Send us Fan Mail

Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Before we get started with today’s episode, I just want to remind everyone that if you enjoy the podcast, you can show your support by leaving a rating and review of it wherever you get your podcasts. You can also visit www.buymeacoffee.com/attendancebias and donate anything you can to keep the podcast going. Now, onto today’s episode:

Today’s guest, Shoheen Owhady, is the keyboard player for Uncle Ebeneezer, a Phish cover band based out of New Jersey, AND the keyboard player for The Dude of Life Band. And it just so happens that today’s show we discussed: July 3, 1995 at Sugarbush Mountain in Vermont, is Page’s show. Between Strange Design, Loving Cup, A Day in the Life, and monster solos in The Squirming Coil, Possum, and David Bowie, this is one that anyone interested in Phish keyboards should pay extra close attention. 

Then, just as important as the music, is the context. On Attendance Bias, we talk about different eras and milestones that certain shows represent. There’s a pretty strong argument that this show on the mountain was the end of an era. It was the last show the band would play before the death of Jerry Garcia, and we all know how that would affect the Phish scene started just a few months later in the fall of 1995. It was also the last Phish show to be played in their home state of Vermont until 1997, and the last major show to be played there until the Coventry festival in 2004. As we discuss, the end of an era.

But in between that is all the passion for the music. Phish played Sugarbush the previous year in the summer of 1994–a show immortalized as a highly tradeable tape and released as one of the original Live Phish albums. The band decided to double-down for 1995 and play two nights, complete with on-site camping. When you hear Shoheen describe the crowd and hear his story of how he got in, it’s no wonder that the band would produce their own festival, The Clifford Ball, the following year.

There’s so much more, though. Let’s join Shoheen to discuss the evolution of Simple, the Sigma Oasis album, and how a moose ends up on stage on July 3, 1995 at Sugarbush Mountain.

Support the show