Phish – New Year’s Eve 1995 Live At Madison Square Garden
(3 CD set)
Sound: B Music:
B
Like The Grateful Dead before them, Phish had a huge
following, especially on tour. That
kept them going for a long time, but broke up while on top instead of until it
really was the end of the road. New
Year’s Eve 1995 Live At Madison Square Garden is a new 3 CD set from Rhino
that captures the band in amazing form at a time when only a few bands like
Pearl Jam could compete.
Some of these long jams remind one of an era not that long
ago where it was about the music and the joy of playing, something you can here
in every single track in this set. You
can hear Rock, Country and even Jazz sensibilities here, even the kind of
energy you would hear in the best Progressive Rock of the time from acts like
Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and the Peter Gabriel era of Genesis. Though they try to do something different
with The Who’s Drowned, they were still a bit too mellow to take on
Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein.
The tracks are:
CD 1
1.
Punch You In The Eye
2.
The Sloth
3.
Reba
4.
The Squirming Coil
5.
Maze
6.
Colonel Forbin's Ascent
7.
Fly Famous Mockingbird
8.
Shine
9.
Fly Famous Mockingbird
10.
Sparkle
11.
Chalk Dust Torture
CD 2
1.
Audience Chess Move
2.
Drowned
3.
The Lizards
4.
Axilla (Part II)
5.
Runaway Jim
6.
Strange Design
7.
Hello My Baby
8.
Mike's Song
CD 3
1.
Gamehendge Time Phactory
2.
Auld Lang Syne
3.
Weekapaug Groove
4.
Sea And Sand
5.
You Enjoy Myself
6.
Sanity
7.
Frankenstein
8. Johnny B. Goode
As for performance of the CDs, Phish owns their masters
and have decided this should only be a PCM 2.0 Stereo sound set. A sticker on the package screams how this is
derived from the 40-track masters and it sounds it, but wow, would this have
been something in a 5.1 format like DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD. You could experiment with surround modes if
you have a stereo receiver. With that
said, fans and newcomers alike have everything to expect from this fine set,
issued on its 10th anniversary.
- Nicholas Sheffo
