oh kee pah

Furthur played the first of two shows at the Nokia last night and the big story was Bob Weir’s performance. Bobby – who uses a teleprompter – struggled mightily with the lyrics in a particularly horrid Brown Eyed Women, El Paso sequence. Weir couldn’t get past the first verse of El Paso and after futzing around for a while announced he was going to start over. The second take on the lyrics was just as rough as the first.

photo courtesy of justin wendt

If Phish comes out and continues to kill it, playing their standards with extra awesomeness and sprinkling in well-played bust outs and new covers, they will fill arenas this fall/winter and sheds again next summer. If they come out and resort back to their “standard” approach to shows, they could again see a quick and steady dropoff in interest and ticket sales.

But I suspect the band much prefers full houses and excited fans back in that “I can’t get enough of these guys” mode and will attack the second half with the same gusto in which they concluded the first. So let’s see some more of those previous Halloween covers resurrected and let’s keep those new covers coming. And while they may have to dig a little deeper to find bust outs now, there are plenty to be had. Skin It Back or Glide II anyone?