Today’s Phish Friday was an obvious choice for me considering we’re publishing this on July 11. Eight years ago today, Phish played the second night of a three-night run at Deer Creek in Noblesville, IN, easily one of the best amphitheaters in the country. Sadly I was not at this show, something that I don’t really like to relive in memory because it followed a truly heartbreaking instance of lost mail order tickets at the band’s Apline Valley date scheduled a few days earlier. You know, one of the shows that the band picked for the first batch of Live Phish releases (Live Phish 05), meaning the band thought that this was a show that ripped hard. Oh to have been there. Sigh.
From Alpine, the band headed down to Indianapolis via Chicago to spend three nights hanging out in a set of cornfields-turned-heady-campgrounds, the traditional Deer Creek economy during the summer concert season. The first night was probably great and all — I never listened to a recording from it — but the second night was the heat. Clearly there was something in the veggie burritos that night, because the band played an all-out romp of a second set by weaving in the Zeppelin classic, “Moby Dick,” on at least five separate occasions during the night, including the encore. Plus, the band seemed to jam out to a modified version of “Chalkdust Torture” during the first set which the band closed with. I’m not sure you’ll hear a more adrenaline-fueled Trey than in the show closer.
- Phish – “First Tube > Moby Dick >” (live, 7/11/00) [mp3]
- Phish – “Chalkdust Singalong” (live, 7/11/00) [mp3]
“The Phish,” indeed.
