Cubensis will perform 2 Halloween Concerts, and include a Mystery Album to be performed both nights in it’s entirety!
Saturday October 30 2010 at The Mint in Los Angeles
Cubensis is:
Tom Ryan – Keyboards/Vocals Steve Harris – Drums/Vocals Larry Ryan – Bass Ed Fletcher – Drums Craig Marshall- Guitar Nate LaPointe – Guitar/Vocals Christine Sherman – Vocals John Murchison- Sound
Sunday October 31 2010 at the Marlin in Huntington Beach
When Brian (happycat!) asked me to blog a bit about the first two Phish shows for this site, I was all gung-ho about it right away – sounds like a total blast, right? But as I began to think about what I was really going to say, I gotta admit I was kinda apprehensive. I didn’t want to gush about Phish or simply give you guys the facts – we have Surrender to the Flow for that. And I definitely didn’t want to start analyzing the music and get all critical – we have PhantasyTour.com for that. So what am I gonna say? Like so many other phans, I’ve been listening to these guys since I was young hippie kid, and I’ve schlepped all over the country to see them. I love Phish. And most of the time they leave me pretty much speechless after a good show. I guess the best I can do is give you guys a bit of my experience from the road.
Back on Super Bowl Sunday, a few Phish-head friends and I made a pact – we would all go to the first show of the year, no matter where it was going to be. So on March 15, when the Summer Tour Announcement Video (featuring a bunch of synchronized swimmers and a very graceful Jon Fishman set to the jammy outro of “Taste”) blasted on to the front page of Phish.com, we were beyond pumped. CHICAGO, HERE WE COME!
Click here to see Phish’s 2010 Summer Tour Announcement Video:
When we think back on all the beautiful locations Phish has played: The Gorge, Red Rocks, Big Cypress… Toyota Park is, in all honesty, a pretty anti-climatic tour-opening venue for a show. It’s an open-air soccer field (or “pitch”, as you footballers would like me to say), home to the MLS’ Chicago Fire, with 28,000 seats and God knows how many kids cramming down onto the field. The venue staff had covered the expensive turf with huge aluminum pallets and let me tell you, it was HOT down on the field. But as the sun set and the band floated into “Boogie on Reggae Woman”, the smiles came out, the dancing shoes were tied and people seemed to start ignoring the heat or whatever else they felt like complaining about.
At Toyota Park you pretty much have to be right in front of the soundboard for optimum sound quality. Everywhere else in the Park, the audio sounds “just OK”.
Musically though, the show was awesome.
The band sounded every bit as tight as they did at Madison Square Garden and Miami last year. In bold 3.0 fashion, they started the night off with some of their super-jams ("Disease", "Wolfman’s"). The setlist was chock-full of classics, especially the first. “Reba”, with all its intricacies & layers, was fantastic.
And the highlight of my night was most definitely Set II’s ridiculously funky “Story of the Ghost” (Thanks Page). We got a really cool verison of "Light", with some interesting fake-outs and strong vocals and a really nice "Limb by Limb" with a sick afro beat vocal jam at the end. During the Limb jam, we wandered to the outskirts of the crowd and watched a girl with an LED hoop display some mad skills (video to come).
We were also blessed with a brand-spanking-new tune entitled “Show of Life”. When the band started to play it, everyone turned to a buddy and asked “What is this?” to which the buddy replied, “It’s a Trey song.” Ha…
Anyway, over the next few days I took some time to ask a few phriends what they thought about this new PHISH song, “Show of Life”. Most people seemed to like it, but nobody expressed a whole lot of excitement. Zach from Chicago described it as a “typical Phish ballad” that reminded him of The Band’s “I Shall Be Released”. Mike from Colorado told me that he liked it, and it was “along the same vein as Let Me Lie” which by the way, has really grown on me over the past year. And its also worth mentioning that Phish played "Show of Life" again in Saratoga 6/19, and its really taking a cool form, so I think we can be hopeful about this new tune.
On Saturday, as we drove through Indiana en route to Ohio, my good friend Chris (also from Southern Cal – going for his 100th show this year) said he was really stoked that on this tour, Phish is testing the waters with a handful of new tunes. They’re taking the time to play them live, check out the audience reactions, and really feel the songs out before recording another album. It shows how much the guys care about their fans. So keep your ears open (and your mind too) for some new songs on this tour. And remember, just because you don’t recognize it right away, it may not just be “another Trey song.”
I’m kind of equal parts audio and visual, so Chris Kuroda – the lighting designer for Phish – is in my book the 5th member of the band. I think a lot of phans would agree that the lights at a Phish show are almost as important as the music and can really take the experience to a whole other level (substances aside). Last year, he implemented three white circular panels that hovered above the band, bouncing multi-colored beams and spirals across and through them. The discs are still there on this tour, but talking to a lot of different people throughout the night, we had noticed some new bits of eye candy in his designs – new color combinations, and different sequences of movement to flow with the music. All in all, it was a great night.
The air was filled with plenty of good energy and lots of anticipation for this summer’s tour. Aft
er Toyota, we were ready to get on the road, destiny unbound, to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio – 7 hours due east.
