From cdirksen@earthlink.net Sat Sep 12 23:35:41 1998 Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 15:54:07 GMT From: cdirksen@earthlink.net To: dan@netspace.org Newsgroups: rec.music.phish Subject: 12/12/97 Albany Tweezer 12/12/97 Pepsi Arena, Albany, NY Like the 12/6 version, this Tweezer doesn't begin in the normal fashion. But there isn't much improv in this opening and the full band kick out TWEEZER about 40 seconds after Trey begins playing the opening riff. Good opening but nothing unusual. Nice clavinet action from Page in the little jam that precedes the Ebeneezer lyric. No screaming after Ebeneezer, but Trey does let loose some spacey effects... typical mayhem... Crowd goes wild.. Jam segment at 5:15. Jam opens up in a borderline space-funk manner. Trey has sustained out some spacey digital delay loop crap in the background.. Fish just pumps out a phat groove, which Mike accompanies well. Trey and Page eventually begin playing, but it is in a very mellow (but funky) manner. Around 7 minutes the jam is funky but restrained, at least imo.. there's no clear theme. Just sorta grooves along (good to dance to). Mike is actually more melodious than Trey. Page dances around on the clav... There's decent interplay around 8 mins, and the jam appears to begin building in intensity... But Trey is still playing rhythm guitar (funky chords)... Fish takes a dramatic pause with Mike while Page and Trey tool around, and then comes back in, powerfully, at 9 mins. But this jam is still not going anywhere (that build I mentioned earlier died in fairly short order). Around 10 mins, Trey has started to play more melodiously, but Mike is the active one, still... well... Around 10:40 or so Trey starts soloing soulfully o'er the others, high up the 'doc. Good stuff, great accompaniment.. around 12 mins Trey turns up the intensity, but still doesn't appear to have found a Way. Damn it.. The jam gets rather aimless. In fact.. This is going nowhere... but wait... Around 13:30 the jam dissolves into a spacey interlude of sorts.. quiets down immensely. Fish drifts the rhythm into something almost akin to "I Am Hydrogen," and Trey soulfully plays a note here and there in the upper octaves. Page and Mike beautifully accompany, too. (14:50) I've never heard anything like this before in TWEEZER -- it is a gorgeous, precious little jam, even if it isn't doing much of anything in particular. It is unusual to hear harmonious playing like this in Tweezer. In this pretty jam, Trey begins noodling in *in the same way* that you hear just before he starts playing "Dog Faced Boy" in the second set of 12/2/97 Phili. Just when you think he'll start up another awesome, sweeeeet version of DFB like that 12/2 version, though, he breaks into Trainsong. Total time: 15:46. Anyway, this Tweezer basically didn't do JACK, until the final mellifluous, enchanting few mins before Trainsong ->segued in. I'm giving it a 7 in light of these final few mins of beauty.. two cents charlie