Phish - The Victor Disc (2002)

'The Victor Disc' was recorded by Phish at an impromptu jam session in New York City the night before the band's December 2002 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. It came between the release of 'Round Room' and Phish's return to the stage on New Year's Eve 2002 after a two-and-a-half year break, and provides an intimate glimpse of the band in a stripped down, unpolished studio setting. The story goes that while the band were in New York to appear on The Late Show With David Letterman, Anastasio and McConnell popped into a downtown recording studio sometime after midnight, decided to play, and phoned Fishman and Gordon back at the hotel to ask them to come down and join in. Phish then taped an hour and a half of spontaneous playing, decided on a title (naming it after the engineer who oversaw the session), and came up with a cover idea. The album has never been officially released, but parts of it soon leaked on the internet, and it's circulated widely among fans ever since. Later versions often include four additional tracks that appear to be part of the raw session recordings, from which the album tracks were extracted, and this post includes all 10 of those tracks. As much as I love the band, even I wouldn't say that this is among their best work, but for Phish fans it's a must hear, as it shows them in their favourite environment, improvising in a relaxed atmosphere and just having fun.

Track listing

01 Lazy And Red
02 Den Of Iniquity
03 Bubble Wrap
04 Sky Train Wand
05 Blue Over Yellow
06 Guantanamo Strut
07 Victor Jam Session
08 35 Minute Jam
09 Heartache
10 Last Victor Jam