(upbeat music) When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like Aloe or Allbirds, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand and great marketing, but an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling and for shoppers buying simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does online business better than Shopify. It's home of shop pay, the number one checkout in the world. You can use it to boost conversions up to 50%, meaning way less hearts going abandoned and way more sales going through to checkout. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/income, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com/income to upgrade your selling today. That's shopify.com/income. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Under the Scales." Last November, 2018 marked two years of "Under the Scales." And today's episode marks the end of season two. So as we bring season two to a close, I want to thank all my awesome guests that we've had on this past year and all the fantastic folks at OSIRIS that make it so fun to podcast. Of course, I also need to thank Fish for continuing to be the world's best band and the world's best band has the world's best fans. And in season three, I'm going to focus on some fans who are doing some amazing things, as well as hopefully speaking more to the band itself. I think Mike is lined up for a February episode if all goes well, and Fish never says no, but we just haven't gotten it going yet. Is 2019 also going to have the first "Under the Scales" appearance of Paige McConnell? Maybe I get a hat trick or even all four in 2019. Who knows? In any case, biggest thanks obviously go to you, the listener, for making "Under the Scales" the most listened to Fish podcast. So thank you. And in season three, I also hope to implement some changes to make it better sounding and possibly some other interesting changes we're contemplating. The podcast will come out faster on YouTube as well after release, search for "Under the Scales" or OSIRIS Media on YouTube. We're on Spotify too, if you want to check us out there. I'm excited to bring back Cush as a sponsor for the whole OSIRIS network. So Cushco Holdings, back in February, sponsored an episode of "Under the Scales." Now they're expanding into the OSIRIS family of podcasts and I'm extremely grateful to them. I'm also a customer and chances are that you are too. And if you're not, you probably soon will be. Have you seen the amazing containers that cannabis and hemp products come in these days? I'm talking about those amazing joint tubes you can carry around in your pocket or the cool containers that edible products are in now. There's a revolution in packaging happening around the cannabis industry. In fact, it's already happened. Our sponsor Cushco is largely responsible for incredible innovations that are so useful. We take them for granted. But these packages have to comply with strict state guidelines and be child proof and all that. Cush is on top of it. In fact, those of you interested in investing in the cannabis way of sweeping our country have to look at Cush. It's a publicly traded company with a symbol KSHB for Cush bottles. They've sold over a billion units since they founded in 2010. At one point, medical marijuana came in those boring orange drug bottles with a white cap like other medicines. Not anymore. Cushco is the world leader in packaging and cool branding and solutions for many companies. So, when you walk into a dispensary and see an amazing variety of packaging that products come in, you can bet that Cushco is behind it. They also make gases, solvents, and vape products. They're everywhere. Just like fish audience, we're everywhere. Cushco supplies over 5,000 dispensaries in the US alone and they're in Canada too and have an office in China. Cushco is a cool company doing great things and they're our friends, so now they're your friends too. Go to cushco.com/podcast to learn more. Thanks, Cushco. This episode of Under the Scales is also brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning platform with over 20,000 classes in business, design, technology, and more. You can take classes in music production and composition, video editing, photography, creative writing. You name it, they've got it. So, whether you're trying to deepen your professional skill set or just explore a new passion, Skillshare is there to keep you learning and thriving. So, I'm a user of Skillshare. I've now taken seven full courses. I really like Skillshare and it's becoming the way I spend free time on the web now. I've learned how to set up a Kickstarter campaign. I've picked up and dusted off my guitar. In fact, maybe I'll just tell you about that. It's more exciting to talk about than the other stuff I've been learning. I mean, I love it. It's stuff like creative writing and business technology, but the guitar stuff on Skillshare is so cool. So, go to Skillshare and type in guitar lessons and you'll be overwhelmed. So, you have to narrow it down, acoustic only, electric, finger picking. The thing that's always puzzled me being a piano player is learning scales and notes on the guitar. It's a whole new multi-dimensional puzzle. Basically, how to decode the fretboard. Well, there's something called the caged system. C-A-G-E-D. You learn how to make those five chord shapes with your hand and those can be moved anywhere on the guitar and it suddenly unlocks the mystery. Skillshare has a great course on that that I'm in right now. It actually has several. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer only for my listeners. Get two months of Skillshare for just 99 cents. That's right. Skillshare is offering under the scales listeners two months of unlimited access to 24,000 classes for just 99 cents. To sign up, go to skillshare.com/scales. Again, that's skillshare.com/scales to start your two months now. Thanks, Skillshare. And then last, did you know that under the scales is a proud member of the OSIRIS family of music and culture podcasts? Of course you did. If you like under the scales, check out other podcasts at OSIRISPOD.com. Here we go into the podcast. Hello and welcome to under the scales. We are in Princeton, as usual. And I'm very lucky to have a guest who went out of his way to come here. And I really appreciate it. Hello, Scott, how are you? Great, Tom, how are you? Doing great and saying Scott on my podcast isn't very telling these days because it turns out I think you're the fifth Scott. Yeah, I don't know. Every five or 10 podcasts, there's a Scott coming on here. So I think I will say your last name. Scott Marx is here and you guys possibly know him as Biz Archive on the internet. Biz Archive has rapidly turned into not only a live tweeting during shows, source of information, but also just a source of information about fish. How'd you get into that, Scott? In '05 or '06 after fish had broken up, I started getting all the shows in circulation on my computer and I had marked up the, I guess the second fish companion with all these corrections. And then I sent an email to Mockingbird before I got involved with them and I went to Ellis Goddard and then went to Charlie Dirks and then in 2009 I started working with them and in charge of all the cellist updates on the site. And so people will send submissions to us either by email or by Twitter. They hear teases of like "oye como va" in a song and then I'll go listen to it and then I'll add if it's there or I, isn't I won't. And so I started. Are you on the famous setlist committee? Yes. Okay, setlist committee is like this secret tribunal that analyzes people's claims. It's like they're in the fish stone cutters club. (laughing) So it's like, is this, what's it called, a segue? Is this a legit segue or did they stop and you can't call it a segue? It's like all this science that goes into the crafting of setlist and then whether or not there legitimately was a tease is stuff that's debated and to this day there's disagreements that go back way back into history. Yeah, we have a big elf in the room is probably fire on the mountain. 