LawnMemo

The Daily Ghost

The Daily Ghost #93 08/06/2010 William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA

(AUD Download @KernelForbin Remaster)

Background (Set: 2 of 2 – Song: 2 of 10 – Show Gap: 2)

Ghost once again stays at the beginning of the first set.  Right before Mike’s Song and a long groove.  No segues have been included.

2010-08-06mo

Composed Section (0:00-3:46)

Trey gets things started and it takes the rest of the band about 20 seconds before they join.  A funky slow groove is created to produce one of the longer intro jams of 2010.

The pace is nice and slow giving this composed section a slanky feeling.  The solo section is classic Page running first and Mike joining strongly later.  Nothing exceptional, just solid.

The lead in…

Trey laughs because it is so bad.  Not funny, that was a big step backward.  Ugly.

The pause gets some notes from Trey, Fish, and Mike.  The drop is actually pretty good.  I thought for sure after that lead in, things were going to be awful.  Nice recovery.

Jam (3:47-10:41)

At the start of the jam the band looks for a direction before finding old faithful.  The jam breaks down quickly around the 4:20 mark.  Mike takes position with a strong tone and Trey begins to solo lightly around it.

The jam is a nice easy groove that is part relaxing, part get up an move.  More get up and move.  It finds a nice place but nothing that grabs you and makes you remember it.  That is until…

BEOW BEOW BEOW at the 5:41 mark!

Mike takes a somewhat unremarkable jam and punches it in the face

The BEOWS from Mike balance out the tone from Trey.  Lots of great layering in tones between Mike, Trey, and Page.

At 6:42, Trey lets out a cry, and Mike eats him.  Oh, you are crying?  I am hungry… BEOW BEOW BEOW.  I cure your tears with hunger.  Things I thought I would never write…I cure your tears with hunger.  I am deep in the Ghost wormhole.

The jam is nice, and the BEOWS are awesome as usual, but in my opinion it doesn’t ever reach locked in mode.  Instead, I find myself drifting and floating away.  I don’t really find a spot where I am forced back to Earth yelling “THIS IS AWESOME!!!”

At the 8:06 mark Trey takes things up and Mike unleashes even more hunger.  Trey comes away from that lick and the tempo moves downward.  It sits down in that space until the 8:45 mark.

At the 8:45 mark, Fish forces the jam forward.  He pushes the pace, and things do step up.  Page and Mike really pick up their game but Trey never quite answers the bell.  He meanders around, and just doesn’t find the soul moving peak that he has many other times in Ghost.

At 9:18, Page releases a particularly sweet piano melody.  At 9:45, Trey tries a lick that sounds like it might make this jam explode.  Instead, the jam moves a bit but never finds the full potential.  From that point the jam just breaks apart.

Final Thoughts

Hate to say it Berkeley, but certainly not my favorite Ghost.  Other than some sweet Mike BEOWS there isn’t much to write about here.  It meanders around a lot at times, and the peak is weak.  Sometimes you go exploring, and nothing clicks.  With 93 versions in the books, Phish is allowed to miss the mark once in a while.

Score: 7.8