Phish: Festival 8 – The Halloween Set

Once again Phish has gone and done something unique with their promotion for Festival 8, which has already thrown plenty of fans for a loop. The band updated their website with another detailed Flash creation dedicated to (theoretically) revealing what album the play for their “musical costume” set, the second set on Halloween night. The animation started with 99 choices, and a following animation depicting a knife being thrown through the album cover has already been shown a few times revealing albums that likely won’t be chosen for the sure-to-be-epic set. Kudos once again to the webmasters in charge of Phish.com and their overall online presence. It always gets the fans talking.

A nice fan on the PT Boards typed up the list for everyone, so check out the 99 choices below along with some of my commentary and gut instincts on the choices themselves.

1. AC/DC | Back In Black – too predictable
2. Aerosmith | Toys In The Attic – not a bad choice overall, but i don’t see this as Phish material or influence really
3. Allman Brothers Band | Eat A Peach – too predictable
4. Arcade Fire | Funeral – i’d place this one as a solid contender in terms of cultural relevance to a huge crowd of people. i could easily see phish performing “wake up” live.
5. Beastie Boys | Hello Nasty – there’s no way they could pull this off
6. BeeGees | Saturday Night Fever – good choice for an easy crowd pleaser. nobody would have a hard time dancing along to this one.
7. Black Sabbath | Paranoid – too mind-blowing. i don’t think the band wants to go all “scary” and dark that night.
8. Blind Faith | Blind Faith – too little cultural connection for crowd
9. Bob Dylan | Blood On the Tracks – too boring for that many people
10. Bob Dylan & the Band | The Basement Tapes – see #9 above
11. Bob Seger | Against The Wind – too little cultural connection for crowd
12. Boston | Boston – too predictable
13. Brian Eno | Before And After Science – too ambient
14. Bruce Springsteen | Born To Run – too predictable
15. Chicago | The Chicago Transit Authority – too little cultural connection for crowd
16. Creedence Clearwater Revival | Green River – too predictable
17. Curtis Mayfield | Superfly Soundtrack – too predictable
18. David Bowie | Hunky Dory – too little cultural connection for crowd
19. David Bowie | Ziggy Stardust – potentially…
20. David Bowie | Scary Monsters – does the band really like bowie this much?
21. Devo | Freedom of Choice – too not-Phish
22. Duran Duran | Rio – now this would be sick…could you imagine fishman on one of those 80’s style electro drum kits?
23. Eagles | Hotel California – too yawn worthy
24. Elton John | Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – page’s choice?
25. Elvis Costello (née Declan McManus) | This Year’s Model – too non-mind-blowing
26. Eric Clapton | 461 Ocean Blvd – too much guitar wankfest
27. Firehose | Flyin’ the Flannel – great so-cal choice but not likely to be a frontrunner
28. Fleetwood Mac | Rumours – too lame
29. Frank Zappa | Apostrophe – too obvious
30. Frank Zappa | Hot Rats – too predictable
31. Genesis | The Lambs Lie Down On Broadway – relevant to phish’s influence, sure…but not halloween set material
32. Grateful Dead | American Beauty – too predictable
33. Guns & Roses | Appetite For Destruction – please god make it be this one…
34. Hall & Oates | Private Eyes – too predictable
35. Huey Lewis And The News | Sports
36. Jane’s Addiction | Ritual de Lo Habitual – too LA
37. Jimi Hendrix | Are You Experienced? – too predictable but totally sick
38. Jimi Hendrix | Electric Ladyland – too predictable but totally sick
39. John Lennon | Plastic Ono Band – too close to The Beatles
40. Modern Lovers | The Modern Lovers – really?
41. Journey | Escape – too lame
42. KISS | Alive II – too Halloween
43. King Crimson | Larks’ Tongues In Aspic – too proggy
44. Led Zeppelin | I – too not Physical Grafitti
45. Led Zeppelin | IV (Zoso) – “no stairway…denied!”
46. Leonard Cohen | I’m Your Man
47. Love | Forever Changes – really
48. Manu Chao | Clandestino – too “not English”
49. Medeski, Martin & Wood | Shack Man
50. Metallica | Master Of Puppets – too fast
