A few months back, I decided to get into Eggy. Or at least dip my toes in, see how the water felt, and take it from there. The result? Well, much like with Goose, I’m in, but not all the way in. Let’s say I’m about 70% into Eggy, which is around where my current investment in Goose sits. But that’s really neither here nor there.
No, what is here and there is that it dawned on me while exploring Eggy, either via Bandcamp or Nugs or Spotify, was how easy it was to do so. There is a bevy of quality recordings of the band easily accessible, and it helps clearly paint the picture of a band that, like Goose (and a lot of jam bands to be honest), is better live than in the studio.
We really do have it made these days, and it’s pretty sweet. Nugs is a rich smorgasbord of options featuring everything from up-and-comers to grizzly vets, Bandcamp is basically a strip mall with every kind of store imaginable, and I mean, just pick a streaming service like Spotify or Apple and you’re good. Even Phish has Live Phish, which, despite not having nearly enough shows from the 1990s, is a fully stocked bunker of enough shows to survive at least a couple of apocalypses. So whether you’re looking for a new act to explore or want to keep feeding your long-time obsessions, you’re pretty well covered.
For a small monthly price, of course.
It wasn’t always like this, kids. No. For some of us, there were countless tapes and then CDs of live shows, as well as rumors of shows and whispers about bands you needed to check out, but for all intents and purposes, they didn’t really exist unless you were able to catch them live. It was not easy, and probably the hardest of all, it required patience. And patience is, to be honest, a crock of shit. Doctors have patients. But no one really has patience. It’s true. Look it up. Or not, because you don’t have the time to do so. But whatever, those tapes came in the mail most of the time, and waiting for the mail was the worst.
There were workarounds, though, and they came in the form of official live releases. Live albums had been around forever, of course, but in the ’90s, amidst the jam band resurgence, when bands like Phish, Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, and others started to get big, live albums provided quick and easy ways to experience these acts in their natural element. And they also sounded great, which you couldn’t always say for the 37 Phish tapes you had in your car.
Here are the five best official live releases from that wonderful era.
Widespread Panic ‘Light Fuse, Get Away’
Oh, Widespread Panic. You delightful Southern gentlemen. I might not listen to Panic as much as I used to, but that doesn’t mean that they still don’t hold a special place in my heart.
Light Fuse, Get Away was the band’s first live release and featured songs recorded throughout 1997. By that point, Panic was five records in and not to be trifled with. For the album’s release, they played a free show in their home base of Athens, Georgia, and drew an estimated 100,000 people, which, by my count, is quite a lot of people. One might even say it’s a shit load.
Potentially later eclipsed by Another Joyous Occasion, which featured the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Live in the Classic City, recorded in Athens, Light Fuse, Get Away captures a wonderful and exciting moment in time for the band and includes barn-storming Panic classics like “Porch Song,” “Space Wrangler,” JJ Cale’s “Travelin’ Light,” and “Rebirtha,” among others.
The album title is also solid advice, and that shouldn’t be slept on.
moe ‘L’
moe never reached the heights of Panic or other bands on this list, but that doesn’t diminish what they’ve accomplished one bit. moe was the Kool-Aid Man of the ’90s jam band era, smashing through walls when you least expected it and delivering nothing but deliciousness.
By the end of the decade, they had released a string of solid albums and had crafted a live show that packed some of the muscle missing from other bands’ shows. moe wasn’t afraid to get heavy or get weird or get weirdly heavy, and their shows were a tour de force, shaking the rafters from start to finish.
This feeling was then captured on L, recorded at shows in Boston, Washington D.C., L.A., and San Francisco throughout 1999, a year where they were riding the wave of good vibes that came with the release of their excellent 1998 album, Tin Cans and Car Tires. Whether it’s the stomping, hard-charging “Meat” or the spiraling, interplay that highlights moe hallmarks like “Spine of a Dog,” “Buster” or “Akimbo,” L is a postcard sent from a band not effin’ around.
For what it’s worth, I went and saw moe this summer for the first time in about two decades, and I took notes, most of which circled around the theme of they still got it. So that’s cool.
Dave Matthews Band ‘Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95′
Yes, I have previously said that Dave Matthews Band is not a jamband. And they aren’t. They have some jam tendencies, but they never went full jam. Based on my experiences with them, they never went deep with “Jimi Thing” and emerged with “Seek Up.” They’re a great live band who ride vamps and solos and the like. And they do it really well. They still do. The current iteration of DMB is probably one of the tighter bands out there today.
Yet as for their place in the world in the ’90s, they were very much part of the jam band revival, whether it was sharing stages with Phish and Blues Traveler or playing on various H.O.R.D.E. tours. DMB was like me in college. I didn’t play lacrosse, but all my friends did, so amongst the masses of our school, I was lumped in with the lax crew. DMB was lumped into the jam scene. It’s like totally the same thing.
And with that came their first official live release, Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95, which came out in the fall of 1997. Besides introducing a lot of East Coasters to the majesty of Red Rocks, the album came at a perfect time for DMB fans who were introduced to the band via Under the Table and Dreaming or even Crash. It showed how layered, how complex, and how soaring the band could be. If the point of a live release is to showcase a different side of an act, Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95 did that perfectly for the band.
Blues Traveler ‘Live From the Fall’
It feels like history has not been all that kind to Blues Traveler, and that’s a shame. I know John Popper’s harmonica could be a bit much at times, but so does my kid wanting to watch Peppa Pig, and I’m still cool with her. Plus, Popper and crew were a big part of the H.O.R.D.E. tour being created, and for that, we should all be thankful. That tour was the highlight of many of our summers from 1992 to 1997, when we could catch a lot of our favorite acts on one bill. We shouldn’t focus on the negative with Blues Traveler. That’s lame, and this is the Internet, which is never lame.
So here we celebrate Blues Traveler, kids!
Recorded during the band’s fall tour in 1995, Live From the Fall caught the band at the peak of its powers following the massive bump they received with their breakthrough album Four. The album pulls from each of their first four albums, giving each album its due, which is nice, as they don’t go too heavy on tracks from Four. They didn’t even include a live version of “Hook,” which is a bold move. The record also includes two solid covers: War’s “Low Rider” and “Imagine” by John Lennon.
There are rockers and blues tunes. There are fast songs and slow songs, and yes, there is no shortage of harmonica solos, but the harmonica was a big part of the band’s identity, so whatever. It’s effin’ Blues Traveler for crying out loud.
Listen to “Crash Burn” at full volume and tell me that’s not a damn good time.
Phish ‘Slip Stitch and Pass’
Phish’s first official live release, A Live One, is obviously the more iconic of the two, and for me at least, the first time I heard the band. I’m by no means here to disparage A Live One. I am, however, here to celebrate the second live release Phish released that decade, and part of the reason why is that I think it’s the more easily digestible of the two.
Whereas A Live One features songs recorded throughout 1994, Slip Stitch and Pass is comprised of tracks from a 1997 show in Hamburg, Germany. This helps make it feel more cohesive and, at the time, gave listeners a better idea of what a Phish show was like. A Live One gave you an idea, but Slip Stitch and Pass gave you a glimpse, and sometimes glimpses win out.
Slip Stitch and Pass opens with a concise version of the Talking Heads’ “Cities” before getting into “Wolfman’s Brother.” Overall, it’s loose, but also tight, weird, but also dialed in. It’s Phish. In Germany. Or in other words…Ziemlich süß.
I’m pretty sure that means “pretty sweet.”
And really, that whole era was Ziemlich süß if you ask me.
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