5/27/94 @ The Warfield w/ Adam Jerugim

Hi everybody and welcome to this week’s episode of Attendance Bias. I am your host, Brian Weinstein. Today, we welcome back guest Adam Jerugim. Adam previously told about seeing “Harry Hood” on April 18, 1992 at Stanford University, and after today, he seems to be the Attendance Bias resident expert on west coast Phish in the 90s. 

In today’s episode, Adam and I expand our conversation to a full show, and that full show is Phish at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco on May 27, 1994. This was the third of three shows at the Warfield, and it came toward the last week of the 1994 spring tour. 

On Attendance Bias, we often talk about transitional years and signposts to major musical changes in the Phish evolution but when it comes to late spring and summer of 1994, it’s okay to just sit back and show to love to a band at a major peak. This show, while maybe not a tentpole of a peak year, still has superlative versions of David Bowie, Harry Hood, Reba, plus some trademark Phish goofiness and oddity appearances. But we get into all that in a moment.

One theme I loved talking about with Adam was Phish’s growing popularity on the west coast at this time. While the band would make their debut at Madison Square Garden late in the year and celebrate New Year’s Eve at Boston Garden, they were still reasonably in the middle of the pack when it came to the west coast. Selling out three nights at The Warfield seemed to send a signal that things were about to change, big time. Today’s show, as classic as it is, still frames the band at a time when they were about to blow up big time up and down the Pacific coast. There’s a lot going on.   

So let’s join Adam to talk about the Bay Bridge, opera singers, and whether shushing is better than wooing as we discuss May 27, 1994 at The Warfield Theater.