Marco.org

I’m : a programmer, writer, podcaster, geek, and coffee enthusiast.

Phish — Fluffhead, 2009/12/03 at Madison Square Garden (buy)

This was my favorite performance from the show I attended last week. The last three minutes, in particular, are excellent.

One of the interesting benefits of being a Phish fan is that you can download official, legal, high-quality*, DRM-free soundboard recordings of nearly every show they perform from here for reasonable prices — and they’re typically available within a few hours of the end of the show.

I was able to download this concert by the time I got home from attending it.**

The band probably makes a decent amount of money from these sales. The rest of the music industry should take notice: this is a great idea. (…for bands whose concerts actually sound different from the albums and each other.)

* I transcoded this MP3 down to 92 kbps ABR to be a more reasonable size for streaming. The actual sound quality is better. They even offer FLAC and 24/48 FLAC-HD for a bit more money if you’re into that sort of thing.

** But I waited until I could buy all three nights — that’s 66 songs, over 8 hours — for $27, about an hour after the third night’s performance ended. I’m lucky to get one 45-minute album every two years from most other bands that I like. It’s good to be a Phish fan.