Rest of BathtubGinFiles are available at Bone's Phish Files
8/17/97 The Great Went
GinStats: Set II Total time: 15:07
(Thanks to Gordon Sharpless for saving the day with Gordon's Gin) :)
Down With Disease's stellar jam melts into this Bathtub Gin opening,
leaving Down W/ Disease technically "unfinished" but, as we shall see
later, I have a theory that they intended to finish it after a shot of
Gin.
Page jumps in at 0:29 -> 0:49 And, very akin to 12/29/96 Philly's (or
2/17/97 Amsterdam's) opening segment, this solo demontrates Page's
wonderful ability to prove to the world, once and for all, that
this man has absolutely no sense of reality. His spastic piano
attacks tingle the spine and enliven the senses...There's some
Rhapsody In Skewed Off-Color Blue here, 'till Trey interrupts:
Lyrics Segment: 0:49 Doh! Trey fucks up the lyrics. It actually
sounds as if Trey sang "And I am in the hallway, making...to the
troubadours" Whatever...
Page Fill 1: 1:21->1:38 Page, CHILL OUT man! Abstract Ivory tickling
which makes fools like me go wild...:)
Fill 2: 2:09->2:26 The more traditional Rhapsody In Blue (on
exctacy) fill...Typical, but typically great, for this section...
FAUCET: 2:41 Sloppy, but marginally enough...
SINGING W/THE FAUCET: 3:23 Unenthusiastic and generally unimpressive,
this Singing W/The Faucet section is the only real let-down of this
entire Gin. It just doesn't sound like they were really too into it
here.
WATER FROM THE FAUCET: 4:36 Okay here's where the good part comes. Up
until this point, we were Jaques. Now we are...THE GREAT WENT. 5:04
it shakes it's grounding, but by 5:14 it remembers itself inside the
Classic Faucet Lick. 5:44 and Trey's still tooling around with this...
Fish rides them cymbals, Ride, Johnny, Ride. By 6:20 Trey slides on
up the 'doc, at 6:41 it sounds as if their about to bust into a stomp
but instead Trey busts out if it, with "I Am Bust-Out Man!" grin
and all, taking the friendly route of the
Classic Faucet Lick, then again but double-time at 7:04...
By 7:34 we've created a very surreal surround sound, almost like
it's the beginning of some 90's psuedo-psychedelic band's anthem
song....at 8:03 indeed it sounds as if this is some lesser-talented
bands idea of a composed "music to take acid to" radio single.
Starting around 8:30 the beat steadily picks up, faster and faster,
Trey on this psuedo-psychedelic-band-anthem riff (which he'll stay
with throughout), continuing on with this thread, the band right behind
him, beat picking up steam, the train going rickety-rackety down
the tracks in snowball-effect action, the herd of buffalo running
together suddenly all taking a left turn, Page adding some interesting
comments right before the 9:00 mark...and now Page is on the high keys
while Trey continues this anthematic farce...at 9:48 I give you
complete permission to be B L O W N A W A Y as we are now
approacing absolute Hose territoy, this is absolutely stunning in
here, by the 10 minute mark they've successfully created this
landscape that has, entirely, swept me away.
The riff Trey has stuck with all along has turned from a
mock-psuedo-psychedelic anthem to a painfully exquisite theme.
Okay, I'm now running stark, mad, naked down the hallway, out into the
street, past all the houses, past the Giant Supermarket and the
Uni-Mart, 7-11's, cheesy nightclubs with names like "Wanda's" and
"KoKoMo's" that are attached to hotels, past delusions of grandeur
and, for that matter, of grand-daddies too, clawing at the windows
of the urbanite houses until I find myself plush in the forest,
back in the wilderness, groking with the apes, mocking the elephants and
their silly ivory-clad wives, rolling in the dirt making friends
with the lovely dew-sucklings and turning back into a
Lizard of the Gamehendge of Old.
