It Was 20 Years Ago Today: Phish, Live at the Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA Dec. 15th, 1995

      Good day everyone. Hope you are enjoying this El Nino inspired warm spell we are experiencing. But I come to you today not as a meteorologist but as a chronicler of music events, and few were bigger than Phish's Fall of '95 Tour. And now Kempepedia proudly presents the final installment in my documentation of this Tour, It Was 20 Years Ago Today Phish, Live at the Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA Dec 15^th, 1995.
      This show came 2 weeks after my adventures in Hershey so my expectations were pretty high. First time Phish had played the Spectrum and I figured Trey saw a few shows here growing up across the river from Philly.

Friday, 12/15/1995
CoreStates Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA

Set 1: Chalk Dust Torture > Harry Hood > Wilson > Maze > Ha Ha Ha > Suspicious Minds > Hold Your Head Up > Cars Trucks Buses, Bouncing Around the Room, Free > Possum^[1]
Set 2: Tweezer Reprise > Runaway Jim > It's Ice > Bathtub Gin -> Rotation Jam -> Mallory^[2] > Also Sprach Zarathustra > David Bowie, Sweet Adeline
Encore: Good Times Bad Times -> Tweezer Reprise
[1] Oom Pa Pa, Simpsons and All Fall Down signals.
[2] Debut.
Teases:
· Voodoo Child (Slight Return) tease in Possum
· Lazy tease in Chalk Dust Torture
Notes: Trey teased Lazy (Deep Purple) in Chalk Dust. Possum included Oom Pa Pa, Simpsons and All Fall Down signals and a Voodoo Child tease from Trey. Trey mentioned that he saw his first concert (Jethro Tull) in this very venue. Mallory debuted at this show.

You can stream it here

http://www.jamstreams.net/phish/1995/1995-12-15

      First set was solid if typical for the era. I really enjoyed my first Ha Ha Ha. Also like the fact there was no let up in the first set. Nearly everything goes right into something else. I also had my final encounter with the Devil and Uncle Leo. These were two guys who knew each other and we were seated really close to each other for 3 of the 4 shows I went to on this Tour. I can't remember their names but Uncle Leo kind of looked like Jerry Seinfeld’s Uncle Leo from the show, plus he took his shirt off at every show and danced topless for most of the show. Yes, he could have used a manziere. His friend I nicknamed the Devil because he had all these piercings in his ears and crazy tribal tattoos on his arms. Remember, this was 1995, before everyone and their uncle had ink. But they were cool and I never saw them again.

      This show was all about the second set. First, they start the second set with a Tweezer Reprise. They had done it before on this Tour but I wasn't aware but still WOW! The Jim>It's Ice> Gin were top notch. All have some tasty nuggets within them. The Rotation Jam and Mallory were weird to say the least. The 2001> Bowie were out of this world, except I had some clown keep asking me during the long build up to the Bowie Intro if this was Bowie. Yes, I have been putting up with people trying to talk to me during the show for over 20 years.
      They made a Mike Tyson joke before GTBT (He was fighting the next night at the Spectrum) and some how squeezed even more juice out of Tweezer Reprise. And then it was over. The journey that had started when Jerry died and getting the notice in the mail about an expansive Fall Tour had been completed. I had seen my musical future without Jerry G and it looked rather bright. Have a safe holiday season and I’ll be back with my reports on Cabinet and the Infamous Stringdusters for NYE and Phish at MSG in NYC night 4.


Dave Kemp
BA American Studies
PhD Rock and Roll