1231.95 drowned at the end where it's alleged that there's a fire on the mountain tease from the Grateful Dead. Who's asserting that? Charlie Dirksen is a big supporter of that and-- Hey Charlie. Hey Charlie. And other people. You among either deaf as we like to, as Charlie likes to say it. I don't call any of you deaf, so that's not on me. (laughing) But you don't hear it either. He gave me the timing once and then I lost it. So-- But isn't that the type of thing that like you setlist committee people need to iron out? I always want the timing when I'm getting the submission. Okay. And if I were running the setlist file back in 1995 and I had to come across my way, I don't know if I would've added it. (laughing) Well anyway, you guys know it alone and I'm sure I'm gonna take heat from Charlie about this later on about the fire on the mountain. Sure. So that's the inner workings of the setlist committee. Yeah, I mean, we wouldn't have this if it wasn't for everybody that got involved and submitted stuff. So, I mean, it's really appreciated. It's a community effort. And so, everyone does a great job getting involved. Well, you guys all do a great job of compiling it and I'm glad there's people that think about that sort of thing. So, I can later go and dial it up on the, dial up a show on the internet and have accurate data there. So, it's a good service you guys are doing. So, I decided, well, for a long time I've wanted Scott to be on under the scales and he graciously accepted without any thought as to what we were gonna do. But I wanted to tap into his brain and his analytics and all that stuff and figure it out some cool thing to do. And as New Year just draws closer, this episode will probably come out on December 17th. We decided that we wanted to talk about the New Year's shows and we're gonna limit ourselves to 3.0 New Year's shows. So, from 2009 onwards, basically we call it the New Year's gag, what actually happens on New Year's Eve. And that's accompanying the balloon drop. Fish will often do an incredible something else and that's the only real way you can describe it. And so, I wanted Scott to rank his top five and we just talk about those. Maybe do a countdown to the top five. Scott suggested why don't we each rank our top three so that we can both be involved in the discussion. And so, when we did that, one of them overlapped. So, we do have our top five figured out, which is interesting. That left a few off the list three, in fact, that we're gonna call honorable mentions. All right, so, the first one, Scott, if you recall. - It was actually last year's Soul Planet. We as fish fans are very lucky to have David Gallo behind the scenes on a lot of these New Year's gags. Maybe you should get them on for a future under the scales. - I think I need to. Yeah, he's definitely a good at some of the visual stuff that happens at these gags. Especially this one, the Soul Planet one, where an entire pirate ship appeared in the middle of Madison Square Garden. - Yeah, we got emails earlier in the day that to come into the venue and to sit your seat of this kind of a play on Martian Monster with your trip is short with your journey and about to blast off and whatnot. Every single seat in the venue had this little wristband with I think like 2017, 2018 on it. And so we knew something was gonna go on. Maybe like one of those, I think Taylor Swift does where all the wristbands light up and I'm moving my arms around trying to explain this and you can't see it, but I'm getting excited talking about this. - But basically they had each wristband, I guess was like coded to its location and some computer could turn on-- - Because fish fans always stay in their local-- - Oh, right. - For their seats. But for whatever reason, some computer could turn on the wristbands and activate the embedded LED lights inside and it made for an amazing effect. - Yeah, they started being tested at the second step break and then Soul Planet starts up and you're expecting it to be a fish song and all of a sudden it's a, wait a minute, that's one of Trey's side show songs and then you have the curtain coming down and no idea what's going on. It turns out to be a sale for pirate ship and then you have like the Jolly Roger flag and cannon shooting stuff on each side of the stage and then you, they've done this a couple of times. Where the songs in the set kind of had a theme, like a song I heard the ocean sing, free moment dance where they're all in the water. - Yeah, fortunately there's no lacking of nautical references and fish. - But sadly setting sail that did not make an appearance with the sail from pirate ship. That one's kind of been buried for a while. - That one needs to stay buried. - Yes, let's move on just not to spend too much time. Anything more on that one? - I think we're good. - Okay, cool. And so the next one on the honorable mention list is No Men in No Men's Land and this was 2015. Scott, what did you think about that one? From what I remember this was if you look at the stage, you're standing on the floor looking at the stage, you actually had to turn around 180 degrees to the back of the venue to look at the guy this year. And it was like a giant hourglass that they projected stuff on. It was incredible. - When we walked in, there was a large black cone sticking out from the ceiling behind Chris Corot a soundboard in a tarped off area below. And this was when Madison Square Garden had the G.A. West and the G.A. East. So the G.A. West were all the people that were up front for the rail on the stage. The G.A. East kind of were further back and you couldn't get from one area to the other. So this is kind of a little gift for those fans that aren't lined up for several hours or as it used to be right now just with the wristbands to get in. And so the third set starts and the band's playing with the cone and all of a sudden the cone kind of descends and turns into an hourglass with the fish playing in the bottom half. And the first thing I thought of was Super Ball with the storage shed. - Oh, right. - Where you don't really see the band very clearly. - And same thing with Magnet Ball as well where they're playing behind that screen. - Yes. - So it was kind of a play on those. And so you had images on the top half of the hourglass and the band's playing in the bottom half. And I remember like dogs morphing into different animals and strange graphics, very incredible stuff. Clouds mainly and skyscapes, but it was beautiful. - Yeah, really, really beautiful graphics. Go check that out on YouTube 'cause there's a lot of video of that 'cause it was extremely visual plus the amazing treatment from the band of that song in No Man's Land. - This was the first one that, I mean, it'd come out I think in July of 2015, well before it's a big boat release. And this is the first one that they started to explore upon jamming it out into the quote unquote type two jam where it goes out of the normal confines of the song. And it kind of foreshowed what was in store. Now you, I think this year it was the most played song. And each one is 15, 20 minutes long. - Hold on a second, hold on a second. That was a biz archive fact right there that you just dropped. No Man in No Man's Land is the most played song of 2018. - It is, oh my God. What's the second just to see if you have it on the top of your top of your tongue? I love testing these fact guys. David Steinberg, Scott Marks. - Hell, I feel like it might be Chalk Duster, Fuego or Blaze On or something. - Oh wow, okay, I just failed my first part, Quiz. - No, not at all. We're moving from No Man's, are you ready to move? - I am. - Okay, our last honorable mention was Steam from 2011. Usually, I feel like when I go into one of these shows, I'm going in blind. I have no idea what's going on. And this one, I kind of felt like Steam was going to be the gag because they had posters with the band's name and smoke or steam and belt buckles with apparent manhole covers on them and you're walking down the street in New York, whatever, and you see Steam coming out of the street or out of the sidewalks and thinking, "Ah, all right, it could be Steam." And they always pay attention. All right, I do that analytical mind during the second separate to see what's going on. And there's nothing going on on the venue outside. The balloons that are hanging from the ceiling. It was kind of like a gag within a gag. You're looking at the stage and I was directly behind the floor facing the stage, so I wasn't super close, but there's like a kettle on stage. And so Trey's doing some sort of acting. He's trying to get the kettle out and there's steam that's coming out of it and then-- - Right, Trey wanted to have some tea or something on stage. And so, all of a sudden, the water was boiling and