There are times when I feel like I know Phish and the folklore behind the band, and I’m definitely deeply embedded enough within the scene that I’ve picked up more knowledge about this band than all of the knowledge I have of every other band I enjoy combined. Then I see some video playlist proclaiming that the band did a 60-minute “Runaway Jim” and that factoid and media-I-must-consume nugget seemed to have gotten lost in the shuffle that I call “being Phish nerds.” FAIL.
Internets, to the rescue!
Looks like I wasn’t alone in learning in that fact:
I couldn’t believe it when I first read about it in the Helping Phriendly Book years ago, but Phish took Runaway Jim and played it for an hour. It was cemented between two sets of their funkiest tour to date. And this song, in particular, seems to encapsulate entirely what this tour was about: start/stop jamming, complete free improvisation, abandonment from melody and harmony only to come full circle 56 minutes later. Essentially, this is the best cross section of Phish you’re bound to come by.
The entire show is up thanks to silverchair97, the uber dude behind the best Phish video archives on YouTube. Go watch now.