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Learn about PHISH 3D: The Movie shot at Festival 8.

99 8 Albums But They'll Play Just One

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Introduction: The Phish Halloween Album Teaser (September 28th, 2009)

Today the Festival 8 site on Phish.com was updated with yet another teaser animation, only this time instead of teags sayg the location, they're teasing the Halloween cover album.

The new site features a haunted gallery of 99 albums, each a possibility for the musical costume, and each a possible victim of an unfortunate demise.

A handful of albums have already been killed off, and there should be a lot more killing over the next few weeks as the welcome card promises Phish will “play the last record left alive.”

Gotta admit I was pleased to see both of my top choices — Appetite for Destruction and Exile on Main Street — made the list. Figure Appetite is a long-shot but Exile could have a chance.

Though I doubt this will be quite as uproar-inducing as the Halloween map, it's sure to keep the Festival 8 buzz going strong. Plus it'll also give you a chance to study up on the remaining possibilities (rumor has it there will be 8 albums left when the fest begins) and get familiar with the material, whatever it may be.

Update: The Grateful Living (September 29th @ 12:11 am)

I'm sure this means nothing, but one eagle-eyed fan has noticed that the Grateful Dead are listed as the “Grateful Living” in the xml config file that's driving the gallery. Hmmm… certainly wouldn't mind if American Beauty is “the last record left alive.”

Update: The Grateful Living Part 2 (September 29th @ 2:41 am)

There's a comment below about the Grateful Dead thing pointing out that the word “living” is used in the xml file to denote albums that are still in the mix. I realized that, but in this case it's not just the <stateofbeing> node that says living, but the <title> node as well.

That said, the reader's comment opened my mind up to a much more likely theory. Someone did a search and replace on that xml file, replacing all occurrences of “dead” with “living” — only they didn't select match case — and so the “Grateful Dead” became the “Grateful living.” Note also the lowercase “l” which I incorrectly noted as an uppercase “L” above.

So in effect, I'm still sure it means nothing… other than that speculating on Phish teaser animations is a great way to waste time.

Update: The Grateful Living Part 3 (September 29th @ 1:36 pm)

The Grateful Dead are now listed correctly in the .xml file. Case closed.

Update: Phish-themed Album Covers (October 6th @ 10:36 pm)

Strange things are afoot in the haunted gallery, as a number of album covers have started to get a Phish-themed makeover.

• Phish are in the sardine can on Hello Nasty
• The hot dog vendor on Pretzel Logic is sporting a viking hat
• The Boss is playing a Languedoc
• Trey and Page are moving a keyboard on Moving Pictures
• T-Rex is now T-rey
• Tom Petty is wearing a Phish shirt
• Mike Gordon has joined the Ramones (added 10/7)
• Rage Against the Machine is now Page Against the Machine (added 10/9)
• Fishman is on the cover of Exile on Main Street (added 10/10)
• Ghost in the Machine is now Story of the Ghost in the Machine (added 10/15)
• AC/DC Back in Black is now AC/DC Bag (added 10/15)
• Page is in the rearview mirror on the Minutemen album (added 10/16)
• Fishman's head has been added to one of the Electric Ladyland ladies (added 10/16)

Just as it was starting to feel really repetitive, this is a great twist to keep things interesting.

Update: Phish-themed Album Covers (October 6th @ 11:36 pm)

A commenter below just inquired if anyone noticed that a “new album” had been added to the gallery

Well it's a new album cover, but not a new album. That's the original cover image from Blind Faith's self-titled debut. Rumor has it the naked young girl is Ginger Baker's daughter, but whoever it is she didn't make the cut. The cover was banned in the USA where it was sold with the “bland, but shopper-friendly, band photo.”

Update: Album YouTube Links (October 7th @ 3:23 pm)

Well this is interesting. Some of the albums in the xml config file have been updated to include YouTube links.

I'll give you one guess how many albums got the special treatment…

1. AC/DC, Hells Bells from Back in Black
2. Aerosmith, Sweet Emotion from Toys In The Attic (by Gordon/Kottke)
3. Arcade Fire, Wake Up from Funeral
4. David Bowie, Oh You Pretty Things from Hunky Dory
5. David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust from Five Years Live
6. Led Zeppelin, Going to California from Zeppelin IV
7. The Band, Up On Cripple Creek from The Band
8. Clash, Clampdown from London Calling

I sure hope these aren't the finalist because they seem to have forgotten GNR :)

Today Phish announced the schedule for Festival 8 and there's great news: the band will play their first full length acoustic set at “the crack of noon“ on Sunday, complete with coffee and donuts.

See the rest of the Festival 8 performance schedule below. I'm sure the band will stick to this like clockwork so make sure to set your watch.

Phish Festival 8 Performance Schedule

Update: September 28, 2009

Today Phish launched a Festival 8 cover album teaser where they'll be slowly revealing the album for the musical costume. Learn more about the musical costume album teaser and see which albums have been eliminated right here on Jamtopia.

Last night Phish played the final show of their 2009 Summer Tour, a two-leg romp around the country that included 27 shows. To help make sense of it all, I used data from ZZYZX and Phish.com to create some statistical visualizations using tiny little graphs called sparklines.

There are two exhibits so far including over 1,100 data points. The first exhibit explores everyone's favorite topic, repeats, with a look at some of the most played songs from the tour. The second exhibit explores the shortest and longest sets, based on number of songs played.

Both exhibits demonstrate the beauty of sparklines: they are data-intense but design-simple, so even an incompetent statistician like me can quickly spot trends and outliers.

If you have ideas for other stats you'd like visualized, post a comment below.

Exhibit 1: Most Played Songs

Just like every other Phish tour I can remember, fans were quite vocal about the number of repeats throughout. Here's a closer look at the 20 most played songs, each of which appeared in at least 25% of the shows.

How to read it: Each song has a graph depicting all 27 shows from the early and late Summer Tours (Fenway through SPAC). A line going up means the song was played in the 1st set. A line going down means the song was played in the 2nd set. A longer mustard colored line down is an encore.

For example: Possum was played in the 1st set of Jones Beach 1 (show #2) then in the second set at Greatwoods (show #5) and again in the 2nd set at the Asheville (show #7).

Song	Plays	Early	Late	Notes
Possum	10 (37%)			Divided Sky, Ocelot, Stash and Stealing Time were only played in the first set Chalkdust, Golgi, KDF and Sample made all but one of their appearances in the first set Harry Hood and YEM were always in the 2nd set except at Bonnaroo 1 which was a single set affair Suzy was an encore 3 times and made all but one its 7 appearances in the second set Times Turns Elastic started out as a 2nd set song but was moved to the 1st set after its 3rd appearance ZZYZX counts YEM as being played 9 times due to the YEM > Wilson > YEM at Bonnaroo Tweezer Reprise, not shown, was also played 7 times
BDTNL	9 (33%)
Chalk Dust Torture	9 (33%)
Character Zero	9 (33%)
Down With Disease	9 (33%)
Harry Hood	9 (33%)
Kill Devil Falls	9 (33%)
Ocelot	9 (33%)
Run Like an Antelope	8 (29%)
Time Turns Elastic	8 (29%)
Wolfman's Brother	8 (29%)
You Enjoy Myself	8 (29%)
David Bowie	7 (25%)
Divided Sky	7 (25%)
Golgi Apparatus	7 (25%)
Sample in a Jar	7 (25%)
Stash	7 (25%)
Stealing Time	7 (25%)
Suzy Greenberg	7 (25%)
Tweezer	7 (25%)