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Written by Jesse Jarnow
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Tuesday, 13 March 2007 |
Headphones Jam
LivePhish.com
Like Hemingway’s proverbial iceberg, most of Phish lay below the surface, inthe endless rehearsals and soundchecks rarely heard by any audience.There, their dialogue was its purest, unfettered by songs and performance.The “Headphones Jam,” a 48-minute track sold for charity through LivePhish.com, is presumably one of the last such instances. Recorded at the outset of the February 2004 sessions that produced Undermind, the band’s final album, the jam has already revealed its two highlights, Undermind’s“Maggie’s Revenge” and the iTunes-only jam sliver “Tiny.” The rest has the quartet musically shooting the shit at a conversational level many groups would envy. It’s all very casual, not bad, but not remarkably enthralling, at first. Despite keyboardist Page McConnell’s occasional attempts to lead the band into the wild, they groove with almost complete neutrality until drummerJon Fishman wakes up about a half-hour in. From there, they power through a series of ideas, including an ecstatic major key jam, before spiraling into the manic, vintage inter play of “Tiny.” It might be about the journey, but thankfully there’s a destination. Jesse Jarnow
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