Phish - Live Phish Vol. 16: 10/31/98, Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, Nevada

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Music reviews of Live Phish Vol. 16: 10/31/98, Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, Nevada

Music Review: Worst Phish live yet
Rating: 2 Stars

With this set, you do get 4 CD's and almost 5 hours of music. But less than 2 hours is great or up to Phish's normal standards. The sound quality is only fair, and not as good as most of the other releases. The first 3 CD's are from the Halloween concert. The fourth CD are excerpts from an earlier concert.

Every Halloween, Phish will play the entire album by some other group. They have done the Beatles' White Album, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and the Who's Quadrephenia. It has been hit or miss as to how good these album covers are. The real winner is when the did the Talking Heads' Remain In Light (on #15). They were as good as the Heads were in the movie Stop Making Sense.

On this album, Phish plays the Velvet Underground's Loaded. I think it is the worst cover the band has done. They play the songs like standard Phish tracks, so there is no distinction in any of the songs. It comes out as one long Phish mush. I was playing it and my daughter asked if we could change the music to some rock and roll. I had to explain that the song playing was Rock and Roll. It is hard to imagine that someone could take such a powerful song as Rock and Roll and turn it into such soft background music. I don't expect a note for note copy of Lou Reed's Animal, but I do expect something energetic and hard rocking.

The rest of the Halloween concert is not much better. It just all seems devoid of any life. But, this is Phish and there are some really good parts, like Ghost and Sneaking Sally Through the Alley. But, the highlights are sparse. You would think that the 30 minute Wolfman would be fantastic, but it is just boring. Someone comments on the 14 minute Tweezer. But this is a song that Phish has played alot, and played it longer and much better.

The fourth CD, with highlights from the previous night is a little better. But, of course it would be better, they took the best stuff from a whole concert and put it on a single disc, so you don't get a lot of the bad stuff. The only problem is that most of this stuff is available on many other live CD's from Phish. They do play Run Like An Antelope in a different style than I have heard before. And they finish up with an amusing a'capella version Lynard Skynard's Freebird, doing the guitar solos by mouth.

For this concert, it appears that Phish has begun starting to arrange the concert setlists so they will neatly fit on CD's. The first CD is the first set, which just fits on a CD. Then the album cover of Loaded fits just perfectly on the second CD. And then the remainder of the concert just right for the third CD.

There are so many better Phish live CD's. As mentioned, #15 might be the best. A Live One is very good.

Description of Live Phish Vol. 16: 10/31/98, Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, Nevada

Alternative Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock