Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Phish Covers Project: Skin It Back

As the next installment in our series of exploring the original versions of songs that Phish has covered in concert, I present to you Little Feat performing 'Skin It Back' live from the Netherlands Pinkpop festival in 1976.

'Skin It Back' is on a short list of Phish-played songs that never made it out of the 80's. It was performed by the band only seven times, first appearing in their repertoire on 10/15/86 at Hunt's in Burlington, segued into Talking Heads' 'Cities'. This concert was notable in that it was Paul Languedoc's first turn as sound man. 'Skin It Back' has not appeared in a Phish setlist in 1,126 shows.

'Skin It Back' appears on Little Feat's fourth studio album Feats Don't Fail Me Now released in 1974. Paul Barrere takes the lead vocal in this song, with Lowell George stepping up for a lead guitar solo. This tune did not appear on the original release of the legendary Feat concert album Waiting For Columbus, but it did ultimately appear on the 2002 "Deluxe Edition".

Pinkpop is considered to be the oldest annual festival in the world, with its beginnings in 1970. Playing the first annual edition was Dutch "Radar Love" band Golden Earring (they returned to play the festival 35 years later in 2005). Appearing at Pinkpop the same year as Little Feat were Uriah Heep and The Chieftans.

The countdown to my first Phish show in over six years is now set at 21 days!

1 comment:

ak said...

very cool post.