Attendance Bias

Send a textHi everybody and welcome to this week’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. It was an absolute thrill to talk to today’s guest, Michael Benjamin about July 6, 2012 at SPAC. It was a thrill for two main reasons: First, I knew I was talking with a real fan about a genuinely exciting show, because he drove over 6 hours to get to the venue, and crossed the border, since Michael lived in Canada at the time. But also, today’s conversation selfishly granted me a wish that I didn’t even know I had. Michael comes to us today from Stockholm, Sweden. I’ve had Canadian guests before, so Michael isn’t the first international guest, but I’ve never had a European guest! Attendance Bias has gone intercontinental! We are everywhere!But a little more close to home: this show was the first night of a 3-night run at the beloved upstate New York venue during a peak year of Phish music. It’s a common thread of this podcast to wonder when Phish was actually “back” after they returned in 2009, and 2012 seems to be as good a year to suggest, for a number of reasons that Mike and I discuss in just a few minutes.   So let’s join Mike to talk about touring costs, whether or not Ocelot is a bathroom songs, and when the band will return to Toronto as we discuss July 7, 2012 at SPAC.Support the show

Send a textHi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. With all of the lore and inside jokes of the Phish universe, conspiracy theories are part and parcel of being a superfan. When we learn the lyrics to new songs, see the artwork announcing a new tour, or even an offhand comment from a band member on a PhishRadio interview, Phish fans are always looking for signs and asking: “What does it meeeeean?”Today’s guest, James Del, is the perfect fan to answer that question. James works closely with people the creative sector, and he chose one of Phish’s most creative, if inscrutable performances to discuss today: The SciFi Soldier set from October 31, 2021 at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas Nevada.  Phish Halloween sets are always fun and always generate controversy, but there was so much to the SciFi Soldier set that it almost transcended the idea of a Halloween costume set: the songs were practiced, but the vocals sounded spontaneous. Instead of a Phishbill, there was a comic book. There were themed shows leading up to the 31st that may or may not have connected to Halloween night. And that’s all to say nothing of the poor ventilation and Covid aftermath of this run that ended the fall 2021 tour. All that is to say that James and I had plenty to talk about, even when dissecting one set of a three set show. While I was fairly passe about SciFi Soldier, James was seeing entire worlds in these songs. Not a line went by that James didn’t ascribe a deeper meaning and a grander sense of scope to the wider Phish experience. I can honestly say that, after this conversation, I will never listen to this set the same way again.So let’s join James to talk about passion fruit, Gamehendge, and the Phish codex as we discuss set 2 of October 31, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Passion Fruit NewsletterWe've Got a Band podcastSupport the show

Send a textIt's been about 2 weeks since Phish's 11th festival, and we are just starting to come back to Earth. Luckily, I am joined by the best to recap those 4 amazing days in Delaware. Skinny and JW of the "Stub Me Down" podcast, along with Scott King, have a free-form conversation to reflect, rank, and simply shoot the breeze about Phish's long-awaited festival.Other than the introduction and outro, this episode was not edited.Support the show

Send a textHi everybody and welcome to this week’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. You know, everybody has their own standards for what constitutes a “special” Phish show: a killer setlist, monster jams, rarities, meeting up with old friends, making new  friends, going to your hometown venue, and more. I mean, that’s the entire premise of this podcast! But every now and again, Phish plays a show that is an undisputed SPECIAL SHOW. A show that encapsulates all of the above, and maybe even a little more. Today’s episode with guest Chris Bojar revisits such a show from the recent past: July 14, 2019 at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wisconsin. There can be little doubt that Phish has a special affinity for the summertime shed, as they’ve played several great shows there. However, few shows are as explicit as this one, where the band went out of their way to tell the crowd how much they love playing at Alpine Valley, both directly and through goofy antics and banter, including a breakout version of Ruby Waves and putting the pressure on a certain couple to get married. Throw in the fact that Chris is from Wisconsin, and was able to have a buddies weekend at the height of summer and the table is set for an all time great show. And, boy, did Phish deliver.  So let’s join Chris to talk about planning setlists, Spock’s Brain, and getting harassed by Kentucky police as we discuss July 14, 2019 at Alpine Valley.Support the show

Send a textHey all, I'm testing out an idea for a late-summer episode about Coventry. For several reasons, I always figured that it would be impossible to do an Attendance Bias episode about Coventry because...well...who would be biased in thinking that Coventry was a great show because they were there?! BUT a listener emailed me with what I think is a pretty clever idea: What if listeners called in with one positive memory about Coventry? It could be something as big and concrete as having a blast with friends, or a specific jam, or something as minor as eating a good stack of pancakes the morning after it was over? Not to whitewash it, but to pick out the little joys of even a bad Phish experience ("finding your joy" as the hippies say).I opened a number on Google Voice for people to call in and leave messages, which I'll then download and include in the episode. If anyone here is willing to test-run it, and you can think of ONE GOOD THING from the Coventry weekend, can you call 516-366-5732, leave your name and where you're from, and your one positive thing that you can say about Coventry? I really appreciate it! This is new for me, so I hope it works!Support the show

Send a textHi everybody and welcome to this week’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today’s special guest is a returning champion: Thom Epps, who was a guest on attendance bias way back in the summer of 2020, when the podcast was just getting off the ground. Somehow, with the excitement on my part of hosting a podcast, and Thom’s excitement of being a guest on a podcast, his that early episode completely missed the point: Thom picked a show that he did not attend, and I didn’t see anything wrong with that, even during the interview!Fast forward a couple of years, and when Thom and I saw one another at Atlantic City this past summer, he asked if he could redeem himself by coming back on the pod to talk about a show that he did attend. Of course he could and he is here today to talk about Phish’s show from June 22, 2000 at the Amsouth Amphitheater in Antioch, TN–basically Nashville.I’d heard chunks of this show throughout the years, but never listened to it straight through. My focus was always on the special guests toward the end of the 2nd set, but there is so much more to appreciate here, including a bouncy version of Sand, a silky smooth 2001, and much more.So let’s join Thom to talk about No Quarter, Einstein Bagels , and the zeitgeist in 2000 as we discuss June 22, 2000 in Nashville.Support the show

