Date:    Mon, 15 Dec 1997 18:47:27 -0800
From:    Martin Acaster 
Subject: Ghost Story #15 11/21/97 Set 2 A Diseased Ghost of Mr Palmer Drinking
         Week Peach Bathtub Gin

Hey There

many many thanks to Charlie Dirksen for the Hampton tapes.  Now that the
Fall Tour has come to a close I at least know how many Ghosts I need to
find.  Another shameless grovel for Ghosts from the fall. I need Worcester,
Cleveland, Rochester, and Albany.  I'm still looking for the 7/3 Ghost from
nurnberg this summer. But enough of all that.  The setlist crew indicated
there were teases of Spooky Guyute and Sparks in this Ghost before the AC/DC
Bag.  I hereby proclaim that I am Fucking Deaf.  I wouldn't know spooky if
it bit me in the ass so that is no wonder...I have a sneaking suspicion it
is that theme I hear in so many of the finest Phish jams...(6/24/95 mann
music center Bowie for example)  but I don't know for sure never having
heard it played by anyone anywhere as far as I know...BUT SPARKS and
GUYUTE....where....I don't hear them. But this is what I do hear.....

Ghost Story #14 Hampton Coliseum, Hampton VA 11/21/97 Set 2
A Diseased Ghost of Mr. Palmer Drinking  Week Peach Bathtub Gin

Mr Palmer was concerned with a thousand dollar question. Why the hell
couldn't Phish play some West Coast shows???? This Ghost was a second set
opener to the first night of a now epic stand at the Hampton Coliseum where
They tried to destroy the eastern half of America.  The Prologue is the
weakest of any of the Ghosts I've heard to date.  Obviously they were
eaaaaasing in to the second set.  There are no lyrical flubs (as is typical)
and the verse break is a Ghost like parody of its usual self. Either Page
was not plugged in or he was just not playing very hard.  The verse break is
carried by Fishman by default. There is nothing going on here...nothing at
all.  The first couple of GHOSTS!!! are insistent and squealing but the last
shows a nervous reticence.

The Ghost Story itself starts as a mellow mike and fish groove.  Mike
becomes a little more buoyant, and trey starts to scratch....the undead Mr.
Palmer clawing his way out of his shallow grave.  Slowly upward and out of
the ground. Around the 5 minute mark Page is slowly building a nice smooth
silky (like a freshly shaved axilla) trey scratch funk mike has pretty much
dropped out. He returns with the mellow gurgle of the mammoth lake magma
chamber...not quite ready to blow but something is starting to happen.
These foreshock harmonic tremors drop away leaving behind fishman's hihat
and a watery sigh from page.  The olaphian dogstar seed mother ship gives a
fly-by around the seven minute mark but it doesn't stay for long.  Mr.
Palmer is beamed aboard and they're off. First stop atlanta, a momentary
ring my bell funk that dissolves into the spacetaxi outro of the Atlanta
Ghost as the mothership heads down the runway. By about the 9 minute mark
this ponderous beast is off the ground and climbing.  It becomes a melodious
yet dissonant soaring groove (I'm guessing this is the spooky) by the ten
minute mark.  The clouds thicken. It becomes darker....more turbulent....Mr.
Palmer is clawing at the armrest on his seat in its upright and locked
position.  Warning sirens sound. Moans and wails from the olaphian crew.
the automated beverage dispenser drops from the ceiling.  "Could I get you a
drink sir?" ...y-y-yes p-p-puh-lease....a Bathtub gin....Mr. Palmer gets a
sip...maybe two.....then he's gulping....gulping for air that is....this was
all a dream...he's still here....the Bag....the AC/DC
Bag....aaaaaaaghhhh.....Mr. Palmer kicks and screams for six
minutes...finally the Bag is gone again....now he really is a Ghost.....an
angry Ghost trying to make a woman that he moves...a weekapaughian jam which
lasts for about a minute...a gear shift takes a downstroke into some honky
funk page keys and wahing trey...this drifts into a PYITE like rage...a turn
to the blues gets the Ghost back to Atlanta....more honky funk page over the
trey wahs.   Mr. palmer takes another sip of his gin served up by page....a
breakdown jam featuring Page around the 27 minute mark....the space taxi
returns swooping low over Atlanta....they climb out of the dive soaring,
turbulent, breaking through the clouds into a very Diseased trilling that
becomes a diseasereprise of swirling chaos and Mr. Palmer is gasping for
breath...he surrenders to the air....back through the clouds buffeted by
high winds....swooping down out of the clouds diseaseapaugh style....finally
some still air and the mothership is on space taxi glider mode...fish gets
very light...so light he is Hydrogen....icy drips of water run down mr.
Palmers back....a delicate no delay loop digitizing from trey at the 36
minute mark...gravity returns and Mr. Palmer feels its weight....heavier
heavier...until the ship lands on main street....phew it was all a
dream...sitting at a traffic light....just a Slave to the traffic light

total time (with AC/DC Bag) 40:29

who you gonna call

Marty