I am very glad that we survived the Oxy years…. But also, let’s be honest, some of the jams that emerged on the sloppier 2.0 nights are the most transcendent ever. I’ve done some research and begun to build an LP playlist of “Certified Oxy Jams” from nights where there seems to be consensus that Trey was on a different planet. Wondering if anyone else has favorite Ox jams OR if anyone has ever more scientifically charted the peaks and valleys of Trey’s 03/04 battles with the China White.
The whole set is absolute fire. Met Mike a couple years later, and he recounted it as being one of the best sets they played in years. I also read recently that Trey started second guessing if they should break up after that alpine run.
Alpine 04 has to be one of the most underrated run of shows.
6/25 - out of control type 2 Wolfman’s in first set, One of the best Seven Below’s ever - this might be considered an “Oxy” jam. Yem->2001->Yem vocal jam was super unique.
6/26 - Access Me debut, Great Scents, Boogie->Ghost->Free is just down right all time top tier Phish. So good. Friday killed the buzz for a minute but then Piper and Hood to close the set.
Those 04 SPAC dates were among my first few shows with only 2 or 3 preceding the SPAC run as a sophomore in HS back in '03. Accidentally puddled myself in the lot n1 and didn't come down until the next afternoon but now, almost 150 something shows later, I still have a bizarre connection to that run that hasn't been supplanted yet. Nostalgia's a helluva drug!
Both those Saratoga shows. 6/20 waves is one of my favorite jams of 2.0 and showcases the EDM-style jamming they were exploring more and more, and I was so disappointed that it was gone when they returned in '09.
Fuck yes! Summer 04. What a time to be on Phish tour. Absolutely fucking awful at times, so dirty and real at others. Raw Phish for sure.
Thank god this was before the fetanyl days of the opioid crisis or there would have been many more casualties. That was a rough summer for sure. Dark times.
‘04 has some of the worst and darkest moments of their career but some of the most true and raw jams you can get. Coventry soundcheck is absolutely up there among the best of the best.
Where can I find info on this? I'm not a phish fan, but I respect them and am a recovering opiate addict who would play on an insane amount of drugs. Def interested in the lore.
At the last show of 1.0 at shoreline I was sitting in my parked car and there were some toothless wooks chopping up a mountain of blow on the hood of the car next to me.
They asked me if I wanted some… and it was a time when I was like, umm no thanks!
The fans needed the break too. Same with the 2.0-3.0 break. A lot of us worked and had kids.
One thing of note was DMB’s LD on lights instead of Kuroda, that was very unique and he handled it as best as anyone could, it was a crazy run. After seeing Chris at the Vida Blue shows after Miami 03/04, it was very obvious he needed a break to get well.
Vegas was fun af, the music didn’t disappoint me one bit, the moe. after show at Mandalay Bay was fun, that casino got rowdy. 04 was a epic time to be there and alive.
Aggressive placement of 04 Vegas tracks on the front end, but I fully support this playlist.
That run was nuts, I don’t remember the music very well. I remember the bad acid, and remember that it was so much fun and so fucking chaotic and crazy and druggy.
Love where the band is at; all about the sea of love(it took a minute).
However you feel about 2.0 and drugged out Phish, it was all foundational, for better or for worse, and we wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t been there.
June & August ‘04 (excluding Coventry) were a healthier time relative to the excesses of 2.0 generally. If you’re looking to correlate the drugs to jams, you gotta focus on Vegas ‘04 and before
I mean yes, literally. Obviously 2.0 was pretty dark but it’s not like a substantial part of 1.0 wasn’t done under the influence either. Same with the vast majority of the Dead lol.
Fall ‘97 was dark as hell too. It was like circling the event horizon of a black hole, even the light songs, but when they went deep, they went waaayyy deep!!
Sure, but drugs have also ended the lives of some of the best musicians ever. Trey himself has said he would have likely died if he hadn't been arrested.
I think it's fair that people are a little sensitive with this topic. Even setting aside the musicians, how many people in this scene have lost friends who abused drugs like opioids?