Send a textHi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today’s special guest is Jamie Boldt, and boy, did he pick a winner to review today: 10/31/95 at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago, Illinois.Regular listeners of Attendance Bias will note that The Who was THE band for me as I made the transition from classic rock and alternative radio in my early teens to exploring the world beyond the corporate record stores and Top 40 radio. To say it another way: before Phish, there was The Who. As you’ll hear Jamie and I discuss in just a little while: it was a major turning point for me when I found out about this Halloween show.  In the bigger picture, this was Phish’s 2nd Halloween musical costume. After the unmitigated success of The White Album Halloween show in 1994, the band chose to go a different route, playing a huge venue in the midwest, and choosing a relatively obscure album that required additional musicians. But there’s more to this show than the musical costume; the first and third set are masterpieces that stand on their own.Jamie chose to discuss this show for a number of reasons, and one of them is that he wanted to get my take on the convergence of Phish and The Who. While I am the host of this podcast, and I get my thoughts in there, Jamie is the guest and we get to hear what it was like to witness this epic show that continues to live on the top shelf of Phish history.So let’s join Jamie to talk about Greenwich Village, mod  culture, and Jon Fishman’s relatives as we discuss October 31, 1995 in Chicago.Support the show

Send a textEpisode PlaylistThe Improbable, Unstoppable Rise of Goose, by Charlie Werzel for The AtlanticWelcome back, everyone! Today, Megan Glionna and Brian Brinkman of The Helping Friendly Podcast join Attendance Bias as we morph back into "Flocking Outside: A Miniseries About Goose From 3 Phish Lifers."About a year ago, the three of us released a 3-episode miniseries to get a handle on the sharp rise of Goose, and the tension that was building between the fanbases of Goose and Phish. Those episodes are still available if you scroll back to Attendance Bias episodes from June, 2023. In those three episodes, Brian and Megan gave me information about Goose's history as a band, and we discussed the context in which their profile was rising in the jamband scene.A year has passed since then, and Goose's story, as well as each of our own stories, has changed and expanded. In today's episode, which I think is a coda to the previous three, Megan, Brian, and I discuss the band's development of the past calendar year, how they've changed musically, how they've separated themselves from the jam scene, and how we've changed as fans. We hope you enjoy episode 4 (coda) of "Flocking Outside!"Support the show

Send a textHi everybody and welcome to this week’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today’s guest, Brian Blatt, takes us back 30 years to April 6, 1994 at the Concert Hall in Toronto, Ontario. Phish had just started their spring tour promoting Hoist, but also showcasing their increasing ability to play anything and everything–from straight rock and roll, to bluegrass, to latin jazz, to a capella tunes, and more. Plus, a recurring theme of today’s show was the band’s improvisational exercises paying off. Whereas in 1993, they could segue in and out of any song in their repertoire, now they were jumping off the ledge into the unknown, not knowing where they’d end up, or whether they’d come back to the song at all. On top of all that is Brian’s experience. He drove from Rochester, NY to Toronto for this show; a drive of about  3 hours. This was not his first time seeing Phish, but this was his first time seeing Phish sober. That new experience of clarity allowed him to remember, even 30 years later, the exact moment where he GOT IT. The exact moment when he was hooked.I don’t want to spoil it, so keep listening as we join Brian Blatt to talk about vocal jams, garbage plates, Weird Al, and more as we discuss Phish’s show from April 6, 1994 at The Concert Hall in Toronto.Audio of 7/28/92Support the show

Send a textHi everybody and welcome to today's episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. When I began this podcast, I didn’t know too much about the key shows of the end of 1.0. The years 1999 and 2000 weren’t exactly lost to me, but it was harder then than it is now to get the most recent recordings. And even if you were lucky enough to get a recording of a recent show at the end of the century–or the beginning of the new one–chances are that the recording didn’t quite capture the intricacies and details that you would need to hear in order to appreciate what the band was playing at the time.That’s a long way to say that today’s guest–Will Little-shines a ton of light on the technical aspect of what Phish was up to, musically speaking, during the summer, 2000 tour. Will chose to discuss his memories from July 4, 2000 when Phish played the 2nd of two nights at Camden. While many guests on Attendance Bias, and I’m guilty of this as well, focus on the fan perspective of their chosen show, Will focuses mostly on what made the soundscapes and atmospheric playing of 2000 so interesting and compelling. For years, I’ve known that soundboard recordings of this tour were high-level, dense stuff but never had the vocabulary to explain why. I still don’t have the vocabulary, but luckily we have Will here to help out.And boy, did he pick the right show. July 4, 2000 encapsulates the “2000” sound as well as any other show that year. In fact, the second set is a legendary 5-song second set that opens with a 30-minute Gotta Jibboo. If you’re the type of fan who likes to press play, lay back, listen, and then wonder “how are they doing this?!”, then this is your show and your episode.If you haven’t figured it out by now, Will is a multi-instrumentalist from the south-east who is typically involved in a number of projects, including longtime Asheville-based band East Coast Dirt, and by the time this episode airs, he’ll be playing with Phish tribute band, “Nectar: A Picture of Phish.” He’ll give more details about his projects once the conversation starts.So let’s join Will to chat about the the nuance of specialized guitar effects, what the funk siren really is, and whether or not Backwards Down the Number Line is a great Phish song as we break down July, 2000 in Camden.Support the show