7/25/98 - South Park Meadows, Austin, TX

set 1:
Roses Are Free>>Down With Disease, Roget, Beauty of my Dreams,
Ya Mar>>Jam>>Guyute, Julius

set 2:
Piper, Wilson*, Frankenstein, Tweezer>>Circus Comes To Town, Limb By
Limb, Fee>>Run Like an Antelope

Encore:
Harry Hood**>>Tweezer Reprise

*middle section of Wilson jammed out
**with lights out, and a glowstick war


My first phish concert, and shit was it good. Down with Disease kicked ass
and Ya Mar blew me away. The atmosphere at South Park was awesome. Wilson
brought chills to me, when the crowd got involved. Tweezer was cool but I
wanted more free jamming. The encore was bad with Harry Hood, man that was
awesome. I hope they keep austin on their tour.



Unfortunately, I don't get to see as many shows as I used to so the
South Park Meadows show in Austin was a treat. The venue was excellent.
I hope they continue to play here every summer. A very laid-back
atmosphere. I had to sell my Columbus & Deer Creek tickets, so this was
the only one I caught all summer. The guys did a great job of mixing
some old stuff with the new. The Roses are Free to open the show really
set the mood. DWD is always a treat, as well as Gyute( I still like the
original version from Fall '94 ). Yamar is one of my favorites anytime.
The new stuff was really good. A nice variety of slow jams and some
rocking guitar from Mr. Anastasio. Frankenstein is always amazing since
the guys do it to a tee. Antelope was a great Set II closer as usual.
Hood has always been one of my all time favorites. Overall, this show
didn't stray from the norm like many of the shows after this one. All of
the cover tunes really suprised me, but it shows just how diverse the
band is. I can't wait until Las Vegas, & I know it will be great jamming
in the desert.



What can I say About this show??  GOD DAMN!!  Not one of the best Phish
shows I have seen, but it definitely is up there.  Roses Are Free To
kick things off, GOD DAMN!!  I was actually hoping for a Cities, but
Roses Are Free is currently my Favorite Phish Cover Tune, so I was
groovin’ from the beginning.  This version wasn’t jammed out like
4/3/98, and Trey forgot one line in the second Verse, but otherwise it
was DANK!!  After the song was suppose to end, a short jam less than a
minute long came out, but that just dropped off into some short space.
The space lead into Down With Disease.  This DWD was dank, It was kind
of like the first 10 minutes of the Runaway Jim from Houston, in the
fact that it was Really Fast and Really Hard.  Trey Was just Tearin’ it
up.  The rest of the band was backing him up real well.  Down With
Disease Ended without ever breaking out of the Down With Disease Jam.
Roget (pronounced row gay)  was dank.  I had hooked up with the
Copenhagen shows before Texas so I had heard ALL the new tunes, and
Roget was one of my favorites.  Its slow and happy, but has a really
cool groove.  Live this song is dank, and the short jam section that
came out had some great Dueling by Mike and Trey.  “If life were easy
and not so fast, I wouldn’t think about the past.”  Beauty was Beauty, a
great tune just to dance to.  Ya Mar came up and OH YEA, this show was
gettin’ good.  Two dudes pushed their way Right in front of me at the
start of Ya Mar and kept begging me to smoke my nugs with them, IT
REALLY PISSED ME OFF.  They were two jockhead fuckers and they WOULDN’T
SHUT UP, especially through Page’s Jam, and it was obvious I was just
Trying to Zone out and DANCE!!!  This was a Sweet Ya Mar, the best i
have heard Live.  Page Tore it up, then Trey sunk it down and led it
into a Phunky jam that was kind of light, Not Real Intense.  The jammed
for a good 10 or 15 minutes then it just sort of dropped off.  Trey got
a sip from his beer (or water I was about 5 rows back, but I couldn’t
tell what he was drinking), then mouthed one word to Page and then BUM
BUM BUM BUM ------ GUYUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  FUCK YEA!!!! My first Guyute.
It was played perfectly.  The only thing that bums me out about Guyute
is that they have shortened the end.  It used to be Page would jam like
he does after the whistling, then Trey Would jam that part.  But now
Page starts to jam and Trey picks it up in the middle and finishes it
off.  Oh well, The middle section is still the best!!  When Julius
kicked in I thought we had at least one or two songs left after Julius,
but Julius rocked hard, then closed out the set.  Although it was short
(just over an hour)  this set was FUCKIN’ DANK.  It is one of my
favorite sets of the 3 Texas shows.
The second set opened with Piper.  I would have never called this as an
opener, but it is Awesome!!  The way it starts out slow and just builds
to this huge crescendo, A Great way to kick off the set.  Trey Started
jumping up and down after the first round of words - and it started
building and building and he just kept jumping.  It was obvious he was
pumped up!  The first notes of wilson Came right after Piper finished.
Wilson was Dank.  They jammed the shit out of the middle section.  They
must have jammed it for a good 5 minutes, and it was real hard and
fast.  The jam went so far that I thought that wilson was over and we
were entering the land of free jamming, but Trey came back in with “Now
you got me back thinkin......”  the end of wilson sounded just like the
middle jam section and I think Trey wanted to keep jamming it for a
while, but the rest of the band ended it at the normal time.  Then Trey
Walked over to Fishman and mouthed “Frankenstein.”  Frankenstein was
ragin’, but not any different than most good frankensteins.  Tweezer
came out of Frank..  Tweezer was long and jammy.  The jam sounded like a
constructed instrumental song,  at least thats the way it seemed.  In
other words it was very precise jamming.  Tweezer just dropped off into
Circus.  Circus is cool, but I think it loses the momentum in the set.
>From here the momentum seemed to shift slower.  Limb By Limb followed
Circus.  They changed Limb By Limb a little bit, just by repeating the
Chorus right before the jam then flat out stopping.  Then they kick back
in hard with the jam.  The Jam was Phat like ALL limb by limbs.  The end
is also different, and reminds me of Taste.  They don’t sing in the end
anymore either.  A short pause followed limb, and somebody in front of
me called out Fee, and then they played it.  It was pretty cool,
especially to hear Fee in set 2.  When they played Fee I was hoping they
would do two things - and that was for them to Jam out the end, and then
Take it into Run Like Antelope.  (sort of like 11/19/97 champaign).  And
thats exactly what they did.  The fee jam was sort of repetitive and
then dropped off and Trey pulled out ANTELOPE!!!  This was my 12th show
and my 2nd Antelope!!  I was Stoked to say the least.  Antelope Really
RAGED.  It just kept peaking out and right when i thought it was almost
over they would take it higher.  You have to get the tapes to actually
hear what Trey did during the Marco Esquandolas part, because it’s
beyond my words.  The second set, although very different from ANY
second set i have heard (live or on tape) since late 96, was very cool,
especially the unexpected second set Fee.  WHAT A TREAT!!
Before i came down to Texas, I was hoping for 2 things - My First
Runaway Jim (played the first night in Houston), and a Harry Hood Encore
with a Glowstick war.  I feel very lucky to have gotten both in the
first 2 shows.  Hood was dank to say the least.  During one part of it
before the jam, everybody in the first 10 or 15 rows took out their
water bottles and started throwing it around the crowd, it was very
cool.  Then when the jammed kicked in, I looked up at the lights and
sure enough they went out.  Then I looked up and the glowsticks started
flying through the air and I just started screaming at the top of my
lungs (like alot of people around me).  It was cool to watch the
glowsticks and listen to the band.  At one point it sounded like Trey
was trying to imitate what glowsticks sound like flying through the air
(of course I was probably just really roasted and imagined that).  The
Hood was LONG.  The best hood i have heard live (out of 4), and i
thought the show was over, BUT NO!!!!!  Tweezer Reprise.  T. Reprise was
T. Reprise, but still an awesome way to close out a show.
All I could say walking out of the venue was GOD DAMN!  What a fuckin’
show!!