Steam started coming out and making the whistle from the kettle and Trey kind of realizing that this is not a good thing to have during a show and he didn't he kind of try to tamp it out in some way or do something? - Yeah, I think he tried to put it out and it didn't work. And then you're watching strange things happen with stuff being elevated, I think there was a guitar amp, a vacuum that were all kind of being lifted off the stage. And I want to say that maybe Paige's guitar as well. And so the song's going on and you have somebody on like one of those security barricades and they're dancing on the barricade and they're being lifted into the air. - Yeah, the barricade lifted up. There were people dancing kind of on that. - Yeah, and then you had these people that were lifted up from various points in the crowd. They're moving about and they had like these little backpacks with steam coming out of them. - Right. - And what happened with this gag is, which they do sometimes, the gag went into multiple songs. So you had Steam where it was going on and then during Dell disease after all the anxiety they came back out and I'm not quite sure how the elevating tied into steam outside of air rising but you had Trey and Mike on these like hydraulic lifts and they're going on the day up into the air. - Yeah, and so Scott painted a nice picture of what was happening. But I think the audience members rising up struck a chord in me. First of all, I was very happy and proud they were using the song Steam which the lyrics tell a story, sort of a dark story. There's a woman in a tower, she's a prisoner, someone kind of wants to, or falls in love with her, sees from the outside, watches her possibly get killed and then she becomes steam, her soul becomes steam. Meanwhile, his soul becomes steam as well. So it's sort of about people leaving their body and becoming steam and so it's like the metaphor for death is there in the song and now it's happening, we're seeing audience members being lifted up and I couldn't help go to that dark place. For some reason I kind of thought this might be a reaction to people close to the band dying and so I had sort of had that dark sort of feeling as well which contrasted very much with the year before New Year's which we're gonna get to. - Yeah, it seems that each New Year's Eve gag kind of takes on a life of its own whether it's deep thinking on this one or-- - Yeah, this one was deep. The one before that we were just talking about, no men was more just like a cool rock show with amazing visuals. - Yeah, I mean sometimes you'll have comedy sometimes you'll have just a general surprise of flashing back into history. - Yep, yep, yep. - Each one is unique and special in its own way. - Well speaking of comedy, let's go with no further ado into the top five. Now we're counting backwards, meaning this is the one of our list of five that we agree is the fifth best. - Now, these will vary based on user opinion so our fan opinion, so our top five might not agree with yours. - Before we present, which was number five, we're about to hear a jam. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Well, Scott, we were talking about, you know, how steam was kind of dark and ominous and I was hoping we were gonna lighten the mood but that jam was not light at all. (laughs) - You know, when I go to fish shows, I always wonder how do you put something as dark or evil as the case may be? Can you really use that for music? And I feel like this one kind of fits that bill. You have, and I can't remember the lights, but I would imagine that it was pretty dark. - I think Corota and the band like scaring people sometimes now, and I remember this past two or 20 years later in Albany got really dark and then almost sinister, I guess, and so. - So what night of the run did this particular song occur? - This was on December 30th, and if you haven't guessed it, it was the Carini, which can take a turn into the dark often. - I feel like a lot of the time it's a rocking jam and this one was kind of a polar opposite, where it slowed down a bit and just kind of, it's dark. - So people like you who are probably thinking forward to New Year's Eve, you see, people like me, I just take every show as a show and I don't think, "What does this mean for New Year's?" And I'm not looking at ticket stub art, I'm not doing any of that. I'm just like going to a fish show. I don't know if you know that about me. I know about you, though, from what you've said that you've been probably studying. And so when you hear something that's dark, you had no idea what was about to occur the next day. - No idea at all. - And how completely opposite side of the coin it was. - I think each song is kind of a piece of its own puzzle where you could have a dark Carini and then fall it up with light, that's light. - A light light. - So it works. One quick note here before we go into the actual New Year's gag on this. 1230 seems to be a very special day in fish history. - Fish lore, yeah, 1230 holds a special place. - And I'm not sure if it's just kind of the band being relaxed before the actual, maybe self-imposed stress for New Year's or whatnot. But if you look at 1993 and 1997 to the best shows that I could come up with in fish history. And then as I was doing some research for this podcast, a lot of my favorite jams fell on the 30th, which could be personal preference. But an honorable mention for the 30th for 2012 goes into Down Disease, which was also in the same set as that Carini, a little lighter. - But that also must mark a strange asterisk for you in New Year's analysis because Down With Disease normally has played on New Year's Eve. - Yeah, it does seem like it's a New Year's song. It's debut, if you will, back in '93 as a jam was on New Year's. So it's kind of been tied into New Year's quite a bit. - Wow, but this one, 2012 did not have Down With Disease. - Let me set the stage. Scott, you walk into Madison Square Garden, 1231, 2012. What do you say? - A lot of greens, Tom. - There was grass. - Yeah, there was like a pasture turf on the floor. And it was kind of like a big spring-like lawn nature party thing. - Yeah, we say garden party? - A garden party, if you will, a party in the garden, which is ironic since it was so cold, as it always is around New Year's. You had a giant chest set up and people playing croquet and I think also bad men in miniature golf, which I didn't actually see. - I think I saw some bikinis and bikinis. - Yeah, bikinis on a little riser behind the stage. - Yeah. - And even the pre-show music. - There were trees, plants. There was like, they really made the thing look like a park. - Yeah, and like even the pre-show music, if you're in there early and you stop for a second and you listen, stuff like spear in the sky and Saturday in the park and film me a buttercup, buttercup are all kind of tied into a theme. - Now this wasn't just second set. This was, this is how you start this right out the gate. So garden party was the first song played that night. - Let's talk a little bit about the history of that. So the song garden party, we had already said that the place looked like a garden party. They opened that night with garden party, which has some history of its own. - This was by an artist, Ricky Nelson, who had done Country Honk, which was a version of the Rolling Stones, Honky Tonk Woman and had booed off the stage. - Yeah, he got booed out during sort of like a festival. He wasn't the only musician, but he had been famous and had a bunch of songs. - And for whatever reason, the crowd reacted badly to him covering the stones. - Yeah, so he got booed off the stage and then wrote a song about it. (upbeat music) ♪ I went to a garden party ♪ ♪ To reminisce with my old friends ♪ ♪ Tanced to share old memories ♪ ♪ Player songs again ♪ ♪ To the garden party ♪ ♪ They all knew my name ♪ ♪ They didn't recognize me ♪ ♪ I didn't look the same ♪ ♪ But it's all right now ♪ ♪ I learned my lesson well ♪ ♪ To see you can't please everyone ♪ ♪ So you got to please yourself ♪ ♪ People came for miles around ♪ - Um, it's kind of used different. Different names for people there, like reference to the walrus instead of John Lennon and Mr. Hughes instead of George Harrison. - Was he saying that they helped boo him off the stage? - I think they were just there. - They were not okay. - What I particularly found interesting though, and you'll forgive me, I'm not gonna sing this. I'll