Gordeaux in Seattle
tomahawkcounty
Tractor Tavern in Ballard (Seattle) and they lit the place up Big
Time.
I had no idea what to expect. As the sold out audience filtered in, I
found that I knew appoximately half of them, including most all of the
folks I know that went to the first PHiSH show in Seattle, about 3
blocks from where the Tractor stands now, back in October 1991. Most
of them also had no idea what to expect. If I could have designed what
they did, it would not have been as good as what they DID.
Gordo of course used his "bigger is better" philosophy of bass rigs,
and had a stack that looked absurdly large for the smallish Tractor
stage. Just right. He had his Modulus TBX Q5 in use exclusively. Scott
Murawski stood to Mike's right, and played a red Languedoc all night
long. Some guy thought it was "Trey's guitar" until I told him that
Paul now sells his guitars to the public (if you have $10k to blow on
an axe).
Bottom line: They grooved in a badass way all night long. They played
a 2 set show - for the first time as a band according to Mike - and by
the middle of the first set, the place was a writhing mass of ecstatic
dancing bodies. As the second set got underway, they hit on grooves
that were so badass, the audience lit up like I have not seen for
years, and smiles were traded all around on stage. It felt as if the
"X" factor was in full effect for the remainder of the night. After
they finished up an encore, Mike did a "meet & greet" at the merch
table by the door, and I picked up a Green Sparrow at that point. Mike
scrawled his name on it, and I said blah-blah-blah.
I highly recommend that all of you see him if you have not done so
yet. Of all the post-PHiSH things I have seen or heard, this was the
best one - and that includes all of Trey's bands. Most of my old
PHiSH pals agreed. The gig proved conclusively just how much of
PHiSH's power comes from the mighty Cactus. When that band lights up
and Mike digs into a badass groove, you get the same urge to move that
you remeber so well. And although no one asked "The Question", it
somehow felt as if the return of PHiSH was an inevitability.
Oh yeah, they snuck a segment of the "With" from The Curtain into one
of the sets, which got everyones gills wet again.
LP
rockroll
"tomahawkcounty" <so.y...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:84010cdd-4aff-4306...@s20g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
the rudder of the boat. Only two Bass players move my feet consistently in
the manner I seek and one is mike gordon
potatoman
Good writeup.
Personally, I've thought from the beginning (post Phish) that Mike's
stuff was always the best non-Phish stuff.