Who Do? We Do!

• Performances
• History
• Jam Chart
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  • Phish
  • Fish
  • Mike
  • Page
  • Trey
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History

Jumping up and down. You can tell when the band is in the middle of this, the fourth part of the complete “Fluffhead,” because Trey and Mike are jumping up and down. They don’t use trampolines. They’ll just be standing there, when all of a sudden, there it is: the jumping up and down. 

“Who Do? We Do!” is possibly the most indescribable part of “Fluff’s Travels.” The music is strange, characterized by some severe rhythm-bending, flirtations with atonality, a brief Page solo, and some irregularly escalating major chords. And, just when you think a song has everything but the kitchen sink, they toss in some jumping to boot. 

But we're getting ahead of ourselves, for the very first versions of "Who Do? We Do?" were much more primitive and bear little resemblence to what is played in "Fluffhead" today. The first two versions of "Who Do? We Do!" (on 4/24/87 and 4/29/87) both follow "I Am Hydrogen" and consist of what is basically a start-and-stop version of the aforementioned “Who Do? We Do!” chord escalations. The next two known versions of "Who Do? We Do!" (on 8/29/87 and 10/31/87 and, again, both following "I Am Hydrogen") show a further progression; the starts and stops from earlier in the year had been dropped and the song essentially mirrors the second half of what we now know as "Who Do? We Do!" (i.e. the segment beginning at 3:05 of the Junta version). Moreover, on 10/31/87, the first half of "Who Do? We Do!" appeared for the first time, following "McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters" (the two halves had not yet been merged).

Of course, by February 1988, the two segments "Who Do? We Do!" had been joined together and incorporated into "Fluffhead," so that's the end of the story, right? Not exactly. During the fall of 1989, "Fluffhead" left the rotation for a few months and several of the components of "Fluff's Travels" began to pop up independently. During that period, "Who Do? We Do!" was played more than any of the other "Fluff's Travels" segments and, with the exception of the 10/26/89 version, always followed "McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters". So was "Who Do? We Do!" briefly a formal part of "McGrupp", or did some of "Fluffhead's" chocolate just get mixed up with some Gamehendge peanut butter? Who knows, but the result is every bit as tasty (feel free to sample 10/1/89, 10/22/89 or 11/2/89 for yourself). "Who Do? We Do!" made it's last appearance outside of "Fluffhead" on 12/8/89. When "Fluffhead" returned on 12/9/89, "Who Do? We Do!" reclaimed its place as the stable, unflinching anchor between “The Chase” and “Clod” (with one exception: on 3/10/90, it would make one final post-"McGrupp" appearance). Well, stable and unflinching except for the jumping, at any rate.

See Also: "Fluffhead"/"Fluff’s Travels," "I Am Hydrogen," "McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters"

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