Well it seems again as if we are having the "I want more" vs "How dare you!" debates about the quality of music phish is playing these days. The dichotomy is repeated ad nauseum on here and elsewhere as people either try to relive the glory days or are easily and somehow deeply offended that people could ever *gasp* want more from the band.

The first prong of this debate involves a misconstrued conception of reality. I'll just get the disclaimer out of the way before Nigel misreads this and accuses me of listening to Bouncin or Heavy Things on repeat with tears of joy in my eyes: they ARE capable of playing glorious 20 min jams and probably even 30 min jams. I'll even admit to the bias that I secretly believe that anyone who doesn't want this kind of thing isn't much of a phish fan. We saw a few moments of this last year Pine Knob/UIC et al, but for the most part this was what made these shows so special rather than something to go out and look for night after night.

We have not seen this kind of jamming in 2012. We simply have not, and that is purely objectively factual. Look for structure> ambience or storage psych> structure> key shift/tempo change more structure. It's just not there because 15 mins is not enough time to organically flow between these kind of movements. Disease supreme had 5 or 6 of these. This year what you get out of the gates is subject to finding the melody in the groove and elaborating on it without drastically changing the overall feel of the jam. A good example was the Alpine fee (that for what its worth I thought was easily one of the best jams of the year in either set) that bled ambient with some tasteful snareless accompaniment by fish and was a melodically blissful ride. One might even say "transcendent," ahem. Then trey signaled a key shift into minor territory that everyone hopped on immediately and the jam eventually turned to space and ended, to my ears, perfectly. Any more would have been superfluous, an attempt to jam just for jamming sake instead of where the piece was taking them.

That fee was one of the best examples of the kind of jamming phish is doing this year. There are no massive juggernautics of jam, but they HAVE returned to the joy of playing the music again. How many stale Antelopes and Bowies has 2009-2011 brought us? I shudder to think, and to me that aspect of the overall show was part of my ambivalence towards the band. Not that I'd stop listening or going to shows and generally enjoy the shit out of phish anytime I could, but that the band itself sometimes did not seem into playing there own music, especially of the slave/hood/bowie/antelope variety. These songs are meant not only to be played but to be played with. The built-in payoff at the end of the jams in return to the anthemic climax *requires* the build to get them there. Now, how many can we say have fallen flat in 2012? A few to be sure, but...not fucking many! The phrase gear shift has legitimately returned to the antelope, the bowie is interlaced with phrases from the previous jams (not unnecessary teasing ala UIC night 3), the hood has been deconstructed and reconstructed, the stash has returned to a song worth hearing. There are multiple mini jams gems in the first set (roses, fee, tube, etc) again for flavor. The antics are back.

To me, this is all evidence of a band just enjoying the shit out of playing music in a way that we haven't heard since maybe 98-99. I don't mean to say that the quality of the jams is better than 2003 or june '04, but simply that I don't see the need for them to take an extended hiatus again anytime soon. If they are so into playing music again with each other, then we can relax and let the music come to them instead of feeling like if they don't start playing the big jams immediately then we simply won't ever hear them again. It took a long time for me to develop the patience to understand this arc of development in the re-evolution of the band. Patience that trey in particular is displaying, ironically, this year more than any other. How many times has the ripcord been pulled this year vs last year? Dont get me wrong @NigelTufnel , OF COURSE I WANT TO HEAR LONG GLORIOUS DRIPPING TRANSCENDENT JAMS. But I don't need to be a prick about it, and can accept that rebuilding an developing a new ethos can take years. My only gripe with you really is not that you want these jams but that you seem to think that they can play like its 97 again, no problem. I went down that road in 2009, 10, and portions of 11. It left me a bitter jaded cross-armed malcontent before I realized I needed to accept the band for what it is now rather than what I think it should be. When they are fully comfortable going after the monster jams then they will do so. It's a bit like expecting Jordan to come out of retirement and expect him to play like its 1992 or something.

I really do think that eventually the pattern of phish shows and likelihood of jamming will be more like we've heard in past eras, but that does not mean that we have to incessantly be disappointed with them for not being there already. The patience displayed in the lesser jam vehicles, finally!, to my ears rounds out these shows to a much more satisfying plane then the occasional holy-grail-20+minuter surrounded by shows that as a whole are lackluster. How many shows did you feel that you could easily skip dloading last year and how many of them are there this year? What about 10? And 09? Though we all enjoy the band in slightly different ways, I think I can be presumptuous enough to assume that the band, as a whole, has gotten better each year they've been back. Part of enjoying those jams involves the patience from the band to get to them, the patience from the listener to appreciate the subtleties of the journey, and ultimately (and most importantly) the ability to enjoy the ride getting there. We are on that ride right now and its a pretty apt but cheesy metaphor for life in general. We don't know where the "there" is, but I don't for a minute think that phish has lost the desire to jam the shit out of the jams. When they feel comfortable, and not forcing things, this will happen, but in the meantime there are some pretty fucking good shows going on.

A quick aside here, perhaps some people are acquiring only the lengthier jams (relatively speaking of course...) of the shows instead of listening to the whole show start start to finish. I won't be the phish listening nazi here but I just want to suggest that a whole show, in its entirety, gives you a much different perspective then the ADHD-style jam-whore bouncing from show to show listening to disease twist and sand only. Just a thought, no need to reconfigure the playlists! Haha

So the misconstrued reality I spoke of paragraphs ago about the "I want more" fan simply boils down to a skewed perspective surely influenced by past eras and, I suspect, a lack of patience. This year is not, in any objective sense, a poor year for phish shows as a whole or even for phish jamming. They seem to me to be reinforcing the foundations of their jams and shows as a whole by giving time to the subtleties of building some tension in the lope (and many many other smaller jams vehicles) and trey allowing somebody else to take the lead. Has anybody commented on FISHMAN? Dear god, he seems reinvigorated. How about Mike blocking the door to returning the the frame of the jam and instead opening the door back to the jam itself? Trey stepping back (97 anyone???) and allowing the jam to take hold without preconceived notions? To me, people who only look at the lengths are missing the interplay. And the interplay, of course, is HOW WE GET TO LONGER JAMS. One more time though: of course I want to hear long jams. Sorry for the lengthiness but sometimes unless you spell it out for people they can take what you say out of context and turn your post into the exact opposite of what you mean. It's aggravating and a little too PT-ish for my taste.

And finally, to all the how-dare-you-ever-speak-ill-of-phish fans out there: lighten the fuck up, please, just a little? It really is possible to criticize the band without your head exploding from cognitive dissonance. We've all been to that show that sounded great when we were there (and even pretty damn good on playback) but one reviewer for one reason or another really did not like. And that is not only cool, but vital for a healthy flow of information. These reviews would mean nothing if they were all fluff pieces. It would be like an 80's Yugolsavian newspaper. Everything is great! All hail the party! I know this is a bit of a ridiculous analogy, but the foundations of free speech and intelligent thought are based on disagreement.

Not every show is a keeper, but thank god phish.net bloggers are here to provide some kind of attempt at objectivity in an inherently subjective sphere of reflection. There are plenty of overly-negative posts in the thread that seem reasonable enough to rip on, but I have yet to read a review from the staff here that entirely dropped the ball. Of course I don't agree with everything they say and sometimes they don't really go deep enough in the reviews for my taste. But they are a hell of a good conversation starter, and are not meant to represent the jaded "party-line." One mark of intelligence is understanding that there may be inherent logical contradictions and inconsistencies to reality and that subtlety and nuanced thought is necessary rather than heresy.