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About midway through 2010’s Halloween musical costume the band tackled the most adventurous song from Little Feat’s Waiting for Columbus album, “Day or Night.” 

The Bill Payne and Fran Tate-penned song made its first appearance on the aptly named The Last Record Album. And as the most likely demarcation point between Lowell George’s Americana and the Jazz Fusion that began to dominate the band’s sound as he lost control, “Day or Night” combines both with a heavy lean towards the latter.

Phish’s singular performance of the song stumbles at times through the doubled vocals of Trey and Page, while at more than one point Trey shows some of the difficulties of reproducing the twin guitar attack of Lowell and Paul Barrere. Yet when the song let’s loose after the last verse, it soars into a climbing, dissonant jazz segment led by Trey on guitar and Ian Hendrickson-Smith of Antibalas on tenor sax. In Phish’s performance, when the air in the room has been made so dense by the increasing intensity of the piece, it implodes on itself before one last gasp, a short revival and a final (composed) stalling out of the song.

Watch Day or Night on YouTube Phish, ”Day or Night” – 10/31/10, Atlantic City, NJ

(B. Payne, Tate)
© Naked Snake Music (ASCAP)

You can say what you want
People runnin', talkin', it's all going on up and down the street
Young girls selling their wares, no cares
Ah, history's left its mark, aha
Old folks that were able
Now can table it at their own expense
They wouldn't miss it, they don't care if it's day or night

Oh the city she makes
Sometimes your soul to feel floating just like a leaf in the wind
Street is stream so it carries you past your present schemes 'til there is no end
Left right in the alley
No one catches you but the gentle wind

There ain't no Jane, no Jill, no Sally to see you through
There ain't no Jane, no Jill, no Sally to see you through

So you do what you want
And pretend again that it's time to roam 'cause you can't go home
Maybe you'll find your way today,
But while you're at it you'll have some fun
And through tears of laughter
You know it's nothing until you find someone
You wouldn't miss it
You don't care if it's day or night