leave that to the professionals in the podcast. But there's a line that said, but it's all right now, I've learned my lesson well, you see you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself. It's just all kind of tied in pretty nicely with the band and the crowd and the venue. - So second, so step break occurs. Then second set, they come out with incredible stuff. - Yeah, I mean, so they, so you have the ramps in the front of the stage in addition to all this garden stuff. A trip agent might come out before the third set in a golf cart, and they're hitting these golf balls in the crowd, and they're golf clubs. - They say like these spongy golf balls. - And then fish comes out, stressed in the donut pants and Argyle vest in the golf hat. So they do party time and then come. - Of course, the golf cart. - Golf carts, and you had carts coming up the ramp and staying there doing the song, and you know, Trey's getting really into me. He's raising his golf club above his head. I guess the gag was a song that had nothing to do with golf. Chalked us torture. And you literally had the runaway golf cart marathon coming to life at this point. You had the cards there coming up and down, the ramps and people hanging out and dancing on the stage. - The states got filled with people. - Yeah. - And even people that were, what's the correct term these days, height challenged? - We could do vertically challenged. - There's a vertically challenged gentleman or two that I noticed driving a very mini golf cart. - Yes, there's all kinds of golf carts cruising up and down, like chasing each other. - We try to be politically correct on the scales. - Of course, on the scales. - You know, emanates correctness. - So you have all legs on the balloon drop, and then tweeze a reprise where you had backup singers and a main singer, a carry, menalacos to help out. And I'd be hard pressed to find another tweeze a reprise where you've had guests that appeared on stage and singers. And then just like with Soul Plan earlier, you had songs that tied into golf for the rest of the set. Sand and wedge. - Sand wedge. - Sand wedge, fly like an eagle. - Two under par? - Birdies, what? - Birdies one under. - Birdies one eagles two I think. - Okay. - No, no, I'm still set here. Wilson golf ball. - Yeah, golf ball. - And once they had, like, there was a little thing on the video screen where like a Wilson just shattered. Like someone's hidden golf ball into it. Long boy and driver in the encore. - Yeah, driver being the type of golf ball, of course. And the, again after like one or two songs that the people, the crowd are figuring, all right, I get what's going on here. - Golf themed song. - What made it a little more special is going into that night. I'm gonna drop another fact on you guys. There was only one new song played by Fish the entire year and it was the gambler at Bonnaroo with Kenny Rogers. And so some years you have a lot of new songs that come out from Halloween or just, you know, then debuting stuff. And this is kind of quiet. And then all of a sudden on New Year's Eve of all nights you have Garden Party fly like an eagle and you get the encore is Iron Man. They, I think they had jammed on it years ago. - Well, the riff can come out here and there and just. - Right. - But the entire song this time. Page comes out and he's wearing a cap and said, "Do you know who I am?" I'm intoxicated before saying I'm Iron Man. That's how they closed the show. Like a badass heavy metal song. - Beautiful. - To really get the theme sent home that night. - There it is. (upbeat music) (audience cheering) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) - All right, Scott. From our fifth favorite 3.0 New Year's Eve to our fourth favorite. Anything you want to say about this jam before we hit it or just hit it? - Let's hit it. - All right. (upbeat music) - Are you tired of being tired? Are you ready to get eight hours of unbroken sleep? If you answered yes to either of those questions today's sponsor may be able to help. 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Sleep sound knowing that they stand behind their products. Sunset Lake CBD, farmer-owned Vermont, grown. - Hi, this is Henry K. Host to the number one music history podcast, Rootsland. Come with me on a journey to Kingston Jamaica where we explore the world of reggae music and the untold stories of some of the genre's greatest legends from the ghettos and tenement yards where the music was born to the island's iconic recording studios. We are so excited to team up with Osiris Media, the leading storyteller in music. Because as you'll hear, sometimes the story is the best song. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Wow, that is uplifting and upbeat and I think everyone can kind of tell what song is about to reappear there. - Yeah, we went from dark with the Carini to a much lighter, 12, 29, 2013, down disease. What makes this a little more special for me is when you have a disease that's jammed out for several minutes and then it returns home to that end and it's an actual quote unquote finished disease. So this one is another down with disease that doesn't appear at New Year's. Not on New Year's, not on the 30th. I do give Arnold Bill mention to the Chalkas torture on 30th. We've been very lucky in 3.0 to have Chalkas tortures that have jammed themselves considerably going to that extended Type 2 domain. - All right, let's move into what the gag is. - So this time you walked into the venue and there was nothing, nothing at all. You just tied your balloons. - And unlike Halloween's, there's no playbill. - No playbillies. - You just get whatever you want to do. - Whatever the band wants to do, they do. - So the first separate comes around and you have video screens in the center of the garden and they're showing a little video of all the prior New Year's gags being thrown into a truck and fishmans getting behind the wheel and is apparently driving it. We'll put that in quotation marks. - And this is their famous jump truck. - And then it gets cut off by an overpass. - Oh yeah, he lost the top of the truck. - He goes under a bridge that's too low and the truck top gets chopped off. - The video ends with the truck appearing in Madison's cigar and right where the video leaves off and the truck moves to the center of the floor. - Yeah, this is another one of those where the people who aren't right up front get treated to a little bit of a special treat. - Yeah, you had the truck forming a makeshift stage in the center of the garden. - So now, a little history. That truck, Jump, John Ernest Michael Page became one of their, you know, one of their company's names. Fish has companies associated with it. And Jump was the owner, so to speak, of this truck. And it was one of their steps upward as a young band from, they went from cars, driving cars and driving themselves to gigs to a van. And I think the Jump truck was shortly after the van. - Yeah, and turn back the clock and you have hockey stick mic stands right out of UVM from 1983. - Slade Hall. - Yep, and that's what you're getting. I think this is the only gag where it didn't take place in set three. It was going on in set two. Not only do you have an old school stage set up, I think that the newest song there was "Glide". So it's "Glide, Lama", "Forbens, Mockingbird", "Fuck Your Face", "Ribidiculous, Lizard, Split in a Melt". Songs that people were chasing for a while, like "iculous" and "The Lizards" and "Forbens, Mockingbird", and you're getting this old school set almost to the newest songs, like, what, 20 years old at that point? ♪♪ - Yes, sir, 30 years later, he's still flying around up there. Hasn't landed yet. ♪♪ The famous Mockingbird, there he goes, right now. ♪♪ - This one was special to me as well. Very, I mean, super special to me, because, you know, having seen fish way back then, and I didn't see the hockey sticks as Mike stands, but the amps, guitars, and possibly even drumming stuff that fish was using, as closely as they could, either emulated or was the actual original equipment that they used back then. - Well, I think Paige was sitting on milk crates as well, so really a broken down set, and very small set on top of a truck, and it was beautiful. It was, like, it just, it was so nostalgic. - And it worked great. There was a separate light rig set in the middle of the venue, too. - Oh, yeah. - And it was just the old lights, you know, the old style