Comment of the Moment: Phish and Neil Young

Some interesting comments on the recent post on Phish and Neil Young. The post contained a YouTube video of Phish and Neil Young performing a 26 minute version of "Down By the River" at the 1998 Farm Aid.

It seems that some folks took exception to Trey Anastasio's jamming and called it "wankery". Naturally, this miffed the Phish phans and the post has since been picked up as "Phresh Phish of the Day" by YEMblog: The top Neil Young site, Thrasher's Wheat, looks at Neil's connection with Phish.

The Comment of the Moment is from Cassius:

Phish from 1993-1998 live was an AMAZING live outfit.

Neil Young is my church of choice.

So when this went down it was a dream come true, my old roomate and I had this dialed in via CMT, and cranked through a 2.1 set up.

The performance exceeded all my expectations, and is still one of the coolest NY or Phish live things I have heard.

To my ears Fish and Mike (drums ans bass) kept this thing cranking along.

It obvious Neil and Trey got off, it's tangible and real.

I was proud of the way the NY fans got off on this and on the Rust list at the time, were comparing this to the Rockin In the Free World from 89 SNL.

Trey continued to stay in contact and was a guest of Neils (he didn't perform) at the spring 99 Neil solo show.

Lastly Phish also played Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown in 99 or 00 in Irvine California. I was there.

As far as Phish, they started taking too many hard drugs and completely pooped the bed musically after 98 with just a handful of exceptions.

They are back and sober now, but not the same band they were at the peak of their powers.

Certainly they can't and never tap into the soul the way Neil Young has with their songwriting/studio performances, but at their peak 93/94/95/97 they were as good as any live band ever.

1998 is a pretty solid year, and this Farm Aid performance is one of the best.

Enjoy

Cassius

So is this jam "wankery"? Or is that just what Phish does anyway?

Decide for your self on Phish and Neil Young jammin' together.