[“From the Forum” is a running blog feature that highlights quality posts from the Phish.net forum to share more broadly. This edition was originally posted by @Flubhead on July 13, 2024. If you would like to listen along to the versions of songs mentioned in this blog post, open the accompanying playlist on phish.in. -Ed.]

The long and rollicking history of the Mike's Groove suite is full of ups, downs, peaks, valleys, and a whole lot of repetition. The first “Mike's Song” that we know of happened on 5/3/1985 at UVM. An auspicious thing, to be born around the same time as the band itself - 5/3/1985 is only the sixth show that we have a recording of. [While the official debut of “Mike’s Song” is listed as 3/16/85, and there is also a version listed in setlists before THAT from 2/1/85, which may be a misidentified tape of 2/3/86, 5/3/85 is indeed the first “Mike’s” that we have on tape.” -Ed.]

The first “I Am Hydrogen” that we have a recording of would appear on 10/15/86 at Hunt's in Burlington. The first performance that we know of was on 4/6/1985, but there's no extant recording of this show as of July 2024. Did its debut predate the actual debut of "Mike's Song"? Another mystery from the early days... It wasn't attached to "Mike's Song" at first. That would happen on 8/29/1987 at The Ranch in Burlington. The first “Hydrogens” seemed to be searching for an appropriate placement in their sets, but it most often preceded the nascent “Who Do? We Do?,” which itself was searching for its appropriate placement.

“Weekapaug Groove, the last piece of the M>I>W puzzle, debuted (we think!) on 7/23/88 at Pete’s Phabulous Phish Phest. “Weekapaug” was preceded by “Hydrogen” in its debut performance; no other song would precede it until 1992, when on 5/14/92 in Port Chester, they played the trifle “Wait” before “Weekapaug.” Clearly weird things were afoot in spring 1992, but dropping “Hydrogen” in favor of some other song preceding “Weekapaug” in the Mike’s Groove suite wouldn’t really begin in earnest until 1993.

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