Phish - Tweezer Reprise

I could try to explain Tweezer Reprise (aka Tweprise), but I think it's easier to let the music speak for itself. A quick background: Tweezer is a Phish classic - a long, dark, jammy song. Usually, when they play Tweezer in a show, they'll later play Tweezer Reprise - usually in the encore - which brings the whole "jam" back together in a composed piece that's intense and explosive. On occasion, Phish has been known to not "finish" Tweezer, and instead play Tweezer Reprise a night later, or even a number of nights later, to "finish" the song.

In Hartford a few nights ago, they closed the show with Tweprise, but had an extra few minutes before curfew, so Trey simply announced that they had time to play the song again - to finish the Tweezer that they'd played in Pennsylvania earlier that week - and played it back to back. Awesome - it's hard to describe how intense this must have been:

But Phish wasn't done. See, they have a fanatical fan base, and they - "they" being both the band and the Phans - GET IT. Thus, Phish kept the streak going and opened the next night's show with Tweezer Reprise. I think this has actually happened a few times before (10/21/95, 11/9/95,) but certainly not when they closed with a double shot of it the night before. Of course, Phish continued the saga by closing the show with Tweezer Reprise also, despite not playing Tweezer that night (making it 4 times played in two nights).

I know that non-Phish-fans might think this is lame, but for a band who can play a 4 night run in a city without duplicating a single song, the fact that Phish picked up this Tweprise theme and ran with it is basically an inside joke between the band and their phanatical fanbase - which comprises most of the audience - and the crowd loves it.

I'll see the band Tuesday night at the former Great Woods, now "Comcast Center" in Mansfield, MA. My brother-in-law was lucky enough to get 3rd row center tickets in the Phish ticket lottery, so we are insanely pumped for this show.

-KD