Suggested soundtrack: “Wolfman’s Brother,” 10-16-20, the Beacon Theatre, New York
So, after all of that, all of the upheaval of a Spring Training interrupted and a league disbanded by a global pandemic and a bloody feud just to get the game going again with a greatly altered schedule in front of no fans and only 60 games and multiple outbreaks that shelved teams for days (and weeks) at a time and an expanded playoff format that threatened to reward mediocrity and cause chaos, after all that, we get a World Series that will feature… the best two teams in MLB in 2020.
It wasn’t that it was without drama. The new, expanded Wild Card round which featured 16 teams total only produced two “upsets,” or series where the lower seed won. One of those was, of course, the underachieving Astros upsetting Phish fan/Twins Manager Rocco Balldelli which wasn’t that surprising when you realize 1) the Astros are still a good team that probably suffered from a short season and 2) the Twins are cursed to never win a playoff game ever again.
The other? Yes, the surprising and upstart Miami Marlins beat my Cubs. But that’s only a surprise if you hadn’t been watching the Cubs offense dry up over the course of the last few weeks of the season and a bullpen that wavered between brilliant and Wile E. Coyote blowing himself up. TL;DR, it wasn’t really that shocking to anyone who watched the Cubs.
The League Division Series provided some real fun with rivalries. The Dodgers-Padres series finally rose to the level of heated rivalry that we’ve been waiting for; this is going to be a FUN battle atop the NL West for the next several years. And the Rays brought down the Yankees in an AL East feud that went the full five games and was as damn electric as you’d expect knowing those two teams and the heated passions that carried over from the regular season.
That led to a pair of League Championship series that were as good as MLB could have hoped for. From Houston storming back to become only the second team in MLB history to force a Game 7 when down 3-0 to the Dodgers’ Will Smith homering off Atlanta’s Will Smith and, themselves fighting back from a 3-1 series deficit, the LCS’s lived up to any and all hype.
Cody Bellinger made perhaps the play of the playoffs and then (possibly?) dislocated his shoulder celebrating what was the NLCS-clinching homer.
Seriously.
And get this (look away, Atlanta fans): before 2020, in League Championship Series history, teams that had a 2-0 lead in a series had a record of… 28-3.
Of course, it’s now 28-4 because… Atlanta blew a 3-1 lead.
That’s the same lead Cleveland blew in that historic (and great) 2016 World Series which made this tweet all the more cutting.
It’s enough to make you forget that they’ve been letting in fans (stupid) at the neutral site giant Costco called Globe Life Field, defeating the purpose of creating a sports “bubble” and putting the league in a position where it couldn’t really close the stadium’s roof, causing one of the NLCS games to look like it was taking place on the set of Twister.
Chances are we’ll have a really great series filled with plenty of drama. Two terrific batting lineups: Seager, Mookie, Bellinger for L.A. and Ji-Man Choi and Randy Arozarena bolstering Tampa’s. Meanwhile, you’ve got two outstanding rotations complete with grizzled vet Charlie Morton for Tampa and legend-in-his-own-time Clayton Kershaw who remains snake-bitten in the postseason.
The Dodgers haven’t won a World Series in 32 years, the longest drought since the franchise won their first title in 1955 (while still in Brooklyn).
The Rays (are they a fish? a beam of light?) have never won a World Series but, to be fair, they’ve only been playing since 1998, a full decade after the last Dodgers’ World Series win.
I have no particular emotional allegiance to either team, I just want good baseball. I think we’ll get it which would bring a pleasing end to what has been a wild season I hope we never repeat.
I honestly didn’t think we’d make it to this point and I still wonder if the season should have really been played. And once these games are done, we don’t really know when we’ll see baseball again. Yes, MLB has its 2021 Spring Training schedule in place, but we still haven’t hit Halloween and the expected cold weather spike of COVID cases has already started. Can we really expect things to be better in mid-February?
