Track Listing DISC 1: 1. Carini 2. Curtain, The 3. Cities 4. Gumbo 5. Llama 6. Free 7. Heavy Things 8. Split Open and Melt
DISC 2: 1. Back on the Train 2. Twist 3. Fukuoka Jam #1 4. Walk Away 5. Fukuoka Jam #2
DISC 3: 1. 2001 2. Sleep 3. Squirming Coil, The
| Details | | Distributor: | WEA (Distributor) | | Recording Type: | Live | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes Phish: Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon, Page McConnell. Throughout the '90s, Phish built up its reputation as the ultimate jam band, an outfit fit to take up the Grateful Dead's you-have-to-be-there ethos of exploration via live performance. Accordingly, even after Phish was put on hold and guitarist Trey Anastasio went off to record with supergroup Oysterhead, the neo-hippie icons saw fit to release a five-volume set of live albums, each sold separately and containing two or three discs worth of material from a given night in Phish's concert history. As with the aforementioned Dead, Phish pulls up to its full height in concert, and so this live series is probably the best way to experience the group's improv-oriented but always accessible music. Volume four of the series, recorded in Fukuoka, Japan, is a three-disc affair that finds the boys far from home but still able to appeal to the crowd with their unique sound. This volume in particular seems to emphasize the "jam" part of the group's "jam band" tag, as they move through a number of extended instrumental excursions with jazzy aplomb, suggesting nothing so much as a jazz-rock fusion band coming at things from the rock end of the spectrum. This approach can be heard to fine effect on everything from the lengthy, aptly titled "Fukuoka Jam" to the slinky, funky "2001," whose name derives from its interpolation of "Also Sprach Zarathustra," theme from the film of the same title. Volume four is where things get really loose, and that's just the way Phish fans like it.
Editorial Reviews 3.5 stars out of 5 - Phish plays outside themselves in one of the few bright spots of the band's last year...Set 2 is marked by ambient, percussive, almost modal jams... Down Beat (03/01/2002)
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