Wednesday, 05/25/1994

Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA

It’s Sunday, but since tomorrow is Memorial Day it feels like Saturday. I’ve got chores to knock out today… laundry, mostly, but also Phish! Is it a chore? When you must listen just about every day it can sure feel like it. I enjoyed the day off yesterday, if you know what I mean. I got to listen to some vinyl for a change.

But this is a Warfield show, which is special on its own. Phish’s first show at the Warfield (04/17/92) happened less than three months before my first show. My tapes from that show were in heavy rotation for years and years. It is still one of my favorite shows to listen to. If you’ve never hear it, you really must. It just crackles with energy and ends with Trey declaring “This is an incredible room!”

Today’s show marks night one of a three-night stand. This is the first multi-night run of the tour since the Beacon shows on the opposite coast. It must have been a huge relief to the band and crew given the break-neck pace of this tour. Settling in to this great room for 3 nights without packing things up and hitting the road. I think you can feel it, too. Certainly in this first set, it seems like they are holding back a bit. They know they need to fill three nights, so they better take things slow.

Thank Icculus for zzyzx and his daily stats updates on facebook. Without him I would never have known the Curtain carried any special meaning other than “great opener.” Now I can picture the scene: The beautiful curtain opens to reveal the four members of Phish just as they drop into the opening notes of “The Curtain.” Awesome!

This set features another stellar Stash with Uncle Pen teases and a fun Col. Forbins with a short, location-specific, narration. The rest is fairly tame, though you can certainly sense the energy in the room during the acoustic My Sweet One and a capella Sweet Adeline.

The second set settles in a bit more with Tweezer. At one point Trey is hinting at a Midnight Rider jam, but it’s not really there. It’s just this repetitive pattern that sounds a bit like it. This is a great Tweezer. Not anywhere near even the first section of the Bomb Factory Tweezer, but it’s great… and coming out of it with Lifeboy is perfect, imo. The Maze is solid. The Julius is rockin’… and I don’t care who you are, I love Purple Rain! Close it out with a beautiful Coil. Yessir.

If you’ve been following (or you know me at all) you know I love Sleeping Monkey encores and Tweeprise is always a winner.

Overall, this feels like night one of a three-night stand. There’s a lot left in the tank for the next two nights. Was it a bad show? Absolutely not. There are some great highlights. But it’s a fairly standard 1994 show. Nothing better than ending a show with “Thanks everybody. We’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned as tomorrow may feature a guest contributor yet again!

 

Wednesday, 05/25/1994

Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA

Set 1: The Curtain > Sample in a Jar, Uncle Pen, Stash, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird, Axilla (Part II) > Scent of a Mule, My Sweet One, Sweet Adeline, Chalk Dust Torture

Set 2: Rift > Tweezer > Lifeboy > Maze, Contact > Big Ball Jam, Julius, Hold Your Head Up > Purple Rain > Hold Your Head Up, The Squirming Coil

Encore: Sleeping Monkey > Tweezer Reprise

Notes: My Sweet One was performed acoustic and, along with Sweet Adeline, without microphones.

Setlist courtesy of Phish.net.

 

Key tracks:

http://www.phishtracks.com/shows/1994-05-25/stash

http://www.phishtracks.com/shows/1994-05-25/tweezer