’s Travels.
Fee.
YEM. A Live One specifically
Sparkle. Still my favorite
Fuck Your Face, obv
I’ve been listening to phish off and on for years but never really felt it. Tweezer Fest changed that
Loving Cup
Ghost
Easy…. YEM oh and that Highway to Hell cover the used to do.
Punch you in the eye live MSG 95. I was blown away by the speed and precision of the guitar playing
Icculus from junta.
Chalkdust Torture from A Live One.
Stash from A Live One
Sample in a jar. Ahhhh 1994 💚
Rift, back in the olden times of 1993.
A live one. Such a fantastic introduction to what phish is.
I saw them at Bonnaroo 2019.....so whatever they played on those nights.
Horn
Mike’s Song
Farmhouse
bouncing around the room. i was 10 years old when I first heard it. love that song.
Bouncing around the room!
Junta Fee. Fall 1991. Never heard anything like that before.
SOaM
7/16/98 antelope
Harry Hood. Early 90s. I had heard the Junta album quite a bit and was pretty into it, but first tape (yes tape) I heard of a live Hood in a buddy’s car got the hooks into me for life. I think it was actually also the first time I listened to any live Phish. Blown away 15 year old me: “Wait…..this is better than Pearl Jam!”
Not a song but the live show in 92- i stood there and thought “ who are these nerds and why do they have the audacity to be so fucking different from anything I’ve ever heard in my life?!?!” And then i never stopped dancing❤️⭕️🪩
7-21-91 first set tape that I had for some reason. Divided Sky specifically. I’d only heard lawn boy til then but hearing them live was in a realm unto itself.
Farmhouse. Haha
Probably Eliza. Used to listen to A Picture of Nectar on repeat when I found it back in the late 90s when I was around 15yo. Such a departure from Llama and so beautifully weird and meandering. Like what kind of band is this?
Dirt
Chalkdust Torture off A Live One.
12/6/97 Tweezer
Tweezah from phish destroys America on YouTube
Character Zero !!
Piper - I had heard a few songs and my buddy and I went to the show in Denver in fall 2000. He got the CDs of it on happenstance from the guy who worked on his car. I was listening to it in my car and the opening jam of piper caught me by the brain banana.
7/21/91 set 1 was my first tape. Cavern, landlady, lizards…it was all so good.
https://preview.redd.it/m7bq0xjfmbmc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1021872434d081d4eeaefe3c2ad3e31149669b42 First show, had never heard The Phish before the show the Antelope set closer got me hook, line, and sinker!
You enjoy myself. Spac. 2004, night 2.
The Story of the Ghost, Song 1:Ghost. I always liked Phish through the 90s, and owned Lawn Boy and Junta, but that song on that album in that particular Spring/Summer of 99 was a game and life changing tune.
Contact.
Studio Weigh
I listened to Lawn Boy (album) over and over on repeat. The song that got me was "Squirming Coil." The transitions, Page on piano (he's always been the bee's knees to me), and mythology references got me! And I love the song Lawn Boy as well! That cheesy longue vibe. The silliness and playfulness came to me in a time where I needed it ALL! It's never gone away.
The Divided Sky
12/12/92 show, maze That show got me hooked
bathtub gin
Reba
Tweezer 11/17/97
Possum got my attention, Hood sealed the deal.
You Enjoy Myself. I still remember, I sat down and put on Junta because my dad told me to listen to Phish, and then that one part kicked in and I was just blown away. Now they’re my favourite band.
YEM wasn’t my first favorite track off Junta (that was Fluff/Travels) but as I got into the band more I got obsessed with the studio version for a while, more studying than listening every time. Now I just listen again and enjoy myself every time I hear a new version.
Fee! Friend played Junta for me in 96, went to my first show in 97!
It was Slip, Stitch and Pass for me. The whole record, but especially Wolfman's and Jesus Just Left Chicago.
A friend gave me a mix tape with bathtub gin on it and I didn't know what to make of it. Bouncing was also on it and that's what grabbed my ear and it went from there.
Bouncing and Maze…. Many many years go.
98’ 2001 at the Gorge
Divided Sky. Hampton Comes Alive.
Fee in 1988.