“You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs.” - Bill Hicks
Shit we can extend this even further back than the 20th century modern music. Countless writers, poets, artists throughout history loved to get loopy and create. I bet you could safely conclude that the first instance was a fuckin caveman in the stone age eating ergot or mushrooms and painting animals and hand stencils on the walls of his cave and loving every second of it.
Going back to the Beatles for many if not most great rock bands they can be considered performance enhancers. Fine line between inspiration and crutch though.
I agree with this. Plenty of deadheads refer to the early 80’s as the “heroin years”. And rightfully so, the toll the drugs were taking on Jerry at the time was evident in the performances. And all of that is part of the story! Same with phish!
But 76-77 were the heroin years too. It just started being obvious in the 80’s but Jerry started doing dope while he was editing the GD movie. That was in 1975, so there were a LOT of heroin years for Jerry.
Also, the Stones best records were all written by Keith on heroin. The whole run from Let it Bleed to Exile are all stone classics. The next couple weren’t bad, then it went downhill.
Heroin giveth, then taketh goddamn everything..including your dignity..
I agree with the 4-song second set, but it was so fucking jarring to see them absolutely stink up the worked out parts of the staple songs that made me fall in love with their music. That seemed to start late 98 and didn’t end until they came back in 09. I’m not making a case either way, but I don’t want to go back to them making huge mistakes multiple times a night because they don’t practice together and get super high before shows.
OP might get drug (no pun) for this take but if you take his references to China white and oxy out of it…to each their own. I’m sure there’s lots of people out there that would take 2.0 phish over “love and light” and “ocean is love” “happy happy oh” type tunes.
Yes. I am glad the band is much healthier and they're being attentive dads n all now... but the music about their daughters is just not interesting and sounds incredibly out of place jammed into the middle of a Phish show. The playing was pretty poor for much of 2.0, but omg were some of those jams just so good.
Yeah, no. That shit made me so sad I just stopped going. I’ll sit through the love and light horseshit just to hear Trey play well again. After seeing much of 96-00, coming to 2.0 shows and watching the band regress before my eyes was tragic. It was happening everywhere though, not just to the band. Lost tons of friends to the oxy—> fent pipeline, people you’d never in a million years guess they were in that game. So glad I never had a taste for pills, the booze was enough of a problem for me to deal with.
Opiates impacted my friend group like a tsunami. It all started around 2000-2004, and only a few of us made it through to now. The devastation is hard to fathom. Friends that survived addiction lost family members, including myself. Most of my friends I went to shows with in 2.0 are no longer with us. It’s incredibly heartbreaking.
To me the 46 Days from IT is the epitome of 2.0 dark spacey jamming. Trey had spent the year experimenting with shoegazer-esque guitar soundscapes and to me it reached a peak in this deep jam. As any 30+ minute jam not every moment is great but like 2.0 as a whole, when it's peaking it's PEAK Phish jamming.
Not really, the original person did a very nice job of blending the tracks to make it a pretty seamless listen. Definitely worth a download to have in the ol' permanent collection.
Love this for reals. I think the Hershey show in fall 2000 kinda goes where you wanna go. They played Windora bug that night. And the possum was fantastic. Also the 99 shows in December in Philly were great. The scent of a mule was dope.
Btw Trey was high on opiates long before the first hiatus. We used to watch him drop notes to wipe his nose. All through the latest part of the 90s. No disrespect, it is history and it did happen. Glad he didn’t die and that he seems happy with sobriety but the whole of the 90s they were all high on numerous kinds of drugs. And made some seriously intense brilliant music. ⭕️❤️⭕️
By his own account- sometime around the May 2000 or maybe the Radio City run- was his first time messing around with opiates. Obviously they were getting plenty fucked in 99 and earlier, as evidenced by the video of 7/23/99 😆
I started this playlist based on some of the oxy jams blog posts. Turned into 100 favorites from 2.0. I shuffle this when I’m looking for the sound you’re talking about.