lights. - It was really special. And while this one makes number four on our list, there are people that you'll talk to that will have this right the top. - Oh, I agree. - I mean, this school and the cellist and just the whole everything about it. - Just the fact that it was celebrating their 30th birthday or close to it, and it was, like, a real look back, nostalgically, and even bringing their old truck, which was kind of interesting. - The last thing I have about this is that, at the end of the first set, they took a play on their Colorado '88 album. They brought out a cake. What's in that original picture? Is that? - I think the trailer and page are walking one of pages, like Fender Roads across the street, and it was in Old Town Boulder or something. - Yeah, Boulder or Telluride. - Yeah. - And so they came out and they had cake and they were carving up the cake. And I think people in the first row or two got, like, piece of cake. - And the last thing, when the show ended, some digital wizard showed what the band would look like in the 30 years for, like, their 60th anniversary. And so you had a picture, like, on the video screen where the band drastically aged. Not a gag, per se, in terms of crazy stuff going on, but something really special for people that have been seeing the band for years and remembered where they came from or saw pictures where they came from, whether you witnessed it or you just heard about it. - Yeah, if you want to check this out, go to YouTube and check out anything from 12, 31, 2013. We're going to end this segment with a song from that set. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - All right, Scott, counting down, we're at number three of our list of five of our favorite 3.0 New Year's Gags. And I've got to say, this one was extremely elaborate. Like, it kind of set the stage for the rest of 'em. So you guys can guess if you recognize the jam, you can guess which New Year's we're talking about. Let's hear it. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Oh my God, I don't know if I can tell you what song it is. - It's fantastic. So my favorite jams are when you get so deep into it, that you have no idea where you came from or where you're going. - That one even went type two on itself, it went to type-- - Type four. (laughs) - Type two itself. That was another 12, 30. This time it was back on the train. - That was back on the train. - Unbelievable. - A couple of months ago, I had posed the question online as to what the best back on the train was. And for me, it's this. I know a lot of people like the NASA 22803 back on the train. But where this one goes and the jam that you just heard is clearly my favorite of all time, many, many versions. - If you guys don't get anything from this podcast, this particular episode, apart from Scott's favorite jams during these New Year's runs, that's enough. He sent me the jams and I mean the entire songs that these jams contain and I've just been listening to these five songs nonstop. It's phenomenal. They are really and selected by someone who listens over and over and over and over to fish. So these are very, very special. - Some other bands as well, but-- - I don't think so. We don't think you have any time to do that. - Everyone does the feel here. (laughs) - So anyway, beautiful, beautiful back on the train there. How was the rest of that night? - This one had the boogie on, riggy antelope going on there where the antelope started. It had like boogie on riggy woman teases going on there so it kind of brought in. They had had an audience member come out on stage rich and he did a vacuum solo and I want to say fish gave him the vacuum as well. I think I was maybe 110, 115 shows under my belt that point and it was the first Tila that I ever got. They had played it back in '98 beforehand and I missed the show by a day because I couldn't get a ride down to New Haven from school in Rhode Island and I had a car at the time. And so I missed it by one day. I did Albany in three Worcester shows after and waited 11 years for the Tila. Let me get some important under the scales, housekeeping out of the way. You ready? How many shows have you seen? - 307. (laughs) - And what song are you still chasing? - I'm not really chasing any song. Isabel was the last big domino to fall last year. I would love to get another shaft. You haven't seen that since 2000. - You and I had a funny llama experience, right? - We did. - What was that? - I had run into Tom, the two were closer this year. It married Weather and he ran into him in the lot and we're chatting for a few minutes and he goes to me, "Hey, Scott, what do you think fish is going to open with?" And I'm staying there. I don't know and I said llama. Never gets played. And so Tom immediately says, "Slower fast." - Slow llama. - And I like the slow llama. I like the fast too, but I want it slow. And Tom jokingly says he's going to go text Trey about it. I'm like, "All right, sure you are." And I go off into the venue and get my seat. So the show starts and fast llama. And I'm like, "Hmm, hmm." And it's not exactly that I request it. And so a couple minutes go by and then Tom tweets out. He can confirm that bizarre I've called this and I just thought that started cracking up my seat. So every now and then, I will say one thing. Every now and then Trey sort of does want some suggestions. This llama, I wasn't sure. This llama, I wasn't sure. I think they were probably just going to do it anyway. But you know, possibly tilted the scales. - It happens every so often. Bill Graham in 2014, they open with Walfredo. I think it was the first night. And it was for, I think Adam from Walfredo.com, which was a website back in the 90s. - Oh yeah. - And he had passed away. - Yep. - And Word got to the band and then they opened with that. - Yes. - Usually they're not going to do something like that, but on occasion they will. And it means the world to fans that seem like that happens. - Especially, yeah, exactly. With the rarity that fish does answer requests. Well, we're in the middle of our discussion about New Year's 2009, speaking of great things. This is a one, this is fish return. - I could argue that this could be number one on any given day. It's up there with these last three. - This is their first New Year after a very long hiatus. - Yep. - This was down in Miami. - So when you were walking to American Airlines Arena, I apparently missed this, but I was just told about it for the first time after nine years. But there was a white car that was sitting outside the venue and it was surrounded by cones as we walked in for whatever reason. And so this was down in Miami and you had to walk. It's not like New York City where you might have a hotel right across the street. I remember there being a walk and noticing that there were helicopters hovering above the arena. And actually markedly saying it to my friends. I wonder what those helicopters are doing. Could they be police? Could they be news helicopters? But for whatever reason, they were fairly close and circling without any question, the arena. - Keep an eye on the fans. - Yep. And then coming upon that car, which wasn't a total surprise, there had been a little bit of mention of it in fit. Fish had sort of put it out a little bit on the web. I think there was some news about a maple syrup-powered car coming down from Vermont. And sure enough, hey, there it was. And it did look like it had a little maple. It had some apparatus in the back that was unusual. And it was surrounded by cones, but it was there to prove that it had gotten there. So anyway, now we're back. Now we're in the arena. - We had our car. We had our copters. Now we got our gag. I went in through a different entrance onto the floor that night. They had released the day before and ended up with like a seven-throw floor ticket. This is one you actually had seats on the floor for those that remember, it's been a few years now. You walked inside and this time there were things that were around the venue that kind of caught your eye. So you had this giant disco ball over the stage. And I think when I see something like that, I'm thinking, "Oh, I wonder what Chris can do with those lights on the disco ball." Definitely. There was a net with a large X near the back of the floor. And so the second set break comes around and there's a large object covered in a sheet that's brought up behind Fish's drum set. And then there's a pedestal