From: Charlie Dirksen
7/12/96 Melkweg in Amsterdam, Netherlands You would not believe this show's performance quality if I told you. Yes, this
show has one of the greatest looking setlists in Phish history. Yes, Phish (or at least several members of same) were truly fucked
up during this show (at least, I HOPE THEY WERE, given the quality). But, no, the show does not especially "rock" at all,
unfortunately. Probably the lamest all-around Phish show, musically, that I've ever heard in the 1000 hours I've heard. It is just
magnificently and stupendously bad at times. When it IS good, and it is interesting/good a couple moments, the goodness is
almost irreperably harmed by later "musical" activity. Hear it for yourself, though, if only because it will probably help you give
greater thanks for the Phish you do regularly listen to, and will hear in the future. I enjoyed that Ice was unfinished (went into
Prince Caspian out of the "jam segment"), but the unfinished MikeS, Antelope and Slave were complete buzzkills in this set. The
NICU is, without question, the highlight of the show for me.. it has a pretty interesting jam (for NICU). I suppose SOME of the
Ice>Caspian transition is pretty cool, too, but since some of the same transition is HIDEOUS, this isn't really saying that much...
Opening of the Mike's Song begins in the wrong key out of a weird Prince Caspian (had a nice jam at first, but the jam was
butchered in a most musically AND emotionally displeasing manner over its course). There's no tramps jam in here, really. Trey
just noodles away madly, without any apparent concern about discipline or design. The jam is loose and free, which would
ordinarily inspire awe, but here, it just sounds haphazard, sloppy, and LAME; although, around 4:20, Trey is noodling away
fairly accurately... Around 6 minutes, though, Fish has basically given up keeping time.. and Trey is in a repetitive groove of
sorts, that isn't melodiously pleasing. Fish comes back in with the beat but screws around with it. Page is playing off of Trey's
bullshit (presumably trying to actually make Music -- imagine that!). But by 7 minutes, it is just Page noodling rather lamely on
the piano. One hand, it sounds like, just screwing around. I've heard my younger sister do more on the damn piano. (if you think
I'm being unfairly harsh, I hope you get the opportunity to listen to listen to this, but I refuse as a matter of principle to dub this
show) Page was probably thinking "What the hell" by this point, anyway.. Suddenly, Trey just starts up Antelope at 8 minutes.
(and guess what, it is actually more lousy a version than this Mike's Song!) D- rating for this Mike's Song. FWIW, you'll notice
above that I didn't mention Mike. I think he just gave up trying to make this version tolerable, but I don't know. God bless Phish
for taking the night off, but damn, I really hope everyone in the audience was too stoned to actually care about the "music" they
had presumably paid money to see (or there would have undoubtedly been a lot of annoyed folks there). If anyone was actually
impressed by this show, I'd be surprised, because I'd imagine that even SOBER fans of compositionally-challenged "music"
wouldn't like this crap. Yes, I wish I could give a ;^) in here, but I can't. Just my honest feelings about the "music" of this show,
generally speaking. You should hear the Yamar! I really like the NICU jam at this show, fwiw, but it cuts TERRIBLY on the
copy I have of it. ;^[ There's a crazy *JAM* in this NICU!! I'd love to get a nice copy of it as filler sometime.