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Hi 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.

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The Improbable, Unstoppable Rise of Goose, by Charlie Werzel for The Atlantic

Welcome 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!"

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Hi 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 7/28/92