saying 2010 that's placed on the stage. So party time again for an opener. It's kind of like a 2012 couple years later. They opened that third set with party time. And all day in design, balloons drop, a couple bursts of fireworks. And then the disease starts up. So Tom finally gets his New Year's Eve disease here. And the disco ball is being dropped down to the pedestal. So after the song's over, Trey opens the ball and fish climbs inside. Doesn't he have like pilot glasses on or something? Don't remember that. I think he has like leather flying helmets with pilot glasses on. What I do remember, Trey and Mike are trying to lift the disco ball allegedly. And you could see the look on Trey's face race is like huge wineries trying not to laugh because they're having such a blast. So they got some stage hands to carry the ball into what's actually a giant cannon that was the covered objects. So Fishman, let's set the stage correctly. So the ball opened. There's like a hatch kind of thing. Fishman gets in. It's closed. Now it's a sphere. He's inside this thing. Mike and Trey need a little help to actually roll the ball with, I think they lifted the ball into the cannon. Yes. Yes. And so now Fishman ostensibly is loaded into the cannon. So page presses a trigger and fishes. Quote unquote blasted through net over the crowd. Missing the X which is now eliminated. You had some pyrotechnics and smoke where the ball had usually gone through followed by helicopter sounds tying into what Tom was saying before. Hold on a second. Hold on. Let me do this. Go on too fast. Yeah. Let me do this a little slower. So I remember there was sort of a, you know, the cannon tilted back. Like it was aiming at the, the net sort of now became, it was a parent like, oh cool, they're going to shoot Fishman into that net and they're going to try to hit that X with the cannon. So the, the cannon tilted. Page actually, you know, was the one who controlled the firing of it. He pressed fire. Big explosion in the front of the cannon. You didn't actually see the ball come out. But you saw where it was supposed to go. But then you saw up at the very top of the arena all this stuff break and it was kind of like, oh, holy shit. The ball went way higher than it was supposed to. It broke through the top of the arena. And the way they tried to, you know, the way they proved or, or mimicked that it actually did break through the top of the arena was twofold. One was sounds from the helicopters. All of a sudden got a lot louder and lights from the helicopters were pointing down into the arena. And then I'm going to go ahead and spoil it. Later that night when we walked outside you saw where the ball landed. It landed on the poor maple syrup powered car because there was a crushed maple syrup powered car with a disco ball cannon ball on top of it. So there was a, there was a trap door on the cannon. Trap door on the cannon ball on the pedestal. That was on the pedestal. Yeah. Fish sneaks out of it and I guess his dad's cracking up in the, in the crowd. Right. Yeah. Meanwhile, we've lost our drummer. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Trey. So, so that had, that happens. And Trey and it comes out to the front stage and says, we've lost our drummer. Does anyone know how to play drums? And this woman's voice pipes up and she says, she knows how to play the drums and, and Trey goes, how long have you played the drums? And this is Sarah from Pittsburgh saying six months. And Tracy says, what's your favorite song? And she's like, fluff it. Which is a song that has a special place in many fans' hearts because that was a song that was requested relentlessly in 2003, 2004, the, the 2.0 era to the point it, it were. Trey said, Mike said no, and it let off Hampton '09. So it was the first song back and then here isn't as part of the New Year's gag. So fluff head starts and you, you have. Oh, hold on. Wait. I can add some detail. So Sarah was like in the audience behind the stage. And so they arranged to have Sarah sort of climb down into the pit, to the side of the stage, side back of the stage. So Sarah definitely, you know, a female audience member climbed down and she was wearing a particular dress that, you know, so you, you could definitely, everyone looked at Sarah as she climbed down. The lights were illuminating her. And behind the stage for the band to exit and go on and off stage was a slightly different setup than they normally had. It was sort of a tent which led, it was like a tunnel which led to the backstage. And so Sarah had to kind of enter this tunnel and that is where part of the, the other part of the gag happened where if, if you, if you weren't carefully watching, Sarah just walked through and then climbed up and started playing Fishman's drums. But what really happened, we're giving it away right now, is that of course, Fishman dressed in Sarah type clothes walked out when Sarah walked in. So it looked like, yep, it looked like a green, green dress. And so, so Fishman dressed exactly and having the same hair as Sarah appeared on, you know, on the other side of this tunnel and walked out and got him on the drum set now. And they started playing and as, you know, at first it, it seemed like Sarah wasn't going to be able to play the drums at all, but rapidly got really good. Yeah. It blows my mind that, you know, I have these books that I write down, set lists and notes of what happened before during half the show. And I thought for nine years that I knew everything that happened that's gig and all of a sudden I'm finding out like these little details that I couldn't see from, from my section, I made some notes for the, for the podcast yesterday and I, I wrote them out and all of a sudden it's like, oh wait, yeah, but you got this going on too. And that going on too. Yeah. This is awesome. And another funny thing that happened, Trey, I think asks Sarah, which is now Fishman, dresses Sarah a few questions once she, he, she had gotten to the drum set. And so Fishman put his mouth really close to the mic. And he couldn't see his mouth moving. And Sarah from backstage answered Trey. I love it. Yeah. So, so it's still like the, the genius of the trick was that, you know, it was still Sarah behind the drums to many, to most of the people in the, in the audience. Yeah. This gag is definitely one of my favorite ones that, that fish is done. Yeah. Incredibly elaborate. Which song should we play for the audience? I think Fishman barely learning how to play the drums and then getting good at it. I think so. All right. Here it is. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Okay. Wow. Well, after 3.0 began, you know, in 2009, and Fish gave us that incredible New Year's gag. It seemed like they, you know, they always had to top themselves or at least equal themselves. And to me, they, they just always surprised, kind of like Halloween. There's always a surprise. It's always ingenious in some form. And here we are counting down. We are at our second favorite Halloween gag. And as usual, we're going to start with a jam. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And that is just a soaring, energetic, happy guitar driven plus fisherman driven jam. That's awesome. Yeah. Again, we, I keep going back to that Korean War. It was dark earlier in the podcast. Yeah. As those are good, I think the, these soaring, high, energetic, happy jams are great. I mean, there's nothing like being in the audience when a jam like that is happening. Because like the, it's palpable. The, the energy flows from and into the audience. It's like, it's like somehow there's energy being generated when there's music like that coming from the stage. The build was fantastic and the payoff was, was great. So, why don't you tell us what day of the run this was? This was from, and then I'm going to guess what song that was. December 28th, the first night of the run. Oh, wow. First night of the run. So they, they hit your favorite jam on the first night. They did. That's pretty interesting. I couldn't possibly tell you what song that is. That was Golden Age. Oh, wow. Never would have guessed that. So, a cover mixed in with all the originals. Um, and there were really things that could have gone on for this all over the place. Um, the 30th had the tweezer, the ghost, the light party time mashup. Um, what made this run, um, a little unique. Every night opened with an acapella song. And then you, you had these mashups like Piper, uh, so you would go back and forth into the songs. And this time you kind of had them both going concurrently. So going into the New Year's run, or the New Year's Eve show rather, you had umbrellas above the stage and risers behind it. And you look at Rain-themed songs and Petrocor comes to mind because Rain's a central theme in the lyric. And I mean, I think Purple Rain was the other one, but he was like, all right, it's kind of hard to do a New Year's gag on Purple Rain and Prince had passed away earlier in the year. A friend of mine, uh, Jake Kosala, had allowed me to go up front with him and his son, Zach. I got up there and then all of a sudden I'm literally on the rail with no one in front of me as the New Year's gag started. It was evident that we were going to have guest musicians on stage because there's an auxiliary percussion set behind Trey. So the third set starts and it's Petrocor. