Bluest Tape

Raise Another Glass Panic + Beer, Volume 2 Last week, we did malty beers. This week, we do hoppy beers. The complete yin-and-yang of Jeff and Harvey is on display, although we do tend to agree on our Panic selections. Each pick this episode features a special guest. Harvey gets us started up in Stowe, VT, the home of the East Coast IPA, with a 1993 show featuring Warren Haynes’ second guest spot w...

Cheers to Your Friends So Near! Panic + Beer, Volume 1 We can agree that nothing goes better with Widespread Panic than a ice cold beer, right? Now, we’re not talking about $8.00 domestic macro brews in a summer shed, but rather one of the many wonderful barley pops made by hand throughout our fair land. This week, Jeff shares four of his favorite brown ales and matches them up with selections fro...

More Skiing and More Sitting A Journey Through Sit n Ski ‘96, Part 2 Here we are, part two of our journey through the epic 1996 Sit n Ski Tour through the Rocky Mountains. At some point during these two episodes, Harvey mentioned the strong feelings folks have about the tour, those that love it and others that loathe it. Really? People don’t like Sit n Ski? We thought the only thing we argued abou...

We’re Not So Sure About the Skiing, but We’re Totally Cool with the Sitting Part A Journey Through Sit n Ski ‘96, Part 1 Hard to believe that the legendary Sit n Ski Tour was some 22 years ago this month. What a tour it was, the band hanging out for almost a full month in the Rocky Mountains, mostly in ski resort towns, but a few urban areas and college towns thrown in for good measure. Sit n Ski...

New Year, New Songs (Or At Least Once Upon A Time They Were New) Debuts! The Bluest Tape kicks off 2018 proper-like with a set full of debuts from the mid-to-late 1990s. The Stable Geniuses here at the beloved pod have culled some interesting material this week, starting with very first “Diner,” oddly enough, from T. Lavitz’s next-to-last show in February 1992. Then, we head all the way out to San...

Looks Like We Made it Without a Glitch Happy New Moment! “Looks like we made it without a glitch!” - Dave Schools, 12/31/99 Oh, New Year’s Eve. While it might be second to only Valentine’s Day in the annals of overrated holidays, it at least is a night for some epic concerts, from the Dead and the Allmans, to Panic and Phish. This week, we celebrate New Year’s Eve’s from Panic’s glory years, focus...

College Football Playoff, Redux Man, were we wrong! Back in the late summer (episode #23 to be precise), we made our College Football Playoff picks, choosing Ohio State, USC, Florida State, and Alabama as our final four. Well, we only got one team right, but I think overall, we have a much better, more competitive, and more entertaining final four than we previously envisioned. So, congrats to the...

Random Panic Towns, Volume 1: Salem, Virginia Since Panic first started hitting the road, they have always had an affinity for certain places: New Orleans, Red Rocks, Chicago, and Vegas are givens, along with lots of college towns. Sometimes, though, you look at the Everyday Companion, and you discover that the band has been in certain cities a BUNCH of times with little rhyme nor reason. Routing?...

The Best of Lexington A Stroll Down Memory Lane with Harvey Since Harvey let us do a show about Lawrence, Kansas, we let him do a Lexington, Kentucky show. Of course, Harvey is a proud UK grad and a diehard fan of Big Blue (Note: Jeff is neither of these things), but it wasn’t too much of a chore, though, as there have been some great shows in the Horse Capital of the World. Panic has been playing...

Lagniappe #2: Just Keep on Giving Thanks We’re taking another break from our regular programming - road trips and family time took precedence over the pod this week. Instead, we hope you enjoy this little taste of Widespread Panic from Thanksgiving 2001. It’s a loaded first set, featuring a split “Papa’s Home” and guest spots from the DDBB and George McConnell. Hope everyone had a grand Thanksgivi...

Giving the Gift of Panic Instead of Furniture Jeff and Harvey Celebrate The Big #17 November 21. We don’t know what it means to you all, but for Jeff and Harvey, it means the beginning of a friendship that has carried them through nearly three dozen episodes of The Bluest Tape. We had traded tapes for a while, but never met face-to-face until a pre-show beer on 11/21/00. 17 years - did you know th...