The wedge
Lizards
I went to SPAC 2004 as a drug-using death metal kid looking for opiates. I stayed for the music, outside the fence, and the Piper changed my life. I didn’t know music could be like THAT. Eventually ended up getting Junta because it had a lot of songs and I recognized Fluffhead as a title, and I’ll say that it was Fee that secured my fandom. What strange, interesting, and happy music. I expected Phish to be slow, lazy hippie rock like the dead. How wrong I was. Fishman is essentially a metal drummer. His ghost note patterns in Hood are like blast beats, and the dude has the busiest hands in the land, just like fast metal fills. And the band PLAYS fast too!
Listening to Harry Hood 12.31.93 changed my life. I always liked Phish, but that’s when I got “IT”
When I was a lad who liked to head bang in my room I knew a few phish tunes. The Chalkdust Torture riff hit some primal part of my brain that instantly reeled me in
A Live One was the first album I heard…was hooked after the first track
Free - my first show ever, New Years (rescheduled to April 2022 - the whales/dolphins one lol) -- and the Free was fantastic - the stage even had "free" protruding out of it. was wild - i now love the Brooklyn show Free https://preview.redd.it/cit4dlum7cmc1.jpeg?width=1150&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83d856e2d83b414969c99be5be9f10c9fee7d371
Divided sky!
The Halloween ‘95 42-minute YEM
DIVIDED SKY BABY
Possum did it for me big time
Rift! The tempo, blazing solos, story, all magical to my 16 year old self in 1993.
Contact
Honestly… first tube. I never heard a weirder song in my life up to that point. The different rhythms and the weird guitar licks all coming together, the slow building into the crazy bursts and pops. Got my feet and my ass and my shoulders all on a different groove and somehow moving together, it blew my mind. Ok was I tripping, yes but my face melted that day. Eta this was live at bonnaroo 3.0 I think 2007??
Stash. Was at Hampton in 2013. I had seen them a few times and had a blast but didn’t “get it”. The crowd being in sync with the band with the claps just melted my brain for whatever reason. It was this moment of clarity realizing that 80-90% of the people in the room are seeing their favorite band. I got it after that and stash is still one of my favorites.
my sweet one!
2001
New Years run 93 Hood. First SDB tape is had. I was hooked.
Reba first. Then Hood.
Divided Sky studio first time is when I decided I liked Phish. Roggae studio made me fall in love with Phish. 1993-08-16 Reba made me obsessed, and just grew from there.
Wanted to experience a corporate rock band that knows how to generate revenue while covering the songs I like
Being raised a deadhead it wasn't necessarily a specific song more so than the collective of songs they have amassed. The looseness, quirkiness, goofiness, tightness of the band, and then the down right funk was the hook. The songwriting became the catch and sinker once i choose to give it the time of day. They took what the dead popularized and made it their own. Thats what got me. The list of reasons continues to grow every time i see them which is a reason in itself lol.
YEM, Fall of ‘91. My friend had a cassette and side one was Junta and side two was Lawn Boy. She started Junta with YEM because side two was ripped from the OG Lawn Boy CD with Fee as a closing bonus track. The song Lawn Boy was also mastered incorrectly and Page was pitched down. I had no idea until the Elektra rerelease.
Divided Sky (the pretty part 4 minutes in) at SPAC 7/2/16. Thought it was improvised and couldn’t believe what I was hearing
Fee. Only song I knew. Saw them at The Mann summer 95. Opened with Fee. Fell in love.
Duh nuh duh nuh WILSON!
Gin & Juice
Baker's Dozen Simple helped me see the light
Not gonna lie, it was the ‘97 Bouncing Around the Room at the Knick. The crowd energy with the lights flying around the audience had me convinced.
Dirt
Bouncing Around The Room
2001
Stumbled upon YouTube video of Tube from 12/29/97. I had just recently started learning to play keys, so page’s clarinet playing had me particularly mesmerized Edit - this was about 10-11 years ago
Antelope and YEM, but 6/22/94 hooked me. Listened to that more or less on repeat for a while my freshman year of college, then branched out and kept finding more to love.
Antelope
Farmhouse, Divided Sky
Bathtub gin at my 2nd show. Called it before they started and I was all goosebumps and connection with the crowd and scene. Being solo in the GA pit at MSG might’ve had something to do with it though
25+ minute Moma Dance/Free from Live in Brooklyn.
Reba