★★★★★
Track Listing: CD 1: The Old Home Place > The Curtain > AC/DC Bag, Demand > Rift;
Slave to the
Traffic Light; Guyute; Bouncing Around the Room; Possum; Hello My
Baby.
CD 2: Split Open and Melt, Strange Design > Taste That Surrounds;
Reba; Julius;
Sleeping Monkey > Sparkle > Mike's Song -> Weekapaug Groove -> Digital
Delay Loop
Jam; Amazing Grace; Uncle Pen. (soundcheck "Poor Heart")...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2013-11-30
★★★★★
JEMP Phish follow up their archival Chicago '94 release with another venue-specific pairing of shows from the county fairgrounds in Ventura, Calif. Neither of these previously overlooked shows were high on the fanboy wish-list meter--or even radar--which makes them perfect for the plucking. It's a gift to collectors: a summer 1997 vintage and a summer 1998 reserve, both of which prove worthy of the box-set treatment...
- www.relix.com
2013-09-06
★★★★★
JEMP Phish follow up their archival Chicago '94 release with another venue-specific pairing of shows from the county fairgrounds in Ventura, Calif. Neither of these previously overlooked shows were high on the fanboy wish-list meter - or even radar - which makes them perfect for the plucking. It's a gift to collectors: a summer 1997 vintage and a summer 1998 reserve, both of which prove worthy of the box-set treatment...
- www.relix.com
2013-09-20
★★★★★
Phish: Ventura follows its predecessor Chicago '94 (Jemp Records, 2012) by compiling shows performed at the same venue. While not such a superlative set of gigs?the comparative virtues of these 1997 and 1998 concerts are more erratic?they do illustrate how a particular venue can affect a band's performance, whether on successive nights or successive tours. The relative comfort level can inspire or relax a bit too much, and both dynamics are on display over the course of these six compact discs...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2013-06-30
★★★★★
The packaging of this seven DVD set is top-notch-from a book with photos, to high-quality sleeves for the discs with each setlist printed out, and even stamps and postcards commemorating the shows; JEMP Records and Rhino didn't skimp. All of this packaging mimics the designs created by Russ Bennett (who is also behind designs for Bonnaroo) for the festival, ushering in welcome waves of nostalgia (or flashback) for those festival pioneers who trekked to Plattsburgh Air Force base in New York...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
Stick Phish's Walnut Creek into your home theater and you'll be thrown into the pre-HD, mid-90s heyday of perhaps one of the most cohesive and significant live music phenomena in recent history. The two-disc set documents the second show of their 1997 summer tour, played at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre in Raleigh, N.C., through a violent storm courtesy of Hurricane Danny...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
JEMP In the late-'90s Phish was evolving at warp speed, traversing the lines between art-rock, funk, jamband and all out arena-rock-like lightning bolts dashing across a divided sky. And while their lightning never struck twice--in so much as two shows were never the same--their thunder was held down by the continuum of identity, an ascribable sound despite the filter. That point is driven home on the two latest archival Phish releases--12/6/97 Auburn Hills, Mich...
- www.relix.com
2012-12-31
★★★★★
With the exception of the deservedly lavish package of The Clifford Ball (Rhino/Jemp, 2009), Phish has allowed its music to speak for itself on virtually all the group's archive releases. Chicago '94 follows suit, as this six-CD set?like the similarly conceived Hampton/Winston-Salem '97 (Jemp, 2011)?makes its statement through the largely brilliant musicianship contained therein, with virtually no accompanying content to place it in a historical perspective...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2012-08-20
★★★★★
Less than halfway through Phish's Hampton/Winston-Salem '97, it's very clear what distinguishes these shows, documented in this seven-CD box, as singular entries in the band's pantheon of concert performances. The funk pervading this music makes a consistent backdrop for lengthy improvisations, the likes of which merely sprawled earlier in the group's career. Entries like the segue from "Ghost" into "AC/DC Bag" are not so sharply defined, but nonetheless provide continuity to the performance...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2012-01-05
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