So drink it up, these final 7 games of the 2020 season, before the long, dark winter descends, and bask in the glory of two great teams doing battle in a giant shed in Texas in front of 11,000 fans during a global pandemic. 2020, man.
Dodgers in 7.
One other aspect of this fall that’s provided a break from ALL OF THE THINGS has been the Beacon Jams, a series of free streams from Trey Anastasio that are airing on Friday nights via Twitch. Scheduled to play every Friday in through November, the shows are also virtual fundraisers for the Divided Sky Fund which aims to build a new treatment center in Vermont to support those battling with addiction (DONATE!).
The first two installations have been absolutely stunning, two-plus hours of loud jams, funny asides, occasional moments of hushed beauty and a welcome respite from the chaos of the world.
Backed by the primary members of his solo band (sans horns and backup singers thanks to travel restrictions and keeping things safe), Trey and crew aren’t just playing for playing’s sake. It’s provided Trey the chance to play the new, written-in-quarantine songs from his solo LP Lonely Trip in a live setting.
And it’s given him a chance to give us something different, to reinvent some of his most-beloved songs (mainly Phish tunes) into something fresh, exciting, and invigorating.
Take, for instance, the stripped-down version of “Stash” featuring just guitar, piano, and some hand-driven percussion from Cyro Baptista from week 1. Or week 2’s gorgeous guitar-and-piano version of “Divided Sky.” Sadly, while the shows are still available to watch for LivePhish+ subscribers, the shows aren’t available elsewhere and there don’t seem to be shareable video clips of these particular moments.
Nor is there a clip of the beautiful version of “Strange Design” from week 2 featuring a string quartet (utilizing arrangements written by Friend of The Mound Don Hart!). But there are a few clips, including the one at the top of this edition (one of the handful of songs performed with the aforementioned quartet) and the below 26-minute ripper featuring “Everything’s Right” and “…And Flew Away.”
There’s definitely a surreal nature to the crowdless show. When songs end, particuarly some of the louder, raucous jams, and they’re followed by complete silence rather than a roaring crowd of thousands, it’s … jarring. Trey makes the most of it and his between-song banter responding to what seems to be a moderated flow of comments from the Twitch stream is often hilarious, like him being slow on the uptake with the user whose name was a clear reference to a line from “Stash.”
But what’s so immediately apparent, present and important is the pure joy Trey finds in playing. Trey’s always been a guy who goes deep when playing live - the Trey Face is a sight to behold, especially during Phish live streams. And while it is front and center here, so are the smiles. He’s clearly so happy to be playing on a stage, with a band, for fans, even if they’re all watching remotely.
There’s always a different energy when it comes to TAB or Trey solo shows versus Phish shows and, unlike some hardcore Phish fans, that’s never bothered me.
Within the Phish Cinematic Universe, Original Recipe Phish is certainly my favorite. But I’ve always enjoyed Trey’s solo stuff and the work from his backing band, particularly Ray Paczkowski on keys and Russ Lawton on drums. It’s weird to see Phish songs performed with Ray & Russ instead of Page & Fish, but that’s okay; as a grown adult, I’m able to separate those things in my mind. (Good time to plug TAB’s new live album from their absolutely FIRE January 2020 run, Burn It Down.)
So far, through two performances, these streams have been stellar: terrific playing, unique arrangements that work and breathe new life into songs we’ve heard hundreds of times, and a torrent of absolute and unadulterated joy. To call them a tonic for the soul during a year when murder hornets don’t even crack the top 15 list of things to worry about is an understatement.
These shows are two-hour slices of delight and happiness and I couldn’t be more excited to see what songs and new surprises Trey has in store.
The Beacon Jams air every Friday through November 27 at 8 p.m. exclusively on Twitch.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Feel free to share this with like-minded fans, please send any feedback or questions my way, and remember that any mistakes and typos are intentional.
Oh, and GO VOTE!