51. MGMT | Oracle Spectacular – of all the albums on this list, this one is the album i can see the band wanting to challenge themselves with. it sounds uniquely phish-y in ways and at times nothing close to it. we’ll see. i’ve got good money on this one.
52. Michael Jackson | Thriller – still has to be the most obvious choice for the band; i hope it’s this one just so that we can talk about thriller all weekend.
53. Michael McDonald | If That’s What It Takes – too much yacht rock
54. Miles Davis | A Tribute To Jack Johnson – too influential
55. Minutemen | Double Nickels On The Dime – too obvious for so-cal, but i like the spirit of choice on this one. there are 42 tracks on that album…
56. Neil Young | Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere – i doubt either neil pick will win the cut
57. Neil Young | Tonight’s The Night – see above
58. Nirvana | Nevermind – too culturally relevant (but not anymore)
59. Pavement | Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain – even though it’s their opus, i don’t think enough people know this one to give it the right impact
60. Pearl Jam | Ten – too grunge-y
61. Peter Gabriel | So – too emo but would be rad. “in your eyes” is basically “silent in the morning” sung a bit differently. not really.
62. Pink Floyd | Meddle – too influential
63. Pink Floyd | The Wall – too predictable
64. Pixies | Come On Pilgrim – too indie rock
65. Pork Tornado | Pork Tornado – lulz
66. Primus | Sailing The Seas Of Cheese – too difficult
67. Prince | Purple Rain – 25th anniversary year = obvious frontrunner
68. Queen | A Night At The Opera – too
69. Radiohead | Kid A – if they’re consider this at all, it’s interesting that ok computer wasn’t a possibility to the band. but this one was.
70. Rage Against The Machine | Evil Empire – too Coachella
71. Rolling Stones | Exile on Main Street
72. Rolling Stones | Sticky Fingers
73. Rush | Moving Pictures – too cool to imagine
74. Steely Dan | Pretzel Logic – maybe
75. T.Rex | Electric Warrior – too unknown
76. Talking Heads | Fear Of Music
77. Television | Marquee Moon – too proggy
78. The Band | The Band (aka Brown Album) – too predictable
79. The Beach Boys | Pet Sounds – i could see this
80. The Beatles | Rubber Soul
81. The Clash | London Calling – i could see this
82. The Doors | The Doors – too LA; they’ll probably tease The Doors all weekend but i doubt it’ll be the set of choice
83. The Police | Ghost In The Machine – too close to Oysterhead
84. The Ramones | Ramones – too punk?
85. The Roots | Phrenology – true story: i’m dressing as Questlove for halloween
86. The Who | Who’s Next
87. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers | Damn The Torpedoes
88. Tom Waits | Rain Dogs – too raspy
89. U2 | Joshua Tree – too cultural relevant?
90. Van Halen | Van Halen – maybe
91. Van Morrison | Astral Weeks – too old school
92. Velvet Underground | Velvet Underground And Nico
93. Violent Femmes | Violent Femmes – i really hope it’s NOT this album
94. Ween | White Pepper – maybe
95. White Stripes | Elephant – obvious frontrunner
96. Wilco | Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – obvious frontrunner
97. X | Los Angeles – so-cal reference
98. Yes | The Yes Album – too proggy
99. ZZ Top | Tres Hombres – too little facial hair in the band

[via JamBase]

Well, there you have ’em — my 10-second snap judgments on what I think the band is going for with their epic Halloween set — and I’m sure I’ll be about 100% wrong on what choices I’ve laid out above vs. what the band will be eliminating themselves on Phish.com. It does get the speculation running about how far they’re going to take this, because where’s the fun in totally revealing which album it’ll be definitively? Part of the whole fun of the musical costume idea is that it remains at least some sort of surprise for the people in attendance. It’ll be rad no matter what, and like the other Flash animations there are no “rules” or “guidelines” into what the band needs to reveal for their fans. And they continue to exploit that wonderfully sending all of us into a frenzy of chat messages and thoughts of the circus finally coming back to town…