Attendance Bias – Details, episodes & analysis

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Hi everybody and welcome to today’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today’s guest is Katie, but she is probably better known as The Phunky Witch around the Phish Twitter community. For today’s episode, Katie chose a stunning, psychedelic segment from Phish’s visit to the Sphere in Las Vegas: “Theme from the Bottom into Split Open and Melt” from April 19, 2024. 

Even though the band’s 4-show stand at The Sphere happened fairly recently, I just knew it was a matter of time before a guest chose to talk about the music from that run. From any perspective, The enormity of The Sphere seems to be the perfect venue to discuss attendance bias. Is it possible to convey the experience of being at The Sphere in words? Or does one have to be in attendance to understand what it’s like? Luckily, Katie chose a segment of the show where we can hear the musical magic and she does a great job explaining why it was special to be there.

So let’s join Katie to talk about red eye flights, the Nassau Coliseum, and black eyes as we discuss “Theme from the Bottom into Split Open and Melt” from April 19, 2024 at The Sphere in Las Vegas.

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It'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.

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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 is fire dancer Kate Houlihan of Austin, Texas. 

At the beginning of this podcast, I was surprised that so many guests picked shows from 1999. But now that we are two years into the show, a new trend has developed: the holiday run. For a multitude of reasons, many special moments in Phish history happen during the holiday run. By now, at least six guests have come on Attendance Bias to talk about a personal experience they’ve had from one of the legendary Phish shows from December 28 to 31st of any given year. For this episode, however, Kate picked the cream of the crop: Phish’s show on December 30, 1997 at Madison Square Garden. 

While the 1994 and 1995 holiday runs have been covered on Attendance Bias, this is the first time that the 1997 run of shows has been chosen by a guest. It’s a thrill for me, because this was the stretch when I saw Phish live for the first time. For Kate, it wasn’t her first time, but you’ll hear how this show, on the 30th, was when she got it and decided that she was all in on this band that we love so much.

So put on your best speakers, get your lunchboxes full of olive loafs and fried eggs, and make sure that you make that last train out of Penn Station as Kate Houlihan tells her story about December 30, 1997 at Madison Square Garden.

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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 is my friend Bobby from Massachusetts who, for privacy purposes, is speaking under a pseudonym today. 

For today’s episode, Bob picked Phish’s show from September 14, 2000 at the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center near Buffalo, NY. 

I recorded a mini episode about the Suzy Greenberg from this show that closed the first set but there is so much more to this show than that. Musically speaking, this is one of the most dense shows I’ve ever heard–out of 12 songs in the first and second set, eight of them are on the Phish.net jam charts. But there was so much more to it than the music. Bob was there with his friends, I was there with my brother, there were the rumors of the impending hiatus (which was not yet officially announced), and pretty much the same jam throughout the night, weaving its way in and out of almost every song. Bob and I had a great time breaking it all down.

So start wooing, don’t underestimate Prince Caspian, and  make sure to bring a change of dry clothes as Bobby F Weaver and I go over September 14, 2000 at the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center.

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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 is my friend Robert Murray. When Rob first reached out to me, he had a novel idea: he knew that I already spoke about the epic performance of David Bowie from December 29, 1994 in Providence with Tom Marshall. But Rob thought that the Providence show deserved its own full episode, even without the David Bowie! I had never revisited the same show twice before, but I thought that Rob’s idea was creative enough to work–everyone knows the “Providence Bowie,” but what else happened that night? That’s what today’s show is for. 

And once we started putting together notes for this episode, I knew I met my match; normally, guests are a little taken aback by how much I write to prepare for an episode. But Rob outdid me! When I sent him my half of the notes, the document was about 14 pages. When he was done, it was 28 pages. Our conversation was just as cheery as the notes. If you’re a severely jaded vet and can’t stand when fans gush over just about everything Phish does, you may want to fast forward through this episode. Rob and I have a lot of good things to say about this show. The word “perfect” gets thrown around quite a bit, but when you’re talking about the 1994 Phish holiday run, it’s justified.

 And one last note about that: this episode has a pretty long running time. That is largely due to the number of music clips included in the conversation. Once I started listening back, I couldn't help myself. This show is just so good that it became more difficult to decide which songs NOT to include. But enough from me–listen for yourself as Rob Murray and I discuss Phish’s performance on December 29, 1994 at the Providence Civic Center.

