Recorded January 19, 2019, at Revolution Hall, Portland, OR
Cover art by Daniel Murphy, based on photograph by Ashley Travis

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From Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson:

This recording is cut down from a much larger show, a rare “evening with Fruit Bats”—no opener, two sets—that ran a little over two hours. Which was really long for me. How does Phish pull it off every night?

Revolution Hall is one of my favorite venues. It’s a nice theater with comfy seats, which is plush but also leads to people sitting down. I mean, a seated audience is kinda classy in a lot of ways, but I’m always looking for that extra rush of energy as the songs ramp up. At one point, you can hear me (gently) implore folks to stand up (!!). But as it was a long evening—and it being Portland, the beer selection was dank and flowing—naturally the audience got rowdier (and on their feet) as the night progressed, which you can clearly hear in the later points of this recording.

This was the last night of a short tour of the Pacific Northwest in January 2019, so in it you hear some of the earliest live versions of songs off of Gold Past Life which didn’t come out until a few months later. It also includes the only live version of “The Banishment Song” ever, plus a couple of rarely played cuts off of Spelled in Bones.

The band lineup was really special here, an expanded 7-piece lineup that included my stellar frequent co-conspirators Josh Mease (guitar), David Dawda (bass), Josh Adams (drums), and Frank LoCrasto (keys), plus extra special sauce provided by the members of the great Pure Bathing Culture: Sarah Versprille, taking the harmony vocals to a heavenly level (and playing Mellotron), and Daniel Hindman, giving the whole show a delicious gauzy Fender Strat flavor. I’m really happy that our excellent front-of-house engineer Aly Carlisle-Steinberg thought to hit record that evening.