Phish: Round Room (2002)

 In late 2002, Phish came roaring back from their first split with this sprawling album, which came as a surprise. Essentially culled from rehearsals, these recordings capture these brand new songs in a raw, loose, fresh, unpolished presentation.

While Round Room provided several future big guns such as “Pebbles & Marbles”, “Waves”, “Walls Of The Cave”, “Seven Below”, and the instant mega-classic, “46 Days”, this album (as with most of their post-Farmhouse releases) is chocked full of filler that very rarely gets played live - lots of pleasant, mid tempo numbers, some better than others. “All Of These Dreams” is a cool tune, and both of Mike Gordon’s contributions - “Mock Song” and the title track - are clever and fun (and criminally neglected on stage). “Friday” holds the distinction as the worst song to appear on a Phish album, and fortunately has long vanished from rotation (seriously, it’s so bad…cool end jam tho), and “Mexican Cousin”, while a fun party song, is pretty dumb and has not stood the test of time. “Anything But Me” is a nice enough song, but finds Phish at their most lukewarm, while “Thunderhead” mostly serves as an odd extended intro to the epic “Waves” (itself the springboard for many a mighty jam on stage). 

Given that these tracks are derived from rehearsal recordings (in The Barn) there is an intimacy that could never be replicated and it’s fun to hear these tunes - especially “46 Days”, one of their most versatile live songs - in such an embryonic state, with none of their eventual flourishes and no studio gloss. It’s almost like eavesdropping….and I love it. 

This album marked the dawn of the 2.0 era, which lasted precisely 20 months and two albums before the band split again. This was Phish’s “difficult” period, and there was a lot of darkness surrounding Phish (and its scene) at this time, lots of demons doing lots of damage. Fortunately they gave it another reat and, after almost five years, Phish returned mightily, and are still going strong today. 

***For those who really want to eavesdrop, several additional songs were recorded but never released or given much/any attention on stage such as “Discern” and “Spices” (both of which are brilliantly complex), “Birthday Boys” (which had already appeared on Oysterhead’s album), a version of Jon Fishman’s “Tomorrow’s Song” that far surpasses the one from Undermind, a couple of killer Mike Gordon tunes - “Couch Lady” and the criminally neglected “Gatekeeper” - as well as several others . These tracks basically make up an entire bonus album and while they do not exist on vinyl it is well worth seeking these tracks out.