Its still amazing to me that a song as beloved as Fluffhead could step well outside of its structure for the first time ever and receive such a tepid response.

The reactions to this show gave me a serious crisis of faith. I felt like I was going in an opposite direction to the rest of the fanbase. While everyone gushed over the very appearance of Alumni Blues and TMWSIY (played a whole 6 months earlier right up the road in Chicago) , I found myself dumbfounded that a half hour Fluffhead could actually fly UNDER the radar.

I have yet to figure this out over a decade later. Perhaps people thought Fluffhead was always jammed out? Or at least on occasion? Somehow, some way, the half hour Fluffhead remains a diamond in the rough due to being played in a period when the fanbase's interests lie in bustouts and obsession over delay loops. Just another interesting show from the turn of the millenium, languishing in obscurity or brushed aside due to sloppy compositions. Rejoice in the jam tonight, the song remains the same tomorrow.

After being a fan for five years, this was the show where I finally GOT it. There was something about "Guyute" that enraptured me. Then, "Fluffhead". I wish I had kept track of how many times my friend asked, "What song is this now?" and we'd say, "It's still 'Fluffhead', Jim." It was my first experience with the neverending jam I never wanted to end. They were diving into incongruous, non sequitur jams all night--some might say to make up for Trey's erratic playing of his compositions. If so, I'll take it. Phish was about fucking with heads, being unpredictable. I didn't know TMWSIY, nor did I recognize "Catapult" in that woozy "Tweezer", nor (obviously) the evil, grinding ambience of "THWADS". It all felt like nightmarish spontaneous creation right down to the nutty start/stop "Chalk Dust" and I was hooked. I had never heard "Alumni" and, having just graduated college feeling pretty bewildered about my prospects, all I could do was laugh my ass off with a mixture of dread and delight concerning my future and Trey clairvoyantly needling me about it. As we walked to the lots in various degrees of daze some of us were elated and some were bitching. I listen to this show now and it still electrifies all of my senses with the exact memories of what it was like to leave the world of non-Phish-obsession behind for good.

I find this a very difficult show to rate. On the one hand, you have jams jams jams. Jams in odd places, jams all over the place, jams to make you stop and think. But there are few moments that I would call truly spectacular, and it all occurs in the midst of train-wreck level, horrendous slop.

The post-Fluff jam is definitely something to hear, moving through several styles, and I did enjoy it. I thought the end was fairly beautiful, and you could hear the transition to TMWSIY coming, and it would have been gorgeous if it were executed well. Alas, it was butchered. HORRIBLY. And the rest of the song is not much better (aside from Mike's solo).

The post TMWSIY jam is similarly delicate and pretty, but the second-set opening Tweezer is painfully slow to the point of sounding lazy. The jam is good, if you are into '99-'00 dark Phish, but is followed by a rotten-sounding Mango song with an odd, disjointed jam at the end (and the HWDS doesn't do much for me.) Then Chalkdust is the polar opposite of the Tweezer, played at a frantic, out of control pace that is sometimes thrilling but often just a mess.

Anyway, you get the picture. Lots of slop, lots of jams, hard to make a call. I have a hard time giving this four stars, because I spent so much time grimacing. Honestly, on the slop alone, this would easily be two stars, IMO. But the jams are more than enough to give it at least an additional star, so I'll go with three. Definitely check out the Fluff-> Jam>TMWSIY>AM>TMWSIY>Jam>Wedge, and the Tweezer-> Catapult-> Tweezer. At least once. Three stars.

I had a great time at this show but I will say it felt like a night of drinking with friends...fun at first but eventually everyone gets sloppy and you just do your best to get through it... It was unfocused and meandering but that's not to say it wasnt a blast...you have to be there for moments like these...

As reviewers have already noted, the compositions were not perfectly executed in this show, but who goes to shows for composed Phish?

