Phish rolled into the fourth city of its nascent 2024 summer tour for a midweek stopover in St. Louis, MO on Tuesday. The first of two shows at Chaifetz Arena on the campus of Saint Louis University marked Phish’s first visit to the city since 2019 when the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup during the band’s concert and Phish accordingly covered the team’s unofficial anthem, Laura Branigan‘s “Gloria“.
While there was no sports championship to celebrate on this trip to Mound City, the band walked away with another record-setting performance. After charting longest-ever versions of “My Friend, My Friend” and “Simple” on back-to-back nights at Alpine Valley Music Theatre, Phish came to St. Louis for a historic performance of “Tweezer” that lasted almost 40 minutes. (Warning, Phish nerd minutiae ahead): While LivePhish lists this “Tweezer” at 41:10 (which would edge out Saturday’s 40-minute “Simple” as the eighth longest jam in the band’s history), Phish.net stat-keeper Scott Marks points out that the playing ends at 39:48 and the rest is crowd noise. While we’re not here to take sides, Phish.net is the public record for these types of things so we’re going to call it just shy of 40 minutes—which still makes it the tenth-longest jam in the band’s history. Whichever way you time it, we can all agree last night’s “Tweezer” was one for the books.
So let’s dive straight into the St. Louis “Tweezer”, the fifth-longest version of the song on record. For the first ten or so minutes, Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Page McConnell, and Jon Fishman felt out the room and got their bearings following a first set that could be deemed by some (meaning me) to be lacking (more on that later). Page texturized the early ambient improv with his synths, and his switch to grand piano—along with Fishman’s increased tempo on high hats—pushed the jam into second gear.
After 15 minutes, the band tapped into the inertia that would power the jam, with heavily distorted droplets of notes from Trey combined with Mike’s dark bubbling bass and Page’s grand filling in the gaps. The whole thing threatened to bubble over into chaos until Fishman deftly turned down the burner. For the next 25 minutes, Phish traveled all the spaces between the vastness of deep space and searing prog-rock arena chugging, arriving at a soaring final apex greeted with a thunderous roar that ably canceled out any first set yawns. At the song’s completion, a hail of applause rained down on the band for nearly 90 uninterrupted seconds before the concert continued.
Phish — “Tweezer” — 7/30/24
[Video: shinepigeon]
“Ether Edge” beautifully juxtaposed the expansive jam that preceded it, with the band valiantly jumping back into Type II improv. This exploration was a cool breath of fresh air compared to the at-times respiratory arrest of the journey that preceded it. Still hot from “Tweezer”, the band waded into similar sonic territory by the end of the jam before abruptly seguing straight into the repetitious vocals of “Piper” sans buildup. This rendition got its licks in on the back end, Trey in particular as he let loose rapid-fire notes that had been largely absent from this frame in favor of constructive, cooperative playing with his bandmates. But let’s rewind a bit.
On paper, this show had a lot going on including nine tour debuts (“Cars Trucks Buses”, “Gotta Jibboo”, “Ocelot”, “Vultures, “Timber (Jerry the Mule)”, “I Never Needed You Like This Before”, “Ether Edge”, “Meat”, “Saw It Again”). “Cars Trucks Buses” got the evening off to a jaunty start, followed by a “Gotta Jibboo” that dipped its toe into the waters of Type II improvisation so the band could fully immerse itself later. Quickly leaving the song structure, the jam was highlighted by Trey’s soft leads that gradually built to a light takeoff and reached cruising altitude as the guitarist tested various pedals and effects for the voyage ahead.
The highlight of the first set emerged midway through as “Theme from the Bottom” bubbled to the surface. Climbing up from the murky depths by way of Trey’s ascending licks up the neck of his Koa 1 Languedoc, Phish hung around the sub-aquatic jam defined by Trey’s low-octave pedal intermingling with Page’s aqueous Rhodes and Gordon’s buoyant bass playing.
That early bit of improv notwithstanding, straight-ahead surface-level performances of “Ocelot”, nursery rhyme “Evolve”, a flubbed “NICU”, and an all-too-brief “Everything’s Right” in the first set inspired some early trepidations that this might just be a warm-up, throwaway Tuesday show. But it’s those instances—when the fragrant odor of doubt begins to waft through the energy pool the band draws from—that Phish loves to flip the musical middle finger and show exactly what it can deliver night after night, regardless of what night it is.
Returning to the latter portion of the show, with all trepidations dutifully placated for the evening, it was all gravy for Phish after “Piper” as Gordon delivered a brief stopover in the wonky stomp of “Meat”. Finishing the set with “Blaze On”, Phish opted to stick close to home and, rather than venturing further out with more Type II improv, triumphantly crossed the finish line with jamming that stacked one peak on top of another until reaching critical mass and breaking for the encore. Returning to the stage, Trey’s groovy wah-wah announced the infectiously unhinged “Saw It Again” that set up the one-two punch of “Tweezer Reprise” to put an emphatic exclamation mark on a show that was anything but just another Tuesday night on Phish tour.
Phish returns to the Chiafetz Arena tonight to polish off the two-night run in St. Louis. For a full list of upcoming Phish tour dates, head here. Fans can follow along with the tour from home with nightly video webcasts via LivePhish. To order your webcasts for any of the band’s upcoming summer shows or purchase a discounted full-tour webcast package, head here. [Note: Live For Live Music is a LivePhish affiliate. Ordering your webcast via the links on this page helps support our work covering Phish and the world of live music as a whole. Thanks for reading!]
Check out a gallery of images from Tuesday’s show courtesy of photographer Allison Scavo along with some videos and the setlist.
Phish — “Cars Trucks Buses” [Pro-Shot] — 7/30/24
Setlist [via Phish.net]: Phish | Chaifetz Arena | St. Louis, MO | 7/30/24
Set One: Cars Trucks Buses, Gotta Jibboo, NICU, Ocelot, Evolve, Theme From the Bottom, Vultures, Timber (Jerry the Mule), Everything’s Right
Set Two: I Never Needed You Like This Before, Tweezer, Ether Edge -> Piper, Meat, Blaze On
Encore: Saw It Again > Tweezer Reprise
The post Phish Charts Yet Another Historic Jam With 40-Minute “Tweezer” In St. Louis [Photos/Videos] appeared first on L4LM.
