The PHREAK-NIK show.

"Freaknik" was a massive downtown street/music/party festival thrown by the city of Atlanta and tied up the entire downtown grid. At first, it proved quite a delay after the quick drive down from Knoxville, but of course ended up being so worth the extra effort my buddy Will and I had to use fighting crowds on the interstates, in the Underground, and on the MARTA to get to the show (not wasting time on that crazy story.)

We walked in just as the lights went down and found our seats in the first few rows up in the balcony. Any seat in the Fox is amazing with the starry skies "in" the ceiling (love the Big Dipper) and intimate feel. This show started phast and phurious with Phunky Bitch and we knew we were in for a great night. Highlights of this great set were the surprise punch of Peaches, a spacey Stash, Down with Disease really starting to come into its own jammed-out potential, and Merl Saunders joining for a sweet Caravan and ripping High-Heel Sneakers. Being big fans of Legion of Mary (Merl played keyboards in this 70's fusion/funk/blues/rock outfit with Jerry Garcia on lead guitar) we knew this one, and with the solid PHiSH music leading up to this old school funk rave-up, the first set was powerful!

Set II was off the charts PHiSHy phun! Wilson>Antelope was a great pairing of a punkish anthem with a spacey jam dug deep from the early annals of PHiSH music. WILSON's angst and anarchy had the band and crowd pogoing and simultaneously thumbing their noses at the tyrannical ruler of Prussia and then it changed gears and slipped right into that spacey funk of Antelope with its perfect combination of groove and rock. A raucous Sample (that song was so awesome in its infancy--not that I don't dig it now) led into a smoking Sparkle (love that bluegrass on speed!) a super tight mid-90's Hood and the good-old Barbershop Quartet style Ginseng Sullivan. We could hear them "just less than crystal clear" up in the balcony which still gave that small show pheeling. The only thing missing that night was the Big Ball Jam. When YEM started I thought, "wow, now that was a great second set." The Colonel coming out and joining in the jam on YEM was really just icing on the cake at the end of the smoking 2nd set of music but it was obvious that he had to contribute somehow. Even still, everybody was going nuts about now and still looking back, to me, Who By Fire seemed more like Encore 1, Golgi like Encore 2, and Free Bird, like the bonus Encore 3.

Great night at the Phabulous Phox!