This week at Phish.Net, we're going to be counting down the twenty best shows of 1997, as decided by members of the Phish.Net team. We're almost there, but if you're just tuning in, you may want to start with the posts linked below. Now, without further ado, Shows 10-6 after the jump... [SP]

Previously:
Honorable Mentions
Shows 20-16
Shows 15-11

10. 7/2/97 Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Jeremy D. Goodwin)

The two summer Amsterdam shows are deep doses of pure ‘97 straight to the dome, birthing the “back of the worm” mythology and featuring two huge second sets and an assortment of first-set goodies. But the second night’s better half is the monster here, with an all-time “Stash” that peaks in an eight-plus minute jamlet propelled by Trey’s eloquent repetition of a gorgeously melodic figure on guitar. (I've at times become obsessed with that guitar phrase and tried, unsuccessfully, to locate it in another Phish jam. But a cousin to it closes the deeply enchanting Great Went “Wolfman’s Brother.”) From there, things wind into one of the two or three summer ‘97 “Llama”s that drop suddenly into deep space, going unfinished and seguing into Trey’s story about avoiding the giant worms in the Amsterdam canals, and a playful AF jam on Steve Miller’s “Swingtown” with words appropriate to the story. If a prominently placed "Wading" ever justified itself, I believe this set-closing version does, particularly because of how nicely it's segued into. A double encore (the band left the stage after "Free"), with only the third-ever encore version of "David Bowie," adds the punctuation mark.

Oh, and by the way. The show starts with the first-ever “Mike’s Song” opener. Yeah, there’s that. [Thanks to @FiddleHead for pointing out that 7/2/97 is not the first "Mike's Song" opener. I'll note that my original claim was not a typo—I've been walking around for 18 years thinking that 7/2/97 was the first-ever "Mike's Song" opener, and that 11/22 was the first on U.S. soil. How did this happen?] That notwithstanding, the first set doesn't have a jam to compete with the many great first-set jams of this year, which is the only sag on the show's rating. Arguably, this is compensated for by the mere fact of the opener...and a show-opening sequence of "Mike's," "Simple" and "Maze" is nothing to sneeze at, in any era.

After some debate, this show placed a very respectable 10 on our list, but I had it as a top-five. For me, it's somewhere near (if not necessarily quite at) the crowded pinnacle of Phish shows, where everything is just tied with everything else because it's all so good.

9. 7/22/97 Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC (Chris Glushko)

Back in 1997, there was no downloading of shows – no instant gratification. Unless you taped or had a connection directly to a taper, your wait to hear recent shows was often weeks if not months. During the second Europe tour of 1997, rumors started circulating in the U.S. that Phish was different. Yes, there was a fresh batch of new songs, but they were just a minor part of the change. Rather, the band was playing with a whole new approach. But hardly anyone except a lucky few had heard it. The U.S. tour opener in Virginia Beach gave us a glimpse into this new Phish, but it was only a glimpse.

The next night in Raleigh opened up with the most pedestrian of first sets until a storm of biblical proportions blew in during the middle of “Taste” – a storm so fierce that massive explosions from nearby lightning strikes are heard perfectly on the recordings. Then after a long rain delay came one of the single greatest second sets Phish ever assembled – a set that put the full potential of this "different" 1997 Phish on display with an assault rock, funk, soul, and two of the greatest segues in history. From the “Down with Disease” -> “Mike’s Song” to the “Mike’s Song” -> “Godzilla Stomping through Tokyo Jam” -> “Mike’s Song” (ok, I made that up, but it works) and the “Weekapaug” closer to the “Hood” encore, this set is sheer perfection. You may question Raleigh being ranked this high when it has only one great set. And if you do, you should stop questioning and play the second set one more time.

8. 11/19/97 Assembly Hall, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL (Phillip Zerbo)

Given the murderer’s row of shows that precede and follow it, Phish’s performance on 11/19/97 in Champaign, IL is almost easy to overlook, even in retrospect. All of its better known cousins from The Best Week of Phish Ever were officially released, as LivePhish 11 and Hampton/Winston-Salem ‘97. This brilliant show was oddly controversial even within our own supposedly “expert” ranks – one of our editors whiffed, leaving it off his top 20 entirely, while others had it ranked #2, or even #1. Settling in at a composite #8, let’s review the evidence. The first set contains no all-time jams, but it offers more than its fair share of “average-great.” “Julius” kicks off the affair, followed by the highlight of the set, a sixteen-minute “Bathtub Gin” that gets lost in the shuffle only because of the greatness that can be found in other ‘97 versions (see 7/21, 7/25, 8/17, 11/23). The segue to “Llama” seems botched at first, but still comes up Millhouse and turns lemons into lemonade. More than respectable versions of “Limb By Limb,” “Theme” and “Antelope” round out this very good – if not necessarily great – first set. Are there better first sets from 1997? You betcha.

