Mike brings Pure Energy to Maine
Mike Gordon blew the lid off the State Theater last Thursday.
SET 1: Say Something > Pure Energy, Before You Gotta Go, Mull, Ooh I Like Your Loving, Crazy Sometimes, Jones, Sughn Never Sets
SET 2: Victim, Connected, Circling, You Sexy Thing, Haywire, Revolution of the Mind, Back in the Bubble
ENCORE: Carini
Mike Gordon, the bassist for the seminal improvisional rock group Phish, blessed Maine with the opening date of his side band this past Thursday. He had good reason to tour: He recently released an album full of (mostly) new material, Flying Games, much of it composed and recorded during the pandemic. Several of the songs on that album have already crept into the Phish canon, most notably Mull, which has seemed to rapidly become a favorite of his bandmates. Other songs on Flying Games weren’t new, but were Gordon staples that had yet to be released in studio form, like Sughn Never Sets and Tropical Rocket.
Still, for the crowd of dedicated Phans hoping for an evening of debuts, they were not to be disappointed Thursday night. Of the sixteen songs played at the State Theatre, two had never been performed publicly before, and six had never been played by Mike Gordon with his band before - including a fan favorite for the encore.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The State Theatre is an intimate venue, and we’ve been fortunate to get quite a few good acts there over the years, including a number of other Phish side projects, like Ghosts of the Forest and numerous appearances by the Trey Anastasio Band. On Thursday, though, it was unfortunately not sold out - they didn’t even open up the balcony seating. While I’m sure that was disappointing for Mike, it didn’t detract from the evening at all for those of us who were wise enough to attend.
If it did disappoint Mike, he didn’t let it show at all, and neither did any of his bandmates. Indeed, he pointed out repeatedly how much he loved Portland and was happy to be in Maine, and that makes sense: it was no accident that he chose to kick off his tour here, just like it was no accident that it is concluding in Burlington. They also didn’t let it affect their energy, focus, or dedication at all. It was clear right from the get-go that the band was tight, prepared, and ready to play.
They started off the evening with Say Something, a favorite of Mike’s that Phish has only performed twice. They immediately dove into some nice jamming in that song, demonstrating that the evening wouldn’t simply be a vehicle to perform the new material. While it was a solid jam in that first song, they didn’t get too far before directly transitioning into the first debut of the night, Pure Energy, which also featured a hefty dose of improvisation. Those first two songs definitely got the crowd going, and showed that Mike’s band - far from being rusty despite three years off and the addition of new members - was absolutely ready to go for this tour.
Speaking of new members, the next song - a cover of Courtney Barnett’s ‘Before You Gotta Go’ - was clearly chosen to highlight the capabilities of the new keyboardist, Rachel Eckroth. She has a stunning voice that would be well-suited to cover any classic jazz standard, so it was a bit surprising to see the selection here - especially since I’d never heard of either the song or the artist. (I clearly wasn’t the only one; it was initially labeled as ‘Unknown’ on Phish.net).
After that Mike moved on to Mull, which could have easily been the title track for the new album. It’s easy to see why that particular song has been readily adopted by Phish: it’s a catchy tune with evocative imagery that fits quite nicely into the oeuvre of the Vermont quartet, but it fit equally well here. It also lends itself to improvisation, which is why it’s already made it to the jam charts for Phish, and it will clearly be used similarly by Mike in his own performances.
From the new material Mike went in a different direction, covering Rufus’ Ooh I Like Your Loving for the first time. It was surprising to me to discover that this was a first for Mike, since it seems like an oddly natural fit for him. He certainly lent his own talents to the song, to be sure, but the adaptation worked perfectly, and it was an excellent transition right out of Mull.
It also served as a springboard for one of my favorite Mike Gordon songs, Crazy Sometimes, one that has been criminally underperformed by Phish. This was one of several songs of the evening that Phish has only busted out a few times but that are regular features for Mike’s own band, and it’s one of the better ones. It’s in the vein of the more high-intensity tunes out of Phish, many of which were also written by Gordon. This is definitely a song that could be taken on a much longer journey, either by Phish or by Mike on his own, and certainly deserves to be one day.