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] So again, kind of an obvious pick, I suppose, based on what I knew and what I saw, Umbrellas also would have signified something involving Rain unless there was some weird Broadway thing. I think Purple Rain was one of the common guesses, too, though, because of Prince's death. Yeah, and the Umbrellas were way up above the band. And there's a row of Umbrellas kind of up there. And you could tell that they were going to be lowered, but you didn't really know what was going to go on. And then they add Umbrellas like literally at the feet of where Trey and Michael are going to be as well. So Petrocor starts and you have Jen Hartz, Wagon trumpet, Nally Kressman on trombone, James Casey on saxophone, Andres Ferraro from Hamilton on percussion and Jeff Tansky on keys. And everyone except Jeff was going to stay for the rest of the show, so you add horns and percussion for everything, which is kind of rare. You don't really have that for New Year's gag. You add the Boston Symphony for Mason Grace and I think it definitely became Rhapsody in '96. You sang in '95 for the collective soul shine, I believe. Actually, you've made a couple of New Year's appearances as well. As Petrocor started, you had several people in black suits and black cloth masks that were coming out and they picked up the umbrellas and they stood in the rain that came down. And you had a dancer in the center of the stage who took off his mask and began to dance. And he's balancing umbrellas on his nose and he's juggling them and then the umbrellas from above came down. They were lit up and then all the enzyme happens. And you got the blue raindrops. And then you also had these big cat and dog balloons that came down. It was raining cats and dogs. It was raining cats and dogs. And these things were maybe two feet long. They were big balloons. They were big balloons and it wasn't just that they were big balloons but there was a variety of different types of cats. Several dogs and several types of cats. And there was a lot of them. I mean a lot of them. Like if you were looking at the stage, you'd see Trey maybe up to his thighs or something in these cats and dogs and whatnot. It completely covered like half of their body. It went way up. Meanwhile, the dancers were still on stage and you had somebody throwing the pit that pulled strings and all of these black suits came off and they were wearing these yellow outfits and jumpsuits and whatnot. And they were dancing around the stage during Susie Greenberg and they were tossing rings at each other and catching the rings or going through the rings and running around. And I appreciate the Broadway aspect of this. And for me, being up there, it made for one of the top musical experiences of my life. And when they played Petricor the next year the bakers doesn't. They get like the little goosebumps because you remember where you were when that happened. And it's something that might not translate as well if you're listening to the recording or if you're watching a webcast at home that night but to be there and to have it happen. It's funny. This is why you chose this. And at first you were sort of vacillating between this and the other one that we chose as our first. It's not my favorite overall and I'm going to leave you in a little bit of suspense on what that's going to be. I thought you might already know. Well, we are counting down and we have reached the pinnacle. The number one fish 3.0 New Year's Gag. So from 2009 to now what is the best New Year's Gag if you're Scott Marks and Tom Marshall. Well, turns out we agreed. And first we're going to hear a jam from the New Year's Run. And let's hear it. Let's hear it Biz Archive. A Biz Archive featured jam of New Year's Run number one. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Another fantastic jam chosen by Scott Marks. Thank you Scott. I think I have a guess for this one, but I'm going to hold off for a second and just sort of reorient ourselves. We are about to talk about our favorite 3.0 New Year's and apart from Big Cypress, I'm able to say that it is my favorite fish New Year's. How about you? Yeah, I think so. I mean, the New Year's I've caught Big Cypress as my first. And then I've caught everything from 2009 up to 17. And I was really on the fence coming down here today, where I had Petricor at the top of my list for, again, that personal aspect on it. Yeah. I decided Scott and I watched a lot of video before we pressed record on this episode, so I think that sort of brought you around as well. Yeah, I had forgotten how fantastic this was. And being there for it and then remembering that I listened to it over and over and over and over and over again afterwards, I watched the there was a video that came out behind the stuff ahead of time. Yeah, stunning videos accompanying this. How it all came together and again, this is another David Gallo masterpiece. This is a masterpiece of and let's epic proportions. Let's talk about the jam first. So the jam was ghost and another fantastic high-energy build. Which really turned out to be the theme of these jams outside of the Carini. And is that ghost the night of New Year's itself? It was. Yeah, that's why I recognized it because I've heard this New Year's so many times. I think all the other jams that were picked were not on New Year's Eve. Right. And this time it worked out perfectly. So in case you haven't guessed it, I'm going to steal some of Tom's thunder here. The top New Year's pick was 2010's Meat Stick. This one is the only song that has appeared twice for New Year's gag. The first, of course, being the legendary big cybers in 1999 where he got the swamp boat that came apart and formed the Meat Stick. Mobile and then he got up on the stage and he fed the father time on the bicycle. The little Meat Sticks and he started going and that was the first time. And you've also had the hot dog that showed up in this gag appear three times. 1994 from the Garden. 1999 from the Cypress. Boston Garden. That's right. Boston Garden, two gardens. Yeah. A real garden party, if you will. Yeah. And obviously for 2010. Yeah. Well, kind of a little bit of recycling on themes, but you made it bigger and better. And it worked out so well for this. And let's talk a little bit about what happened in the Meat Stick. And we're going to play you a little bit of the Meat Stick. One quick reminder here. Go for it. This hot dog is and was at the rock and roll Hall of Fame. So they took it out of the Hall of Fame, I believe. And they brought back to that massive Scrigard. I think it's back in the Hall of Fame now. So I remember walking into the garden. This is my first MSG New Year's because I missed the boat on the ones in the 90s. And there was a stage that was set up behind the stage. Like risers and whatnot. Nothing on it. Just flat black. Yep, flat black. Meat Stick is the opening song to the third set. The band's on stage and they're doing their thing as they sing the English lyrics. And they do the Japanese lyrics. So the Japanese lyrics came about after fish came back from Japan once. Yep, I remember I didn't make it to Japan. But apparently there they learned from some kind of people the translation of the chorus. And so... After that they've always sung a version of the chorus in Japanese as we all know. So we've gotten used to that. We've gotten used to that. Now Meat Stick gets a little bit of a different treatment, doesn't it? Yeah, so it's like you're watching or you're listening to the Japanese