There might not, however, be a better second set. The “Wolfman’s” gets the lion’s share of attention from this show, but first there is the not insignificant matter of the “2001”, a patient yet powerful affair that showcases a perfectly tuned sports car humming along in fourth gear for over sixteen minutes. The “Wolfman’s” is like a mini-suite of 1997 Phish jamming, crystallized in one blissful half hour. You want the funk? Machine-gun Trey? Dark, deep, dissonance? Balanced, ensemble playing with every band member making a distinctive mark on the jam? Sick segue to cap it all off? Check, check, check-mate! A fairly strong argument can be made that there is more jamming meat to this “Wolfman’s” in 29 minutes than there is in the significantly longer Worcester “Runaway Jim.” “Makisupa” adds a hefty dose of fun – stink kind. Had enough? The band sure had plenty more in the tank, with often overlooked yet no less awesome gems in the set-closing taste “Taste” and extended “Possum” encore. Add it all up, the second set and encore is 85 minutes of pure fire. Four song second set. All-timer jam. Goofy stoner fun. Bonus encore. No down-time. To be clear, the person who had this in the #1 slot was me – this show simply has it all.

7. 12/11/97 Rochester War Memorial, Rochester, NY (Dan Purcell)

More like “Rockester,” if you know what I’m saying. *points to guy in crowd* THIS GUY knows what I’m talking about.

In all seriousness, this show may seem like an obscure choice for a ranking this high, but please put it on and listen to it. It’s unrelenting, like a dialed-in batting lineup drilling gapper after gapper against a sweaty, overworked pitching staff. Take the second set, since as per tradition it’s the stronger set of the two: a massive “Drowned” (Larry King’s favorite second-set opener) that Phish somehow manages to segue into a cover they’d never played before. Don’t really know how they do stuff like that. Some people dislike “BBFCFM” but this seems to me terribly misguided. Part of why I love Phish is their willingness to be ugly and dumb (though never stupid) and alienating, to be weird for the sake of being weird. Why not be weird, if that’s what you want, and why wouldn’t you want to be weird at least every so often? The “Ghost” that follows previews the balls-to-the-wall heat of the 1998 versions we would grow to love (think Prague and Phoenix), before veering back into “Down with Disease,” which was played way back in the first set and, now that I mention it, is probably the highlight of the show. The second set ends with the finest “Johnny B. Goode” Phish ever played outside the city limits of Denver, Colorado.

"Maze" – 12/11/97 Rochester, NY

This show went relatively unnoticed at the time because of the relentless bombs the band had been dropping for the previous month, and in particular the great Detroit and Dayton shows from the previous weekend. The tapes for those two shows, and the tour-closing Albany joint two days after Rochester, circulated so widely and rapidly and in such great quality, and since these were excellent on their own merits they sucked most of the oxygen out of the room. Our voters believe that is an injustice that should be corrected. A “Waste” encore is admittedly kind of a kick in the stones, but by that point the crowd had gotten more than its money’s worth. This show did not sneak into its high position on our list; it rated highly for nearly all of our panel and earned its rank fair and square.

6. 11/21/97 Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA (Phillip Zerbo)

Inexplicably not cracking the top five for 1997 is 11/21/97, Friday night at the famed Hampton Coliseum. Plenty of shows have opened with a popular, unexpected first-time cover songs. Plenty of shows have opened with monster type-II jams. This “Emotional Rescue” gives you both – what band reinterprets a classic rock song as an exploratory jam vehicle, to open a big weekend? Our heroes, The Phish From Vermont. You want some more? Well here’s some more: follow up with a sizzling “Split Open and Melt.” We’re a solid half-hour into the first set before you can even think about heading to grab a beverage. By the time you’ve returned to your seat, we’re back in the high-energy groove with “Punch You In the Eye.” The set closes with a white-hot “Chalk Dust Torture” and a “Prince Caspian” in which even the song’s most strenuous dissenters can still find value, ditching the traditional closing chords in favor of a walk-off fade into delay-loop space. What a killer first set! Take a deep breath... you’re going to need it.

Easily earning Rookie of the Year song honors for Phish in 1997 was “Ghost.” Looking back, it’s still mind-boggling what this song accomplished, slotting version after version into the books of all-time Phish jams – 7/1, 7/3, 7/23, 11/17, 11/28 – in its debut year! Kicking off this four-song second set, the Hampton “Ghost” doesn’t quite qualify for that rarified air, but it still draws from that same well of improvisational greatness. Even at an extended fifteen minutes, this “Ghost” was still just setting the table for the show’s crown jewel, “AC/DC Bag.” This psychedelic tasting menu of ‘97 Phish jamming styles gives you a little bit of everything – funk, ambient space, blister-forming head-banging rock-and-roll. The thing that still blows me away all these years later is the ease and seeming effortlessness in which all these ideas were juggled, like switching channels between the peaks of five different thrillers in rapid succession, always somehow hitting the peak.

“Slave to the Traffic Light” offered the perfect landing strip from “Bag’s” dizzying heights before ascending in a majestic flight of its own, with the always rocking “Loving Cup” taking the set home. If one were to go looking for flaws in the show – and I suppose that’s what some of my colleagues did, for this gig to wind up sixth – I guess you could say that the “Loving Cup” closer and “Guyute” encore ran out of gas? I guess. Perceived imperfections aside, I’m still shaking my head in amazement at this brilliant performance. Ladies and gentlemen, delivering in the clutch, yet again… Phish!

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