The first in what will hopefully be many Ghost Stories and a brief
explanation of the rating system I have come up with for the Ghosts.  It is
based not upon the execution of the lyrics in the prologue nor the
technical skill displayed by the band while they are jamming the HELL out
of the Ghost Story itself but instead....how Scary the ghost in the story
is.....by scary I mean how often does MY hair stand on end while the Story
unfolds.  Ghosts come in many forms....they run the gamut from Casper the
Friendly Ghost (not very scary...a kinder gentler ghost) to the great
Gozer(Giant Stay-Puff Marshmallow man city destroying take over the world
and use it as his own ghost). So here goes......

Le Transbordeur, Lyon, France 7/9/97 Set 2 (thanks to Charlie Dirksen)

This was the first Ghost Story I heard and so will be the first I review.
Climbing up out of the Columbia River Gorge heading towards the Gorge
Amphitheater coming on the heels of an outstanding Flecktoniferous You
Enjoy Myself Jam.  Trey takes a moment to introduce the Flecktones and the
Greazy Troll to Pierre the Haagen Dazs ice cream guy. The flecktone intros
roll into a rather Sesame Street Style Saturday morning cartoonish groove.
This gradually morphs into an Allman Brothers southern booogie ending up
into a YEM-like jazzy Santana-esque funk scratch....(0:00-0:35) extended
nontypical Ghost intro, by nontypical I mean they gradually pick up on what
I can identify as Ghost and play around it before the typical start of the
Prologue. There are some great sax fills and dueling bass in the first
minute and a half or so....(1:38 or so) Vic Wooten takes a funky break on
the bass solo which leads into some flat out flecktoniferous funk at about
(2:16) this holds up throughout most of the rest of the Prologue which ends
with the last screeching GHOST!!! at about (3:39). The Ghost story begins
as an easygoing blueslike shuffle groove into a funk explosion at around
(4:35) including some hair-raising wails from Trey. The (5:18) mark brings
a slight return to the YEM style Santana-esque shuffle present in much of
the preceding YEM. Bela and Page appear to be trading licks in here to me.
By (6:54) everyone has joined in on a call and response type Jam with Page
throwing in what sounds like the rhythmic throb of a Pulsar echoing through
the nether regions of the Olaphian binary star system. The jam becomes more
chaotic and falls into a Surrender To The Air style ambient Olaphian two
step around (8:24). This kinder gentler yet funkified flecktoniferous Ghost
story comes to a close at a far too short (9:39) as Poor Heart leaps forth
from the cloud of chaos. It was exotic(Flecktones!!!), it was brief (<
10minutes) but it was not very scary (limited goose-bump factor...only
raised some hair once maybe twice...made me
smile)....hence the Casper the Friendly Ghost rating.

Who You Gonna Call

Marty