Phish’s first foray outside its New England homebase is chronicled on “Colorado ’88,” a three-disc live set due tomorrow (Oct. 31) exclusively via the band’s Dry Goods mail-order service. A digital edition with five bonus tracks is also available from LivePhish.com.
According to lore, Phish booked a Colorado tour in July 1988 but arrived in the state to find the shows were no longer scheduled. The band was able to secure seven shows at bars in restaurants in the ski towns of Aspen and Telluride, which were recorded on analog cassettes.
As for the music, “Colorado ’88” documents epic workouts of tracks from the “Gamehendge” project such as “Icculus,” “Lizards,” “Wilson” and “The Sloth” and evergreen fan favorites such as “Mike’s Song” and “You Enjoy Myself,” as well as covers of the Talking Heads’ “Cities” and Traffic’s “Light Up or Leave Me Alone.”
“We took off across the country with turkey ham, cheese, and apple butter,” Phish bassist Mike Gordon recalls in a journal post on Phish’s Web site. “It was the middle of summer, and we were traveling in a windowless truck with only a foam mattress on the floor. We didn’t even stop at a rest area for 40 hours, so the truck got pretty disgusting.”