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12/29/94 "David Bowie," with Tom Marshall

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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 is Phish twitter mainstay, Scott Marks of Phish.net and The Mockingbird Foundation. If you’ve ever looked up a setlist on Phish.net, noticed a tease in the middle of a jam, or discovered a crazy bustout statistic, Scott is part of the team that keeps track of all of that on Phish.net. 

I first knew about Scott years ago when he band to tweet setlist updates in real-time on Twitter at shows he’s attended. Many times, his tweets beat out the official Phish From the Road account, if even by just a few milliseconds. And in this world of on-demand information where we all desire instant gratification for Phish updates, his feed is priceless. 

Once I got in touch with Scott, he was game to come on the podcast, but we had some trouble figuring out which show or jam to select. Scott threw out a lot of ideas and dates, but so many of them were taken that we had to go pretty far down the list until settling on segments of September 6, 2015 at Dick’s, which featured the famous “THank You” encore. I’m glad that’s where we ended up because there was so much to talk about in this fun show, even just in segments. Phish’s rich history at Dick’s, themed shows, and even surprising encore stats, plus more, are all touched on today. 

 So let’s join Scott to talk about Bye Bye Foot, long awaited bustouts, and why themed setlists mean so much to us, as we discuss Phish’s performance on September 6, 2015 at Dick’s Stadium in Commerce City, Colorado

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Hi everybody and welcome to this week’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today I am speaking with returning guest Scott Mikita who previously appeared to talk about the “Cavern” that closed the Island Tour on April 5, 1998. 

But for today’s episode, Scott moved from talking about a single song to a full set. And that set is one of the most legendary of Phish’s career: Set 2 of December 31, 2013, otherwise known as the JEMP Truck set. 

Forgive the hyperbole, but Phish fans can be quite a devise fanbase. What one fan considers to be the greatest performance every seen, the next fan over may consider the same show to be the band’s lowest point ever. It is exceedingly rare for the fanbase to agree that a song, a set, or an entire show is special but this set hits that mark. Taking us back in time to an era that is long gone, Phish simultaneously celebrated their past, their present, and their future at the end of their 30th year through their stage setup, their setlist choices, and straight narration to the audience.

But I don’t want to spoil it. Let’s join Scott Mikita to talk about the secret security entrance to Madison Square Garden, bringing a pen light to read during a show, and rumors that never happened as we dig into the JEMP Truck set from December 31, 2013 at Madison Square Garden.

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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 is writer Rachael Wesley. 

As an English teacher who has certainly dabbled with writing for publication, I’ve always been interested in speaking to writers who have pursued the art as a living. I first became aware of Rachael’s writing through Instagram, and the more I dug into her career and her social media posts, it seemed like we had a lot in common but also some very different life experiences. A common thread, of course, is that we both love Phish. It was with this in mind that I asked her to appear on Attendance Bias.

When I saw that she described herself as “an author of creative nonfiction,” I needed to know more. As you’ll soon hear, I’m a huge fan of nonfiction and wanted to know more about this genre and how she takes the factual and turns it into a narrative. What follows is a fun and sometimes deep conversation about literature, about writing, about the difference between facts and truth, and of course, Phish’s performance of “Simple” from August 29, 2014 at Dick’s, which features an amazing jam that bounces around for nearly 25 minutes.

So let’s join Rachael to talk about taking second chances in life, how Phish on Halloween cannot be missed, and how words aren’t needed when your body speaks to you as we discuss Phish’s performance of “Simple” on August 29, 2014 at Dick’s in Commerce City, Colorado.

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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 is my friend George from Astoria, Queens. 

For today’s episode, George chose one of the most epic Phish shows of all time and a true milestone of their career: December 30, 1994. As you’ll hear us mention several times, this was Phish’s first time playing at Madison Square Garden, and you’ll hear the excitement both in their playing and in George’s memories of the night. George is a native New Yorker and even though MSG was his second home since childhood, it didn’t take away from the novelty of seeing our little Vermont band take over Manhattan for the night. 

Pretty soon, the entire 1994 holiday run will be covered on this podcast, and I’m completely thrilled to help break down this all-time great run in Phish’s history. So let’s join George to talk about the thrill of being a Rangers fan in 1994, Phish at SUNY Buffalo, and how one song can contain an entire year’s worth of jamming as we discuss Phish’s performance on December 30, 1994 at Madison Square Garden.

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