Live at Madison Square Garden New Year's Eve 1995

Performer: Phish
Engineer: Paul Languedoc
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Phish: Mike Gordon (bass guitar); Jonathan Fishman, Page McConnell, Trey Anastasio. Personnel: Trey Anastasio (vocals, guitar, percussion); Page McConnell (vocals, keyboards); Jonathan Fishman (vocals, drums); Mike Gordon , Tom Marshall (vocals). Audio Mixer: Elliot Scheiner. Liner Note Author: Parke Puterbaugh. Recording information: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (12/31/1995). Photographer: C. Taylor Crothers. Although year-ending concerts were nothing new for Phish by 1995, this New Year's Eve live set at New York City's Madison Square Garden proved to be especially significant for the group, since it revealed the Vermont-based jam band as an amiable musical giant that had reached new heights of popularity in the preceding months. The ensemble is in peak form throughout the three discs, particularly when indulging in extended improvisational outings such as the much loved and thoroughly silly "Reba" and "The Squirming Coil," an absurdist narrative that allows for plenty of jazzy solos by guitarist/frontman Trey Anastasio and keyboardist Page McConnell. Though most of the tunes are Phish originals, the band also carries over two Who songs (the rocked-out "Drowned" and the melancholy "Sea and Sand") from its Halloween performance of QUADROPHENIA earlier in the year. Capping off the show are two more excellent covers--an appropriately lurching rendition of Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" and a rollicking take on Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode"--which showcase the group as not only formidable musicians but devoted disciples of rock history as well.

Entertainment Weekly (p.80) - "The musicianship is as hot-to-death as this sort of thing gets, the jams synergetic and surprising..." -- Grade: A- Down Beat (p.80) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "The secret to Phish's success on MADISON SQUARE GARDEN is the willingness to take risks....Subtle signs of innovation, talent and passion dot the record..."

Of all the jam bands to emerge in the late-1980s and early-'90s, Phish were widely regarded as the inheritors to the Grateful Dead's throne. While the group's jazzy, mercurial sound was more progressive and light-hearted than the Dead's, Phish's massive, adoring following modeled themselves after the vagabond Dead Heads, calling themselves "Phish Heads." After letting off steam through various side projects (Oysterhead, Vida Blue) and sabbaticals, Phish finally called it quits in 2004.

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