Phish - “The Divided Sky” (1994/06/18 - UIC Pavilion, Chicago)
Incredible! As one blogger noted a few years back, “This song is one of Trey’s favorite moments from Phish, and one of his most expressive moments as a guitarist in my opinion. The last few minutes he just pours his soul out through his guitar.”
I would have to concur with that statement. Give this a listen; you’ll be glad you did. Here’s what Trey had to say about this jam in a 2004 interview with Charlie Rose:
“We were at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. And we were playing “Divided Sky,” and we got down to this quiet part where it gets silent. And we were getting quieter and quieter, and then became silence. And I had my eyes closed, and I could feel the crowd, and I started to — because improvising is, you’re trying to translate the — what’s out there already, greater pattern of things. And sometimes it feels like it’s coming through the hole, and you couldn’t play a wrong note if you tried; you’re just floating.
And at that moment, you are in the middle of it, and I started to see those colors, like I’m not kidding, floating around there, and I realized that I could almost — it was silent, but I could see what we were translating. And as soon as I could see them, I started improvising, but I didn’t play anything. I did everything in the sense of improvisation, except for the actual notes, and as soon as I did it, the whole place erupted. It was like, “whoa,” and just tears started rolling down my face, and it was at that moment that I knew that it was truly bigger than me. It. You know what I mean? There were probably a lot of moments like that, but those two just come to mind. It was amazing.”
- Trey Anastasio to Charlie Rose (2004)
Pure light!
