Seeing my first Phish show in my home state was pretty cool at the time and seems almost perfect in hindsight, thrust into another world then and stepping into yesterday now, the eternal chorus of Gamehendge still sings it's mighty verses! I grew up loving the Billy Breathes album, with Prince Caspian being one of my favorite headphone songs, it's neo-mythic rendering of Narnia reminding me of Zeppelin's Middle Earth opuses. Little did I know of Gamehendge but walking into the venue that day made me feel like I was wading into another strange and wondrous place, filled with magical birds, harmonic vacuums, and badass covers. I had no idea how rare Icculus was, or even the idea there were songs within this weirdly intoxicating band's canon that could even be super rare, like ethereal baseball rookie cards or something. All in all couldn't have asked for a better first show- Gamehendge rarities, electric covers, and a lot of fine jamming that represents a small sampling of the set 2 type II and beyond vehicles that would continue their legacies as 3.0 standards- DWD, Slave, Ghost. In that sense it's a nice bridge from the old school days of yore to a new era, another Golden Age if you will. But whatever your take on the show, and I'm not just talking about any old take, or the stuff you'd rather hear on the radio, I think we can all agree- we enjoyed ourselves.
-also link to my film blog: bmclassahan.tumblr.com