A Live One

Oh no. It's a live album. A double disk live album. It's listenable, but a single disc, with all the songs half the length woulve been a lot less of a chore.

I listened to this for the entirety of one balatro run then tapped out. Didn’t need to listen to another hour of some of the blandest music ever. I get why the Grateful Dead has a huge live following but I don’t really get this. Like it doesn’t sound bad and would probably be fun to hear live but idk man, listening to it on my couch sucked.

Jam rock, jazz fusion. Al principio gusta, luego aburre. Mucho. Un 2.

This is a band that people discover and then turn into their entire personality. We get it, you went to college and smoked some weed! The Grateful Dead is far superior as jam bands go, but Phish is prolific and do inspire a cult following in the same way. I just can't listen to over 2 hours of people clapping for someone farting into a trumpet.

30 minutes long song is a little bit excessive

Submitting this is an all-time top tier goof.

DNF

Phish is a band I keep hearing references to, but never actually heard a song of. So that changed today; and guess what I learned after TWO HOURS of Phish? I can't stand Phish, fuck this endless noodling.

Have you ever heard that song by Sloan, “Coax Me”? In it, there’s a line that goes, “It’s not the band I hate, it’s their fans”. I would say that sums up my feelings about Phish, except…I really don’t like the band either. Don’t get me wrong, there were moments here, however fleeting, where I thought to myself, “this isn’t so bad”, but those moments were pretty quickly dashed away by Phish’s tendency to cluster-wank. I get it, these guys are good at their instruments. The Ramones weren’t, but their songs are a lot more fun. …and the thing is, I know Trey Anastasio listens to good music. Over the years, he’s been vocal about bands that he loves, like Pavement, Ween or King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Phish has covered full albums by The Velvet Underground or Talking Heads…For whatever reason, he’s not able to take his love of good music and infuse into his own music, but it is what is. On the topic of Ween and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, here’s where I get to the “it’s the fans” part of the equation: I’m old enough (and cool enough, thank you) to have been a fan of both of these bands before they experienced an influx of phish fans, who would eventually take over their fanbases. Both bands had relatively chill indie or alt fanbases and then, Trey Anastasio opens his yap (or, in the case of Ween, covers one of their songs) and every Phish head on earth starts turning up to tell you how Ween and King Gizzard are actually jam bands. They start setting up a lot scene at shows to sell their bootleg merch that offers about as much creativity as those “Hey Lois, remember that time…” moments from Family Guy and soon all the other trappings of phish fandom follow. They will try and remake every band that Trey turns them onto into a replica of Phish’s scene. They’re like the fucking Borg, if the Borg’s highest ambition for assimilation was getting a spot on the rail and flipping posters so that they could travel from show to show. All I’m saying is you don’t have turn everything else into the one thing you love, phish fans. On a more humorous note, my favorite part of this record was on the second track, “Stash”, where the audience tries to clap twice in time with the song (at the :32 second mark - you don’t have to listen very far into it). The band breaks for the clap and everyone in the audience claps at slightly different intervals and it sounds more like someone crumpling a paper bag than a bunch of people clapping in unison - lmfao. The same people who will tell you that these four dudes are the greatest musicians on their respective instruments are the same people who struggle to clap on beat - just some food for thought. Look, this is a really long and negative review, and I’m sorry to the person who submitted this for implying that all phish fans share the same traits, but I’ve had my fair share of encounters with phans over the years and have been forced to listen to enough of Phish’s music by friends and acquaintances that I’ve got very little patience for it. In closing, if you’re like me and can’t stand this band, maybe you should check out the “Whose Got My Goo Balls?” episode of Harris Wittels’ “Analyze Phish” podcast, where he tried to convince Tom Scharpling to like Phish and failed almost immediately… It’s one hour shorter than this record.

You know, the lyrics of Phish are think the worst part. skillful musicianship sure, but the lyrics are really awful. And I get bored of this incessant noodling. What the fuck is Tweezer?

Funky and jazzy and oh god I just can't.

To the person who selected this, why do you hate me?

Live album

Truth be told: I did not listen to this whole album, nor did I expect to. I cannot listen to this wanky jam band stuff. I gave it about 30 minutes and then skimmed the rest. It's pretty much everything I thought it would be. I know people who live for this stuff. That's fine. Just keep it far, far away from me.

Such a shame. A live album. As mentioned before, these tend to be a "best of" that's interspersed with background noise that isn't what the artists intended.

He was better as the lead singer of Marillion.