Some got six months, some got one solid year...

Yep, it happened. The Red Devil made an appearance with Phil & Friends at the site of Phish's hallowed 10.31.94 "White Album" performance in upstate New York on the weekend, and it was... lots and lots of fun.

The first set was absolute candy to my Honky-tonk-ified ears, opening with Alabama Getaway and then doing the country-funk junket through Deal, Friend of the Devil, Deep Elem Blues, and Bertha. The purity of Trey's tone was instantly apparant-- I'm not sure I have ever heard such clean tone in my life. It was like someone had just poured Drano in my ears and I was hearing the unadulterated intention behind each note. If that is what sobriety sounds like, I hope the School of Rock has AA meetings for all their shredders-to-be out there, because the double-rainbows and autumn fireworks that accompanied the ride upstate could not compete with that glorious tone (dueling deliciously with the amazing Larry Campbell). The 4-hour trip from the city was worth it for the "Why don't you arrest me..." alone.



Click above to see a clip from Bird Song...

The second set was a very different vibe, with Trey's attention turned less on the performers around him and focused more on the audience in the depths of the old-school Glens Falls Civic Center. He clearly felt more comfortable taking the lead this set, and the combination of the jammy song-selection (including two of Trey's own, Shine and Plasma) meant that at times this set felt a little spacey, awash in recurring tides of Viola Lee Blues> Cumberland> Viola Lee> Cumberland > Viola... you get the picture. And things didn't get any less-jammy when Dark Star and Wharf Rat made their appearance.

Not that I'm complaining: I've been known to enjoy a jam here and there in my 3 decades, and I'd have to be a pretty big Debbie-Downer to poo-poo a Dark Star jam. C'mon. For my part, I simply thought Trey could have returned some of his focus to his support team up there. But closing out the set with Help> Slip> Frank, well, see, that's just yummy.

Conclusion: Trey sounds/looks/is as clean as clean can be. So is it time to start hoping for a reunion? I'll owe my mother $500 if it happens, but I'm readying to hear her "I told you so..." when I tell her I'm going to see Phish next year for New years.

LCD Soundsystem: more, please...

The invitation began while I was in my first beer line of the evening: a throbbing baseline reminiscent of something vaguely Talking Heads-esque was beckoning me beyond the brew stand at Randall's Island last Saturday, a venue that I had ostensibly ventured to for the first time in order to see Arcade Fire.

What ensued over the next couple of hours before Arcade Fire took the stage was a tour through myriad genres of music, all wrapped up into one highly combustible package of aural delight. Admittedly, I fell pretty quickly for LCD Soundsystem, despite some small resistance somewhere in the back of my head asking if I was truly hippie-ing out to dance-trance electronica. But that guitar sound! That frontman! The energy! The comely keyboard player and her shiny pumps! And that disco ball couldn't have hurt, either...



I had hoped to find a clip of "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" online to share with you, because James Murphy's hilarious and touching performance truly felt like a loving, impromptu confessional to the city. Murphy is utterly captivating onstage, not just because of his quick wit and large stage presence, but because he has the ability to slip between vocal registers with the unforseen stealth of somebody like Jim James, who could be melting your face with primal screams and then suddenly hit an ethereal note that transports you. James Murphy is my new man to watch (and for those of you in NYC, he's DJing a set at The Hiro Ballroom next Tuesday, Oct 16th. It's free if you RSVP...). For more evidence of Murphy's sense of humor, and because bloggers deserve to be made fun of, click here.

Towards the end of set we returned to that deliciously quirky baseline that had enticed me at the outset, and I concluded that I would need to see more of this band as soon as possible. As I was trying to figure out how I would describe this newfound portal of pleasure, my friend and music expert SuperDee aptly concluded that it was Dance N' Roll. No wonder they pay her the big bucks ;) The set that followed from Arcade Fire was an enjoyable (if predictable) sing-along, but it could not nearly deliver the punch of its predecesor, leaving me hankering for some more Dance N' Roll as I headed out to find the loser cruiser to deliver me to back to Manhattan.