If you want to understand Phish's place in the improvisatory-rock continuum then you have to hear jams like this otherworldly 50-minute Tweezer, which makes the 5/7/94 Bomb Factory Tweezerfest seem like a drunken joke-a-thon. This is pure unadulterated dig-in-your-heels psychedelic rock from the 1994-95 period when Phish was wringing every last drop of energy from Every Single Goddamn Song. The rest of the show is just summer Phish of fine vintage, but the Tweezer is essential Phish. It's instructive to compare this cohesive improvisation, with the whole band creating new music at the level of both structure and measure-to-measure content, to spacey and much more rhythmically-chaotic early-70's Grateful Dead jams. This is thoroughly modern music, though Phish was alone in playing this kind of rigorously free music on this scale in those days.

Go download this show, or at least the Tweezer, immediately. Turn out the lights, throw on the headphones, and go wandering to places unknown. Take a trip with the 11/28/94 Tweezer for comparison, while you're at it - and maybe dig out your old copy of 'A Live One' for some sweet 11/2/94 Tweezer action. That'll nicely fill two hours of your life, and echo well beyond. For contrast, try the 6/14/00 Twist - equally 'psychedelic' but qualitatively different in style - or the recent, more closely related (and nicely synchronous) Seven Below > Ghost from 11/28/09 in Albany.

My first review: After going to GRACELAND to pay our respects to the King, we strolled across the bridge to the mud island in the middle of the MISSISSIPPI where the stage stood and the city of MEMPHIS was the backdrop we knew it was going to be a "TCB" kind of night. We were not disappointed. The first set was smoking. Wanna go, Spocks, Mound, All Things were all played well. But the melt was crippling. Just tasty.
As the first few notes of Tweezer were played, I thought of the Bomb Factory. Hoping for similar greatness, some where past the 40 min mark during the final pressure-release sequence, we stood there in awe. It was obvious this was like seeing DARK STAR being played in 69 or Liz Reed in 71. Perhaps in their own right, better. Phish was the best band on earth.
In 94, after almost 100 DEAD shows, I stopped going. I had to witness PHISH at their peak. This choice paid off. When we met at the Jeep after the show we were screaming how sick the show was. Were so full of adrenaline, we drove straight thru the night to Atlanta.

@waxbanks already said it rather evocatively, but I'm just going to chime in and say this Tweezer is SERIOUS. Like jungles of Vietnam serious. Serious as a heart attack. Any fan of improvisatory music should hear this 50 minute segment, it gets so dark and evil during the first jam that you could turn a metal head onto Phish with a selective listening session. The song touches back down to the Tweezer riff around the 20th minute, but continues on going through a number of interesting sections varying between motion and stillness, including some crazy UFO abduction stuff and a major hose towards the end. Don't sleep on the first set either, it's really well played and contains what might be one of the finer versions of All Things Re-Considered. It's funny, on the AUDs you don't hear people going noticeably crazy over the Stairway to Heaven tease to open the show, maybe they couldn't hear it too well?

THIS DAY CHANGED MY LIFE!!!!!!

This was my first show, and I didn't really KNOW any Phish songs beyond 'Fee' and 'Esther.' The massive Tweezer as totally lost on me at the time. I only have two very clear memories of this show: The Cavern 'kick dance' sticks out in my mind and the a capella 'Amazing Grace.' They did Amazing Grace w/o amps, and the crowd was very quiet with almost no shushers. Then, a dude yelled at the top of his lungs, 'long live the king!' and everybody laughed their asses off. If you listen to the tapes, you can't hear 'Grace' too well, but the guy's 'long live the king!' chant comes in loud and clear.

Working through their catalogue I came upon this aging gem, that leaned against my ear in auditory splendor...

I am finding this 25 years after the show date and while I don’t find that I give perfect scores, this one is close.

A solid show from start to finish, but a long inspired jam in
The middle of the second set. A blend of song choices crossing seemingly every possible tempo-mental landscape. The sum is in a way better than the individual parts.yet each is also well played. Sort of the perfect mix tape that your friend added an obscure amazing avant recording to.

The 3 song encore flows seamlessly with the classy accapella ended Simple bridging into the frosted Rocktop, and sprinkles on top Tweeprise.

Simple has a brief Jump Monk tease during the bee bop section worth noting

PHISH, WEDNESDAY 06/14/1995
MUD ISLAND AMPHITHEATER
Memphis, TN
Soundcheck: Jam, Jam > Honky Tonk Woman, The Old Home Place, Funky Bitch, Rift, Prince Caspian

SET 1:

Don't You Want To Go? Standard.

Gumbo: Standard. >

NICU: Standard.

Mound: Standard.

Cavern: Standard. >

Possum: Standard.

All Things Reconsidered: Standard.

Amazing Grace[1] Standard.

The Horse > Silent in the Morning: Standard.

Spock's Brain: Standard. >

Split Open and Melt: Standard.

