Watch Phish Deliver The Albany ‘YEM’ On This Date In 1995

2020 marked 25 years since Phish’s historic Fall Tour 1995. In recognition of that noteworthy tour and to make up for the lack of shows due to the pandemic in 2020, JamBase presented a daily retrospective highlighting a noteworthy moment from a Phish fall tour concert that took place on that date over the previous 25 years (read a note on Fall 1997 here). The 25 Years Of Phish Fall Tour series ran each day in 2020 between the start of Phish Fall Tour 1995 on September 27 through that tour’s finale on December 17. The December 9th article consisted of an essay JamBase’s Scott Bernstein wrote in 2015 about a seminal moment in Phish experience that took place on this date in 1995.

I entered Skidmore College in September of 1995 unsure of whether I had made the
right decision about where to attend school. Quickly I met people that would remain
my friends ’til this day and had incredible educational opportunities that made it
fun to learn for the first time. As the first few weeks of school passed I met a
number of Phish fans that were interested in seeing the upcoming December shows. Add
to that a few high school friends who were staying with me — the shows were close to
Saratoga — and the Albany show turned into a meeting of the minds.

But things became hectic as the show date approached. The weather in the Capital
District became nightmarish thanks to the arrival of a blizzard. Luckily my friends
from home arrived at Skidmore just before the storm was hitting its stride. Still, we
hit the road early, the trip to Albany no doubt troublesome. Sure enough, as we
traveled down I-87, the road was littered with spun out cars. We drove really slow
but got to the venue with plenty of time to spare.

The Knickerbocker (now known as the Times-Union Center) has many parking garages
nearby, and as we had two hours to kill, I walked around. Having seen Phish a number
of times by this point I had met a lot of people seeing shows, many of whom I ran
into in that parking lot. I went into the venue and settled in the upper deck with
five or six of my closest friends at the time.

The show started with a first set that was extremely tight yet featured minimal
improvisation. Many shows during this time period had similar agendas: the first set
focused on the compositional aspect of Trey Anastasio‘s music, while the second set was all
about the jams.

There was a very happy vibe in the arena as the second set started — it was quite
warm and everyone had dried off and forgotten about the terrible storm outside. The
lights dropped and the band opened the set with “Timber (Jerry).” “Timber” featured
the first real improvisation of the night, and Page really added some magnificent
fills to Trey’s solo. As the song ended, Trey couldn’t stop grinning as he called
bassist Mike Gordon over for a discussion.

The band started playing “Wilson,” and Trey began using a Beavis and Butthead Talking
Remote Sensor. When he would trigger the device, Beavis and Butthead would say
“Asswipe!,” “This Sucks!,” or “You Dumbass!” People were confused to say the least,
and it was pretty cool to see all the puzzled faces in the crowd. The energy from the
Beavis and Butthead gag lent itself to a romp through “Wilson.” A stellar “Gumbo”
followed, and then innocently enough “You Enjoy Myself” began.

“You Enjoy Myself” is the song Phish played the most in their career. Certainly each
version was different, but for the most part one version wouldn’t stray too much from
another structurally. This night was different as the band left the typical YEM jam
terrain with a quickness. Throughout the composed section each member of the group
worked in cool little fills that showed they were “feeling IT.” Once Trey and Mike
were done with the trampolines, the guitarist hit upon a cool riff that he played
over and over, changing it ever so slightly each time.

As Trey toyed with this beautiful, anthemic riff keyboardist Page McConnell augmented the melody with
pretty chords on his Rhodes electric piano, Jon Fishman kept a strong beat going and
Mike Gordon added a funk edge by utilizing his Lovetone Meatball envelope filter. If
this was just two years prior, the band would’ve blazed past the riff in search for
another angle but by 1995 the quartet weren’t in a rush to continually move jams
along. They knew they had struck gold and were happy to keep blasting the groove.
Every once in a while Anastasio would throw a new lick into the mix and most had the
“YEM” feel but weren’t quite the riffs found in other versions of the tune.

Eventually the Vermonters picked up the tempo with Trey building his solo to what
would usually be a big arena rock peak. However on this night, all bets were off.
Around the 20-minute mark the guitarist swung his axe around and headed for the mini-
percussion kit that was added to Phish’s stage setup for that tour. I wasn’t a huge
fan of the mini-percussion kit in general, but during the “Albany YEM” Big Red came
up with inventive rhythmic patterns which allowed Mike Gordon and Page McConnell to
work up their own funk melodies. When Anastasio put the guitar back on he focused on
wah’d-out funk chords as McConnell milked his Clavinet in a way that would make
Stevie Wonder proud. After a few marvelously funky minutes Trey stepped to the mic
and said, “Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?”
quoting Issac Hayes’s “Shaft.” Then, out of nowhere, the quartet initiated a “silent
jam” in which they all pounded away at their instruments without actually making a
sound. The crowd was floored and responded with huge cheers.

Now, we’re already 27 minutes into “YEM” and were already in “best-ever” territory,
but if you take what happens next by itself, you’d still have a top-shelf “YEM” jam
as Anastasio absolutely tears into a run at the song’s “normal” solo showing off his
machine gun skills. As the guitarist takes a knee with each peak the audience goes
wild. If there’s any flaws with the “Albany YEM,” it’s that after the peak the band
awkwardly winds up in an uneventful vocal jam. But, as you can imagine, no one was
complaining. There were high-fives and hugs exchanged after the song ended as most of
us knew we had witnessed something special. When I returned to Skidmore the “YEM” was
the talk of campus for the week to come before we went home for the holidays. By the
time we returned the outstanding New Year’s Eve performance at MSG was the main
subject of Phish chats at school, but that’s just how it went back then – you didn’t
have to wait long for Phish to do something that blew us all away.

Watch fan-shot video of the “Albany YEM” including soundboard audio:

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[Updated article originally published December 9, 2015]

Source: JamBase.com