Ladies and gentlemen, Phish has done it again...they have made a
snivering knefle-flurry out of me - listen...this is powerful stuff
here, this, this, this Gin; enough to overthrow the power of the evil King
Wilson and have him piss-drunk, laughing his ass off as he falls on
the floor crying like a newborn mutant child,. Yes, all this and more
after having a mere one shot of this Gin, and you might think I'm
joking here, but I'm being absolutely dead serious.
It sounds almost now, at 11:50 that they're working
back into Down With Disease...they're definately headed in that
direction. At 12:10 Trey busts a distinctively Dw/D note (that is, he
busted a note and decidedly not something else, you nut) , the band
is seemingly right behind him, riding the same wave, on the back of
the same worm, and both of which are being scintillently expulsiated
from this giant, weltering, 65,000 person Hose. I'm even tempted to
label this a legitimate Down With Disease Jam here since, essentially,
that's what it's become...Down With Disease meets "Down that Gin!"
C'mon, bottoms up, people...
While Trey sticks with the riff he created, (that is to say, while
he's ASSUMING THE MANTLE HE CREATED) this entire jam now sounds
alot more akin to Dw/D than your typical faucet jam. Then again,
this is NOT your typical faucet jam anyway. And they say that the
Princess's driver was driving drunk when he crashed last
Sunday...what they didn't know was that he was listening to The Went
Gin. Some heavy stuff, this Gin, I'm telling you :)
At 13:10 Trey repeatedy hammers the riff, trilling on it around
13:45 and at 13:51 there's a tempo shift...
RIGHT HERE is the portal that they seemed to be working towards, the
window to Down With Disease Reprise, but because they were listening
to the music of the moment, channeling the energy of the here and now
and NOT letting themselves and their own wills get in the way, they
passed up this opportunity and instead turned into the Hose and let the
music be what it may. This is the riff that has taken Trey away, and
with it, Maine's largest city. And so the entire Went metropolis gets
drenched, hosed down, by this 2-mile shot of Gin. Children call
your parents, husbands find your wives, workers call off work -
Limestone, ME has now been Hosed!!
I seriously can not stress enough how this jam here really is much
more of a Down With Disease Jam than a Bathtub Gin Jam. I am
absolutely, 100 percent convinced that that was the original idea
(that is, to segue into a Dw/D reprise), or at least something that
they examined the possibility of, here. Fwiw, I had a brief talk with
Trey after Saturday's show about "Gravity's Rainbow" and the idea of a
jam breaking free from gravity, so free that it need not return to
its original song but is completely free to go wherever the Hose
takes it....or wherever the water takes the Hose ("as the music plays
the band"). The *brief* chat was sparked by the "return of the
unfinished Harpua" to which Trey said, "I thought that was great"
(when they didn't finish it...because it had attained total freedom).
"I hope it didn't bring you down when we finished it this year..but
then, we took right off again anyway." he laughed. And indeed, we
are launched again, weightless, running around after this set with
our heads cut off and saying "Icculus, make me normal again!" :)
At 14:26 THE STOMP takes over, Fish with a "My Sweet One" beat, Trey
with pre-Scent of A Mule segue notes, and indeed all the elements for one
to expect "Poor Heart" to erupt, but wild hearts can't be broken....
no instead at 15:07 it's UNCLE PENN. A few seconds into Uncle
Penn there's a second or two of adjustment, but that's not until
Bathtub Gin is legally complete, and hence, not my territory.
"BATHTUB GIN" REFRAIN: None. This Gin was "unfinished" if you
will...so potent, the bottle still has a remaining ounce or two burning
at the bottom...while we, the Ginaholics, float in space,
in-orbit...with our heads cut off.
ENDS AT 15:07
Rating:
40 Proof...this sucked. :)
Oh, okay, you're right -- I give it a 97 Proof, easy.
Ideally I'd like to give it a 98 (my highest rating yet) or even
higher, except that there was that there lyric flub, and some other
general sloppyness before the Faucet Jam. But...but that...but that
Jam....that Bathtub Jam...hot damn! A National Treasure, The best of
the Great Went Wonders Of The World and one damn fine drink at that.
Walk with light my friends,
Benjy