Guyute was a great opener for my first time in the 10,000 seat Alpine pavilion (plus 30,000 on the lawn). Fluffhead and the 15 minute jam that followed was some of the best live music I've ever heard! The reviewer above is correct: this show has flown off the map. The segue into The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday was sick. The Wedge was a pleasant treat - first since the classic show in Atl. on independence day. Trey was going wild on Character Zero and foreshadowed what was to come in the second set.

The Tweezer opener for the second was again some of the best live music I've ever heard. The jam is classic late 90s Tweezer - as good as Tweezer Alpine '98. The Catapult then back into Tweezer made it so much sweeter. Mango Song is when things began to get interesting. Trey was bombing the composition and the beginning of the jam, and everyone could tell his frustration. Fortunately for all of us, his inability to execute only exploded into a rip roaring Mango jam for the ages! Everyone could sees Trey's exhilarating emotions on stage and hear it even more through his music. Waste and Chalkdust were similar scenarios - the band pouring it all out on stage at Alpine.

The encore was the greatest I ever caught. Glide, Camel Walk, Alumni Blues, Tweprise! It was a sweet treat to a crazy show that many of us had traveled hundreds of miles to see from Pittsburgh the night before.

It's one I'll never forget! Hopefully they'll release it on soundboard one day and that Fluffhead, Mango will get their rightful dues in phistory!

its too off the wall... horrendous flubs everywhere... but amazing creative jamming everywhere. the first section of TMWSIY is painful... the whole band is playing the song perfectly and trey is just lost for most of it. but then the peak and jam out of fluff head is amazingly awesome...

i feel like trey was definitely on some kind of drugs for this show...

personally ill take the flubs to have the amazing unexpected creative jamming.

Fluffhead is the mother of all Fluffhead's and maybe Phish's best jam segment in their history. It has 7 distinct themes each with a new idea.

The encore segment is very nice as well, even though Glide is somewhat a wreck.

Wish Trey would get this and Mango together

This was my very phirst show and boy am I happy I was there. The Fluffhead was unreal, the jamming on it was one of my favorite parts of the show. Being a phirst timer I didn't understand how rare it was for that to happen. Then there was The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday into Avenu Malkenu back into The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday that was a little sloppy, but had not been played in 56 shows. Ending the phirst set with The Wedge and Charater Zero very nicely. The second sets highlights were The Mango Song, The Happy Whip and Dung song (making its concert debut), a rediculous Chalk Dust Tourture, and my favorite encore I have seen to this day. Glide, Camel Walk, Alumni Blues (played in its entirety for the phirst time in 426 shows or 4/15/94) and the predictable Tweeprise. Overall a great show with a little sloppyness throughout.

Can't really harp on this show, seeing as it was my first of many to come. Fluffhead was great, and the ensuing jam was pretty funky, a bit heavy on the delay loops, however. Very atypical stuff for Fluffhead standards. Not to say that the rest of the show offered mere rote renditions of songs, but really the only other highlights that come to mind were a rare appearance of Catapult, a great Mango jam, and an abolsutely wailing version of Chalkdust. Oh, and did I mention that the encore was raging? Glide to start got the crowd going, followed by the always-welcome Camelwalk. What was to follow was sheer 'bust-out' territory with the very old-school gem, Alumni Blues! I remember the crowd at Alpine just phreaking out as the grooves flowed freely. Tweeprise to close is rather predictable, but given it was my first show, I was mucho appreciado!

I had, through faulty memory and other factors, absolutely thought that 8-10-96 at Alpine was my first Phish show...to the point where I swear to god I remember them playing HYHU....Well...apparently (my wife has Ticket stubs to prove my memory wrong) my first Phish show was actually this one. I think we were late to the show, because we ended up way on the top of the hill...also we had left our young Siberian Huskie alone in our hotel room and I was obsessing about the possible noise/destruction/general havoc she may or may not have been perpetrating. So, my only memory of this show is an ersatz recollection of a joke song...Most of the reviews above kind of support the non-memorableness of this show...maybe that's why it took me fifteen years to check them out live again.

Listen to the Fluffhead>jam. Other than that, this was a very sloppy show. Not one of my faves.