I definately have to say that out of the three places in Texas to see
Phish is at Austin.  It is way better than parking at a mall (Houston)
or frying in a regular old STRICT parking lot (Dallas.)

I have never been to Austin before and it lived up to what I have
heard about it.  The venue was great- no seats is a definate plus
because you could either hang out on the hill or fight the crowd and
be up close.  And  I must say that was not hard to do at all.  Most
people were really considerate (as usual- phish pholk are always kind)
about being up in front and everything (except for one fellow who
brought a 6 yr old kid or something up to the front on his
SHOULDERS!!! but luckily they left before Harry Hood.

It was a damn great show.  Who could not like a show with Ya Mar,
Antelope, Guyute & Harry Hood.  I can tell you that I was loving it. 
It was also nice to hear some songs that I have never heard before but
have heard about (Roget).

It was another great experience indeed- I thought Houston's show was
more solid probably due to them playing more recognizable songs since
it was the first time they played there in all.  I would definately
trek out to that heat again to see them there again - however I must
say that if weren't for it's closeness to Dallas, I would not be sad
seeing if I never saw another show at Dallas again due to the pain in
the ass cops.

Another good thing about Austin is - they did not hustle people out of
the parking lots at the end of the show and people continued to have a
good time.  I feel asleep that night with guyute in my head and a HUGE
smile on my face.

nancy mariano

I woke up early on Saturday despite a long night after the fine show the
night before at Woodlands.  The band had me rapped in a groove state,
and I couldn't wait to get back at it.  Although weary, Craemer and I
actually had the stinkin' Lincoln back up to 85 by noon on the way to
Austin.

We arrived at the show early enough.  I had to pump alot of water into
the my diesel so to avoid a melt down later that evening.  It was a very
hot afternoon, but at least it was dry.  I suddenly realized that
showtime was near and rounded up my taping gear and made the long walk
to the entrance.  Focusing on my pace and on the path in front of me,
was nearly cut off by Iron Mike Gordon, who was spinning around in one
of his prefered modes of transport, the golf cart.  I said hello and he
replied in kind with a smile.  I then buttered him up a bit, a habit of
mine when I happen to see any of the guys.  I said, damn Mike, you have
gotten better than Entwhistle.  (sp?)  You have come so far.  He seemed
very appreciative.  I cut back in front of him as he turned into the
secure area and asked for a Wedge, to which he replied, "Anything is
possible."

Austin was another great one, as was Houston the night before.  Just
check out the set list.

I love the new stuff to boot.

Peace,

Park Place Paul