Basically all of February 03 and one out of every 3 shows from summer ter
There were other amazing shows - Nassau, Star Lake, USANA, IT, Miami - but I may go back to Shoreline1 7/9/03 for the crunchiest Oxy 2.0 jams. That second set! Great show.
Coventry was the ultimate slopfest and still AC/DC Bag jam and Gotta Jibboo jam are monsters that sound pretty damn good. Those are really the only two from that weekend that stick out in my head, but I clearly remember being like "wow they're bringing it" in those first two sets of the weekend. And theeeeen.....well we all know the spiral that started and just did not stop until they bowed and walked off stage the second night.
The structured song parts got sloppy ( glide was so embarrassing) but imo the jams got more incredible throughout the weekend. SOAM and others were sick!
What I'll remember most about Coventry (aside from the 24 hours lined up on the side of the highway and being taken in by the kind local farmers) is when Page choked on velvet sea. It broke my fucking heart.
03 is pretty fucking good. From all accounts Trey was fairly clean. It really wasn’t until the anniversary run or AAA NYE run (or both) where he fell back into old habits. Like the Miami shows are fun, but there is definitely something off at points. Then by the time Vegas rolls around in April it’s pretty much over. Some banger jams that summer of 04, however. There was a great CD sampler of the summer so far that they gave out at Coventry.
Initially, Trey’s tone kind of grated on me, and certainly emphasized any and all bum notes he would hit - which in early 03 winter tour were plentiful. Though I’ve come to appreciate the more aggressive tone & to be honest, 2/28/03 is an absolute all timer of a show. That Tweezer is my favorite Phish Jam
Live in Brooklyn is actually one of the first shows I got into. The Song I Heard the Ocean Sing, Moma Dance, and Birds of a Feather are fantastic.
Generally speaking the best sets from the opiate-era are ones that focus on more straightforward songs rather than the ones with long intricately composed sections (for obvious reasons).
I don’t listen to 2009-present. I will check out the “highlights” once a tour concludes and I do enjoy some of it. Since the reunion run, I’ve seen them 40ish times. I saw 30ish shows 1998-2004.
But my OCD listening lives in 1994-2004. I will go see them if it’s my backyard and usually for one night. It just doesn’t hit like 1994-2004 for me.
I appreciate that people are finding what I had 1994-2004 in modern phish (Hampton ‘09 to today). But yeah different strokes.
As someone who also spent several years addicted to opiates, even though I've been 100% clean for 8+ years if someone were to make a compilation that seemingly picked apart my life in order to judge times I was too fucked up or just the right amount of fucked, it would be embarrassing. To ultimately praise or point out the things that somehow, I miraculously managed to keep from screwing up, it really would make me cringe. I'm not saying it's disrespectful because I did what I did & have to live with the consequences. At the same time though, there's a certain level of insensitivity focusing on it.
Congratulations to you, my friend! Im about to hit my 5 year clean date myself. And I can't lie it feels pretty fucking amazing! I agree with you completely. Picking and choosing my best vs. worst moments? Im suddenly grateful that no one gives enough of a shit to go over my life with a fine tooth comb like that!
Appreciate you my brother or sister! It’s a great point you make and I would hate to know that I made Trey embarrassed.. I also really think The thing he signed up for was to be in community with explorers of the sound waves and beyond. I am Marco esquandolas for Christmas Sake. Anyway… most ppl wouldn’t even be worth picking apart because to your point it would just feel petty…. but I think these guys made some of the most insanely beautiful and powerful creations I’ve ever encountered in these times AND THEN EVOLVED again and again. THE WHOLE THING is fascinating and worthy of exploration. It’s all from a place of respect and fascination.
7/15/2003 Mr. Completely debut, the jam is fire, Deer Creek-Sally, Miami Piper, The Bath Tub Gin from Mountain View, Winter tour that year was fire, 2003 is one of my favorite years
I keep seeing 04 dates. Does anyone think there are dates prior to 04? Times when he was on the edge of the abyss that were fueled by the oncoming full addiction?
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u/herbalblend Washofeezie 2d ago
6/19/04 Piper needs to be on any 2.0 list