SET 2:

Also Sprach Zarathustra: Standard. >

Poor Heart: Standard. >

Tweezer[2] Fishman goes nuts during the Gypsy Queen stuff, check it out! This Tweezer smokes through 15 minutes then takes a hard left into perhaps a hey hole exercise more or less? Very disjointed and experimental. This section would mess with you sober let alone those on a headful, yikes. Trey deftly weaves them back into the original theme at 19:25. The digital delay loop section is mesmerizing. It eventually gets really hairy! Intense. But what emerges in the late 28’s is sublime and completely organic. Mike dropping fat, fat bombs. The stuff between Page and Trey in the 31’s is just incredible Phish. By the late 31’s Trey is basically in the early section of a Slave jam. Once they get through ‘the pretties’ things eventually take a turn for the abstract and the odd. Uncomfortable in here for sure!!! This only lasts for a few minutes and by the late 35’s Trey has concocted a theme that becomes very catchy with a nice edge to it. By the late 36’s he is leaning heavily on the Leslie, noice!!! By 39:20 this finally starts to downshift. Man, that was an awesome section! From here, Trey once again creates a very catchy and thematic groove that goes through until about the 43 minute mark. Page gets a chance to get a few nice licks in here on the baby grand, but this quiet section is brief! 44:45 it sounds like Trey is about to start playing Heavy Things, 5 years before it was ever Heavy Things. By 45:25, this has gotten hot and heavy with Page banging away on that baby grand. Trey may have been stung by a wasp because all of the sudden he takes things into overdrive at 46:40. The last few minutes are basically long Tweezer wind down nonsense. But this jam is incredible by and large. Easy all timer and highly recommended.

Acoustic Army: Quite possibly the perfect follow up to that mind erasing Tweezer. Stripped down and acoustic – they knew what the fans needed in that moment!

While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Again, exquisite placement. Phish seriously knows what’s up.

ENCORE:

Simple[3] Mike sounds great!!! Cool A cappella ending.

Rocky Top: 6 hours from Rocky Top but it’s still TN and the fans eat this one up! >

Tweezer Reprise: Obviously!!! Awesome!!!

Summary: Stock first set. That second set though! Tweezer obviously is incredible and stands the test of 40 years. But the construction of what surrounds Tweezer fits so well! Phish rules! 4/5.

Replay Value: 4/5.

[1] Without microphones.
[2] 50+ minutes; whistling and Digital Delay Loop Jam.
[3] A cappella ending.

Don’t You Wanna Go was preceded by a Stairway to Heaven tease. Trey teased Jean Pierre in Possum. This 50+ minute Tweezer included a brief Gypsy Queen jam, a Digital Delay Loop Jam with whistling, and an Also Sprach Zarathustra tease from Trey. Simple contained a Jump Monk tease from Trey and was performed with an a cappella ending instead of a jam, akin to the A Live One version from December 8, 1994. Amazing Grace was performed without microphones. In the soundcheck, Funky Bitch was performed as a slow version and Rift was played as an instrumental. This show is available as an archival release on LivePhish.com.

JAM CHART VERSIONS
Tweezer
TEASES
Gypsy Queen and Also Sprach Zarathustra jams in Tweezer, Stairway to Heaven tease, Jump Monk tease in Simple, Jean Pierre tease in Possum

Mud Island is certainly a one-peak show on the whole, but that's not to say the rest of the setlist is devoid of any worth. I really love the Don't You Want to Go? opener and wish they'd bring this tune back into the mix...it would probably fit into the 3.0/4.0 Phish catalog quite nicely. The rest of the first set features some great phan favorite standards like Gumbo, NICU, Mound, Cavern, and Silent in the Morning, along with some more special tunes like All Things Reconsidered and Spock's Brain. Possum is pretty sweet, as Trey's solo rips high, even if the jam isn't too experimental. The Melt closer, I'd argue, deserves to be on the jam charts. Sure it doesn't go too far out into the deep waters, but there's some real cool harmonic cycling going on there akin to the early Free jams where Mike and Page serve as the groundwork for an ever-dissonant and intense Trey and Fish duel.

From '93-'95 (and probably beyond), just about any second set that opens with 2001 is going to fucking rip. It might not come in the Also Sprach, or in the Poor Heart, but Mud Island Tweezer is a spectacle to behold. I believe the longest Phish jam to-date, Mud Island Tweezer feels caught halfway between Bozeman '94 and the Worcester Jim of Fall '97: a delicate balance of out-there psychedelia and some more melodic/harmonic focused segments. The evolution of this jam tells a story to the listener--one worth hearing many times to fully grasp. Full of creativity, energy, inspiration, and groove, this jam's length is probably only a drawback in that it daunts the uninitiated. Otherwise, the time is well spent, if you ask me. In any event, the Acoustic Army palette cleanser and WMGGW closer feel especially apt in the shadow of a 50-minute musical jaunt. Top it all off with a nice Simple (love the Jump Monk tease in there; very similar to some later Manteca teases that would commonly fill the same spot in the tune), Rocky Top and Tweeprise...that's a pretty sweet show. Of course it's hard to compare the remainder of the set to the standalone behemoth Tweezer, but this is some strong summer '95 Phish.

This is a 5/5 show for me.

I'm going to do my reviews a little differently. My 1st 20 were just whatever I felt like writing, but from now on I will follow a specific format I have made for myself. The format will be in the disclaimer at the bottom and will be the same for all future reviews. If you have read the disclaimer from a review I will have made in the future, but now is the past you can ignore it here as it will always be the same unless I have changed it.

Split Open and Melt : 4, 1994-7-15 - This SOAM sounds like Maze, it is a very cool version, and unlike any I have ever heard. - BEST 1992-7-15

2001 > Poor Heart > Tweezer : 5, 1993-7-23 - Easily the most unique Tweezer I have heard, the recommendation is for 2001 > Poor Heart, there is no recommended Tweezer to compare this to other than this one. - BEST TWEEZER

****DISCLAIMER****

The number beside each song is a 1-5 rating. The date beside that is a date of a recommended version in my opinion. There may be a note following that for each song, if not I didn't find it noteworthy. After a note will be another date of the best version of the song in question that I have ever heard, if this particular one is the best version it will say so in place of this last date. Not all songs will be listed, if they aren't listed it doesn't mean they aren't worthy of a listen, it means that either A) my copy of this show doesn't have that song or B) I just didn't feel like listing it - This is my review I can do what I a want. Most of the time I am only going to hit highlights or low lights. Rarely will I review each song.