lyrics. And then if you listen to the recording, it's like there's a little... It's like they're singing and then their Fishman's voice kind of tails off. It's very perceptive of you that you did that. Well what's happened is... I noticed it too. The band has stopped singing and there's an actual recording going on. Right. So the band is playing their instruments almost like an air guitar. Yeah, exactly. It's a pre-recorded loop of Fish. It's still Fish playing Meat Stick. But it's just the Meat Stick jam going around and around. And obviously pre-recorded some other time that they started. And the funny thing is they kind of started it late or early. They did something where all of a sudden Fish was trying to sing to their own pre-recorded jam and it didn't work. And I was very puzzled. Like what just happened? But then I saw there was guitar coming out and Trey wasn't playing guitar. So I knew that there was a loop. But I don't think a lot of people noticed that. I'm not sure if I noticed it at the time. I certainly noticed it watching the video recently. And certainly hearing it for several times afterwards. And knowing that the prank as it went down, it's like, oh, that's pretty obvious. Well, yeah. But I think sometimes when you're so wrapped up in the moment, you don't realize what's going on. So after the loop had started, all of a sudden you have a quartet of African singers come out and they start singing the chorus in their language. They almost were dressed like, I don't know, like almost Zulu hunters. They were minimally dressed. They didn't have anything apart from like loinskins. Yeah. And I think they may have had spears or shields or something. They very much looked like a tribe type of African gentlemen, four of them. And they even kind of did the meat stick dance, but it was definitely Africanized. And it was very unusual. So that was on the left of the stage in front of Paige. And then as they finished singing, the mariachi band came out on the right. In front of the drums, the singers, and fully Mexican regalia with the big hats and they sang. They were held by some Hasidic, some people dressed up in Hasidic, two costumes that started running around and singing on the, dancing on the riser behind the stage. Yeah, finally the stage, behind the stage was put to use, and they were doing in this wonderful Hebrew Yiddish. And they also kind of did a funny, you know, it looked like ethnic traditional dance as well. Yeah. But still meat stick. They all did the meat stick clap at the right time and stuff. It was fantastic. There were different renditions of what was going on and it all, it all fit together really well. And you had a couple more groups that came out. One that was apparently Swiss that. So they, they were, I think they were supposed to look like Swedish ski bun. Alright, Swiss Switzerland and Sweden. Sweden, Sweden, right. Yeah, and I'm Swedish. And I did here, Schokaminyana, which means shock my brain, but they kind of say it. They, they were saying my, you know, so they were obviously, I don't think they were Swedish. After that came out, the German type, but, but like real like traditional German. I don't even know what you call that very colorful outfits. Still a few more ethnic stereotypes came out after that. The stage was just filled with dancers surrounding. So, so now they were in front of the stage and also taking up behind the stage on that additional riser. And now they even got the band, the fish members of the band to come out and dance. And the dance was something else. Well, while this was all going on, the band actually vanished. Yeah, there was an incredible dance. The dance had multiple, multiple steps and moves. And all the dancers moved around in unison and I'm not like a fan of dance per se. But this was like a Broadway show. This was unbelievable and so fun to watch. And for a moment, fish, the band was involved. And you kind of didn't even notice that they slipped off stage because the dance moves were so cool. There's so much going on on the stage. Yeah, tons going on and it was just hilarious. I literally was crying, laughing so hard. It was with my family. And we were just lapping up every moment. It was hilarious. So what happened to the band? The band came out from the back of the venue. I kind of spoiled it a little bit earlier. And the hot dog that they'd used before. They're heading towards the stage and they're tossing out little yellow hot dogs. They're way, way up in the air. The hot dogs flying. So the band joined everyone else on stage to that point to finish it off. The hot dog landed and came in for a landing. And by the way, there were additional words, additional parts that the dancers sang as a chorus to the meat stick lyrics. And at this point, they were singing, like it would change. They would start doing meat stick, meat stick. And they all had gotten down on their knees with their hands in the air, like worshiping, willing the meat stick to come out. And sure enough, the lights appeared on the band members in their massive hot dog. And so the stage dancers got their wish. And then the meat stick accompanied crazy lights and confetti and all these incredibly large number of hot dog balloons that fell from the ceiling. So there are long red balloons that were the hot dog balloons, in addition to your regular balloons that came out. It was really just an amazing spectacle to witness. It was a very super-duper large production, especially if you only look at it in terms of the number of extra people involved. This one, to me, I think, probably set that record. I mean, I could picture them starting this February of 2009. Yeah, and they want to beat the cannon gang. We're going to have to put a lot of time effort into this. It's not something you can just put together overnight. And like you said, there's videos that sort of show the dance practice and stuff that came out after the gag. To have that video released and to see what went into it, the rehearsing, it was simply magical. Yeah, so you guys owe it to yourself to look at YouTube, just Google, Meat Stick, 12, 31, 2010. And you'll see not just the full 26-minute pro-shot video, but all the accompanying ones that you can also find are all worth it. And really, Scott, we did it. We got to the top of the mountain. We did. What else is going on in that head of yours? I see you need to say one more thing. One last thing, I guess, still ties into that 2010 gag. The all-bang sign is something worthy of listening to as well because you had all the singers on stage that were singing with the band. I don't know if the band was really singing at that point. You had 40-50 people on stage singing all-bang sign. That's right. Very special. It was epic. Yeah, it was very powerful. It was a great way to end our podcast with that. I can't think of a better way to do it. It's good to me. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Scott, for diverting down here. My pleasure, Sam. Yeah. Really great to finally have you on, and see you soon. Thank you. All right. I'll see you in the years. Absolutely. All right. Bye-bye. This podcast is in the loop. The Legion of Osiris Podcasts. Osiris is creating a community that connects people like you with live experiences and podcasts about artists and topics you love. Get in the loop at OsirisPod.com. Hey, what's up? This is Blake Weiland. I'm the host of the Tone Mob Podcast. It's a show where I interview guitar people about guitar stuff. We talk about their pedals, their amps, their accessories, their preferences, all that stuff, as well as a healthy dose of whatever comes up. Topics have ranged from aliens to addiction and anywhere in between. Oh, yeah. And pizza. We're definitely going to be talking about pizza. So get the show wherever you're listening to this podcast at. Just search the Tone Mob in your search bar and it will pop right up. Come join us. We're having a lot of fun. Thanks for checking it out. Hey, everyone. This is Tuck from Fit for a King in Off-Road Minivan. Every week, I bring you fun interviews alongside your favorite metalcore entertainers with my new podcast, Get Tucked. Join me every Monday with bands like counterparts, Crystal Lake, like Mazda Flames and many more. We play unsigned and undiscovered bands, deep dive into each artist's history and, of course, provide the greatest breakdowns in current metalcore. Tune in to Get Tucked every Monday out now through Sound Talent Media.
