Search - Phish :: Live Phish Vol. 17: 7/15/98, Portland Meadows, Portland, Oregon

Great, just a little dirty unfortunately

Phil Giampietro | Cheshire, CT/Ithaca, NY | 12/15/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"this is a good show, however you must take some caution. here, i'll start with the bad things about this show. the recording is not as good as other livephish releases, certianly not as good as releases from livephish.com and unfortunately not even as good as live tapes that are now on the net. the PA crackles a lot, especially at the beginning and when many band members are singing. the drums don't sound too hot either. i'll admit that the first time i listened to this show i said to myself "this sucks, because the sound is awful...it must have been picked only for the bass playing (note - mike gordon, phish's bass player, was the main authority on which shows should be included in live phish 17-20). however when i gave it a bit more of a chance, i got past the sound and realized that there is some great stuff going on. this is a great release considering the setlist because you get a chance to hear phish starting to play new material (as far as i know (and is alluded to by trey during parts of banter), this show has some of the first performances of tunes from "the story of the ghost" and there are a lot of tunes from that album here, setting a funky overtone for the rest of the show). the second set seems like another underrated second set (check out livephish no. 10). the band kicks off into limb by limb (one of my favorite set openers) and has such a cool transformation into simple, with trey slowly dragging out the initial riff in a low octave w/ octave pedal!!! so cool. when tweezer shows up, you know that there is going to be some jamming and seguing coming up, and so for whatever reason they bust out "california love" as performed originally, i think, as opposed to tupac shakur's version. this goes back into quite a bit more tweezer and ends a long string of playing with "free", and a damn good version of it. the set ends with harry hood which might appease any fans who don't seem to like any original material written after 1993(!). the bathtub gin filler is a very cool version that lasts over 20 minutes, very cool! this show is highly reccomended, and my rating should really be 3.5. if this show was in as good a quality as more of the series, it would certainly be higher. just be prepared to give it a chance."

Heavy on SOTG songs, and it works great

Paul Allaer | Cincinnati | 03/10/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Live 17" (3 CDs, 198 min.) was recorded at a show in Portland, OR in July, 1998, a mere months before Phish would release "The Story of the Ghost", and showcases many of that album's songs (7, half of the album). It shows the faith that Phish has in its phans, playing that many then-unknown new songs to the audience.



Set 1's highlights include a very heavy and funky "Moma Dance", much better than the studio version on "SOTG" (it reminds me of Level 42), a great "Guyute" (check out the long instrumental outro), and the medley "Horn>Portland Jam>Chalk Dust Torture". The Portland Jam is a Pink Floyd-era Meddle-type, truly mesmorizing instrumental. After "Roggae" comes to an abrupt end, Trey complains he didn't get to do his 'cool guitar solo', so the band starts up again impromptu, giving him the solo he craved 'after such a long song', just great.



Set 2 is equally good, with a huge medley of "Limb by Limb>Simple (with great bass work by Mike)>Tweezer>California Love>Tweezer>Free", the band is really at the top of its game. After that, yet another new song ("Meat") before wrapping things up with a great "Harry Hood". Slapped at the end of this collection is a terrific funky 24 min. workout of "Bathtub Gin" from a St. Louis show a few weeks later. In all, this is a terrific addition to the great "Live" series."

Darkhorse

lockstock | south carolina | 07/13/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I own or have heard all of the live phish series, and no. 17 is definitely one of my favorites - the darkhorse behind some of the staples like 10 and 4. It helps to be a fan of story of ghost because the setlist is definitely heavily flavored by it - its good though - the boys picked the funky ones off the album like meat and birds of a feather and also the most beatiful - like brian & robert and roggae. trey even makes note of all the SOTG songs at the beginning of the second set. The first set is solid with the standout tracks being a tight but standard jam with wolfman's, trey's effects and rake picking on moma dance, and a thumping chalk dust torture thanks to mike (the liner notes state that mr. gordon was playing after eating a brownie - yeah that kind). Page gets to show his stuff too at the end of the first disc with an unexpected cars trucks buses. The first disc is only the appetizer - disc 2 really starts cooking with the jammed out roggae (cover art inspiration) and birds of a feather. ive heard better loving cup's but its a solid cover (i always love hearing trey admit to his bad guitar, j/k) Then a great string of songs starts with limb x limb , includes simple, tweezer and a california love cover, and is bookended by a smoking free. I would by the third disc by itself - its nasty. Meat is a great start and it gets better. Hood is better than good, but it usually is. A fun encore with wilson and tweezer r leads into an absolutely killer bathtub. Ive questioned some of the filler choices on some of the other ones, but they got this one right. I would definitely pick this one up, and dont be desparaged by other people saying the sound quality isn't good enough- its not perfect but its nothing you cant get past. see you at coventry"