The band quickly transitioned into the funky, Scott Murawski-led Jones, giving Mike a chance to take a break after the preceding trio of songs. In an apparently common pairing, the extended Jones was followed by Sughn Never Sets, one of Mike’s staples that was first recorded for Flying Games. These songs have been paired up by Mike on a number of other occasions, and the combination is fitting: they’re both funky, higher-energy songs that provided a perfect ending to the first set.
The next set opened with another Mike Gordon staple from his last studio album, OGOGO: Victim, another of Mike’s solo efforts that deserves to be played by Phish more often. It’s understandable that Phish doesn’t feature more of Mike’s songs in their rotation regularly: Not only do they have a large enough catalogue of their own, but Trey is particularly prolific, and they never have a shortage of new material. So, while there were other songs of Mike’s that I had hoped to catch last week, I was happy to get both Victim and Crazy Sometimes, since it seems unlikely I’ll ever see them live with Phish. Victim was an excellent choice to kick off the second set, as it set the tone right away for the remainder of the evening.
Just as he did in the first set, Mike followed the opener with one of the new songs from Flying Games, Connected. Like several of the other songs from Flying Games, Connected is highly lyrical and narrative, forming a nice contrast to some of Mike’s other, funkier, more abstract offerings. It’s also a more upbeat, traditional rock song. One of the themes of both the evening in Portland and the new album is showing off Mike Gordon’s versatility: While he doesn’t shy away from his more recognizable sound, it’s clear that he can do quite a bit more as well.
The next song, Circling, was a debut for Mike Gordon, but not one of his originals. Instead, it was a contribution from keyboardist-vocalist Rachel Eckroth, but it fit perfectly into a Mike Gordon show, with its slow, focused, haunting melody. This song could easily be a jam vehicle too, but it would likely be a more mellow, jazzy one. It would also be an excellent song to transition in to either Mike’s Song or 555, but that was not to be that evening: instead, Mike debuted another new cover, Hot Chocolate’s You Sexy Thing. As with the other new cover of the night, this is one that Mike adapted well and that could have been a staple for him for a while. It emerged slowly out of Circling, and it was clear that Mike enjoyed adding it to his repertoire.
After that it was time for Scott Murawski to take the lead again with Haywire, one of his originals that has found a good home with Mike Gordon’s band. Though Scott may have taken the lead, all of the band members made big contributions. At one point it seemed that they might be extending it, but instead they went right in to Revolution Of The Mind, another debut from Flying Games. Revolution of the Mind is an excellent song that manages to be both funky and upbeat at the same time, with nice undertones of dance music that give it quite a dose of energy. It was nicely placed here, moving the evening to a higher tempo and appropriately followed by another upbeat song from the new album, Back In The Bubble, to close out the second set.
The end of the second set proved to be a foreshadow of the encore, as Mike returned to the stage to close out the evening with perhaps the ultimate high-energy Phish song, the ever-popular Carini. The audience roared with approval the minute the opening chords were played, and it was the perfect choice to end the evening, sending us out into the night with a bang rather than a whimper.
Heading into this show, I didn’t know what to expect. While I’ve quite liked some of Mike’s solo songs, I haven’t always enjoyed all of them, so I’d never gone to see him live before. I got the tickets for the tour kick-off even before the new album was released, but once Flying Games was out I quite enjoyed it, and I increasingly began to look forward to the show. I was rewarded with a night full of firsts, not just the new material but new band members and new covers as well. It was an excellent opportunity to see what a talented musician Mike Gordon is in his own right, not just as a member of Phish, and I appreciate that he chose Portland as the kick-off before heading south to New York City. It’s clear that, after a three-year hiatus, he’s happy to be out on the road on his own again. Hopefully he brings the energy from this tour - along with, perhaps, a few of the songs - to the stage once Phish returns to the road for their summer tour on July 11.
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