Bob Lefsetz, The Lefsetz Letter blog (11/2/10).You see every Halloween Phish plays an entire classic album. And rumor was it was gonna be Zeppelin, so the Phearless Phoursome dropped some classic Zep into their set the night before, the 30th. But on the holiday, the album they covered was WAITING FOR COLUMBUS!
HUH?
I bet most of you have never heard of this double live album, when two vinyl discs didn’t even add up to the length of one CD.
What do you do when you don’t break through? RECORD YOUR GREATEST HITS!
Well, Little Feat only had one. But they had all that great music in their catalog that so many people had never heard. And they were big in England. And if you think "Waiting For Columbus" took hold in America, you’re rewriting history. Sure, dedicated music fans now knew who the band was, but still most people knew no tracks. Although as years passed, "Dixie Chicken" became a standard. That’s what perseverance will do for you. Concentrate on cutting something great, not what people want, and you might end up with a cut that lasts, one that truly strikes a chord.
Still, it’s not like Little Feat is the Doors, there’s been no mass renaissance. So it’s utterly AMAZING that Phish played this live album in its entirety Sunday night.
But it’s even better than that. They even employed a horn section, just like the original band, featuring Michael Leonhart of Steely Dan’s band. This was no casual effort, this was a tribute to their forgotten heroes, this was musicians who had to get it RIGHT!"
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