The Daily Ghost #24 12/02/1997 CoreStates Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA
Background (Ghost Position: Set: 1 of 1 – Song 5 of 9 – Show Gap: 3)
Ghost continues to alternate between the first and second set during the Fall Tour of ’97. After the destruction in Worcester, at the end of the second set, Ghost is the meat of Philly’s first set. I have included the segue into Divided Sky and the entire song in today’s clip. This would be the only one played the entire Fall Tour, and the crowd eats it up.
Composed Section (0:00-2:54)
A solid start up, leads to a slower tempo Ghost. Gordon fires pretty hard into his bass, which leads to the tempo being taken up a bit. Page plays a cool solo using less notes that usual. Gordon takes advantage of this and gets some extra licks into the solo. A longer than average pause…and…they… miss the drop in. It was a great streak, but we knew it had to end. Not as bad of a miss as some other versions.
Philly Smooth Funk (2:55-5:56)
Page tries to get super funky immediately into the jam. At 3:30 Trey plays some classic ’97 funk licks and the jam starts to settle in. Very easy going groove. The band finds a nice balance and this is a great jam for the middle of the first set.
At about 3:55 Mike gets into some serious slapping. At 4:10, Page counters with some crazy drawn out sounds. Fish is driving a pretty quick pace in the beginning part of this jam. At 4:30 Page starts to drop in some clav filled raindrops. He then dives into some staccato after that.
At the 5:00 mark, Page is really getting down. He is bringing the funk hard. At 5:13 Trey starts to play a really cool rhythm underneath the heavy clav sounds Page is playing. Great layering here from Trey. Shortly after, around 5:30 Gordon starts to slap into this funk jam. The three (Mike, Trey, and Page) are really playing of each other well, with Fish holding down the beat.
The Chairmen’s Show (5:58-7:32)
At 5:58, The Chairmen starts to really get into the dirty funk. The band is working with a really great funk groove. Page is taking charge and leading as much as he has on any other version of Ghost. Page has a thick monster tone going on.
At 6:40, Gordon really starts to funk his bass up as well. From 6:53-7:15 Page finds a melody in this funk, and starts to repeat it several times. It’s a very cool melody that allows for Gordon to slap a couple measures to pieces.
Page then finds a different melody at 7:17-7:32. By playing the same melody a couple of different times, Page helps Trey find his way. Playing directly from that melody Page had created, Big Red asserts himself for the first time at 7:33. Trey comes in very softly at first, but is clearly signaling that he’s ready to move up front.
The Henrietta Show (7:41-10:18)
At 7:41, Trey holds a note which Page and Fishman come flying into with a ton of notes. Fishman especially unleashes a monster fill. Fishman, after holding the beat down, takes over this section. Trey also starts to move forward but not in pure dominant fashion. Fishman is hammering into any empty space he can find.
At 8:30, Trey starts to repeat a lick while Fish really tears apart his drum set. This really starts to build up some tension. At the 9:00 mark, Trey releases it just a little bit. The crowd gives some approval.
Fishman continues to drive this jam like it is a Ferrari. Trey has some gorgeous playing and never moves outside of the space that was created for him. Page drops in some great backing piano notes as well.
At 10:05 Page drops some raindrops shortly after the jam and we move to some start/stop. I can’t say enough about Fish in that previous section. Henrietta was a man possessed. Fish is the driver behind many great Ghost jams. In that section, he got to be the driver and engine.
Start/Stop (10:09-12:40)
Trey gets heavily into the start/stop funk lick and here we go!!!! At 10:25, Fish comes roaring through. The band doesn’t take it too crazy after the first restart, and instead just kind of settles in…
At 11:02 they stop the jam once again. The crowd loves every second of it. At 11:19 both Fish and Mike come breaking through the wall this time. Gordon lets go a bunch of notes and Trey starts to pick it up a notch here.
At 11:55 the jam stops (though not as harsh) and then picks back up stronger at the 12:13 mark. Page lays some long organ chords down to give space for the jam to explode….
The space is created by Page for a complete facemelter. He sits on those organ chords, and it sooooooo sounds like it is coming. Nobody steps through the open door however, and instead the band ops for >Divided Sky.
The segue is a bit forced by Trey and takes a second to get going. Once it does, it actually is not half bad. The crowd loves it and the only Divided Sky of Fall ’97 is played.
Final Thoughts
A good solid Ghost that is well played and does some cool things. This version has some stellar work from Page and later Trey and Fish. I certainly groove during this Ghost and it has great flow from start to finish. However, it doesn’t really have that standout section, or full mind blowing moments the top Ghosts do. The start/stop section at the end is certainly sweet, it just doesn’t compare to Worcester. Still a good version, just hard to stack up with the other Fall Tour standouts.
Score: 8.5