Ed. Note: thanks Cece and we look forward to your next report from the Phield!
Phish set list report from Deadheadland’s Phield reporter Cece Sherman:
Toyota Park
2010-06-11
Bridgeview, IL
Set 1
Down with Disease
Wolfman’s Brother
Possum
Boogie On Reggae Woman
Reba
Jesus Just Left Chicago
The Divided Sky
Golgi Apparatus
David Bowie
Set 2
Light
Maze
Ghost
Limb By Limb
Prince Caspian
The Horse
Silent in the Morning
Run Like an Antelope
Show Of Life (new song)
Encore
Cavern
Julius
Notes: After Possum, Trey congratulated the hometown Chicago Blackhawks’ victory over his beloved Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals that ended two days before this show. This gig featured the Phish debut of new song – Show of Life.
Opening the show at 4pm is musical genius, Jamieson Trotter. He’s releasing his new album this night as well and will be playing piano with a string quartet.
Nate LaPointe Bandhits the stage at 6pm with new arrangements and live versions of tunes from the new album “Speaking Of It.”
The show Sunday is ALL AGES. Your cover includes a CD. There will be CD’s and vinyl records as well as new hip vintage-style t-shirts and poster prints for sale.
“We’re super excited to release this record on vinyl.”
All basic tracks were recorded live to 2″ tape, engineered by none other than wiz-kid, Mr. John Baffa, and then mastered at legendary Capitol Records! We also invited soul/r&b legend Bobby Womack‘s horn section to play on the recording and there’s no better way to hear them tear it up than on your turntable.
Press release:
Hollywood, CA [February 18, 2010] – The much anticipated second album from Los Angeles based Americana Rock ensemble, Nate LaPointe Band (NLB), SPEAKING OF IT, is set to drop in April of 2010. With the addition of the female vocal stylings of Cece Sherman added to the group and the amazing horn work from the long time horn section of legendary Bobby Womack, NLB’s sophomore release will be the album to watch in 2010.
Nate LaPointe, who splits his musical time between LA’s most well known Grateful Dead tribute band, CUBENSIS, occasional gigs with Bobby Womack and NLB, has taken music back to it’s roots by recording this album live on 2” analog tape. While certainly it will be available on MP3 and CD, LaPointe is also making SPEAKING OF IT available on a limited run of 12” vinyl records. “I wanted to record the music the way it’s supposed to be heard. Live and analog, like it used to be,” said LaPointe. “Having the (Bobby) Womack Band boys on horns gives the album an amazing depth of sound.”
The NLB, after taking a 5 year break between albums, has produced a 10 track mix of dark electric jams, playful “front-porch acoustic” numbers, bluesy rockers and covers of Kenny Rogers “Just Dropped In” and Paul Simon’s “Hearts and Bones” all highlighted by the amazing guitar work of LaPointe. The horn section accompaniment from Bobby Womack’s horn section on “Dragonfly” will quickly make that track a favorite. Sherman’s honey smooth vocals on the Ray Charles blues style “Cold-Hearted Man” will stir emotions the listener never knew they had.
SPEAKING OF IT was engineered by Lou Reed’s sound engineer, John Baffa at TV Tray Studios in Simi Valley, CA. The NLB is Nate LaPointe on guitar/vocals, David Johnson on keys, Ivan Johnson on acoustic upright bass, Chris Payne on drums and Cece Sherman on vocals. The CD release concert will be April 25th at the Bootleg Theatre in Los Angeles, CA.
When Brian (happycat!) asked me to blog a bit about the first two Phish shows for this site, I was all gung-ho about it right away – sounds like a total blast, right? But as I began to think about what I was really going to say, I gotta admit I was kinda apprehensive. I didn’t want to gush about Phish or simply give you guys the facts – we have Surrender to the Flow for that. And I definitely didn’t want to start analyzing the music and get all critical – we have 
show. It’s an open-air soccer field (or “pitch”, as you footballers would like me to say), home to the MLS’ Chicago Fire, with 28,000 seats and God knows how many kids cramming down onto the field. The venue staff had covered the expensive turf with huge aluminum pallets and let me tell you, it was HOT down on the field. But as the sun set and the band floated into “Boogie on Reggae Woman”, the smiles came out, the dancing shoes were tied and people seemed to start ignoring the heat or whatever else they felt like complaining about. 
Ghost” (Thanks Page). We got a really cool verison of "Light", with some interesting fake-outs and strong vocals and a really nice "Limb by Limb" with a sick afro beat vocal jam at the end. During the Limb jam, we wandered to the outskirts of the crowd and watched a girl with an LED hoop display some mad skills (video to come). 
designer for Phish – is in my book the 5th member of the band. I think a lot of phans would agree that the lights at a Phish show are almost as important as the music and can really take the experience to a whole other level (substances aside). Last year, he implemented three white circular panels that hovered above the band, bouncing multi-colored beams and spirals across and through them. The discs are still there on this tour, but talking to a lot of different people throughout the night, we had noticed some new bits of eye candy in his designs – new color combinations, and different sequences of movement to flow with the music. All in all, it was a great night. 
Toyota Park
Set 2