Lawrence, Kansas 1993-1997 This episode is an ode to Lawrence, Kansas, a city that is home to the University of Kansas, the third-to-fifth best college basketball program in history, an 1863 Civil War massacre, and six stellar Widespread Panic concerts from 1993 to 1997. While we discuss all of these topics, plus talk about European bootlegs of Panic shows from the 1990s, we try and stay focused o...

Lagniappe #1: A Tasty Treat from Fall 1998 We’re taking a little break from our usual programming this week. We hope you this little taste of Widespread Panic from Fall Tour 1998 - play it LOUD! Links below go to whole show streams from Panicstream. 05 November 1998 - Greenville, SC - Timmons Arena, Furman University Ophelia > Diner > I’m Not Alone Source: AKG 483 > Oade M248 > SBM-1 by Max Hester...

Happy Halloween Ya Bunch of Freaks! As you might imagine, it’s pretty hard to pass up doing a Halloween-themed podcast when the podcast drops on Halloween, so no tricks here - we’re delivering what you, the listening public, wants. Though, instead of placing a bucket of bustouts above your door and dumping it in on you when come by for Whoppers and Oh Henry bars, we go in a different direction by...

Before We Ride On to Another City: All Hallow’s Eve Eve Over the years, Widespread Panic has blessed us with some incredible Halloween shows, bustouts, and rarities, from way back in 1992 at the Georgia Theater and the numerous runs in NOLA, to the recent Panic 3.0 shows in Colorado and elsewhere. Sometimes, though, the band reminds us that the road to Halloween is paved with hidden gems, too. Thi...

The Rockwell Chronicles, Volume 2 We are back with the second part of our conversation with Everyday Companion founder and true friend of the podcast, Ted Rockwell. We start the music with a clip from Ted’s very first Panic show, 7/22/92 at the Park West in Chicago. This is an absolutely sublime version of “Stop-Go,” one that really shows how much the band had progressed from those final five man...

The Rockwell Chronicles, Volume 1 This week, we welcome another special guest into the mix - founder of the Widespread Panic setlist database, Everyday Companion, Ted Rockwell. Ted has been following Panic since 1992, and has been an instrumental behind the scenes player in helping elevate the band in online circles for two decades. He and Will Duckworth put it up online back in 1995, and soon the...

Wear Your Earplugs, Kids: Fall 1998 Well, usually about this time of year the temperature would start drop a bit, the leaves would turn brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red, and we’d be enjoying some warm cider by the fire. Alas, our world is warm, y’all - like really warm. So, even though the calendar says FALL, the weather says SUMMER. Either way, let’s dive into a pretty solid fall tour...

“Rock n Roll, or Whatever You Call It:” Panic and the Boys from Bloodkin This week, we highlight a handful of songs brought to Widespread Panic by Daniel Hutchens and Eric Carter, aka Bloodkin. They came up at about the same time in Athens, and while Panic has achieved jam band royalty status, Bloodkin has remained under the radar, despite their massive songwriting output and far reaching influenc...

Here Are Some Pretty Little Songs Guaranteed To Make You Cry Fall Tour 1997 The title of this episode is actually a JB’ism from 9/15/97, and we should all know by now that when John Bell dips into the well of ironic understatement, hold onto your hats (backwards or not). This week’s selections from the middle of the first leg of the Fall 1997 are classic Panic, and, if you’re from the “School of H...

Sandwich Artistry Panic Sandwiches Everyone loves a good sandwich - whether they are the kind between two pieces of bread or when Panic splits a song in half. This week’s selections are both rare (uncommon) and well done (well executed). We start with a return to Buckhannon, West Virginia (episode 1) and a rare Dirty Business sandwich from 4/20/96. After a return to Red Rocks in 1998 for an invert...

Houston (and Beaumont, Orange, and Elsewhere), We’re With You! A 1,000 year flood.27,000,000,000,000 gallons of water.100,000+ homes damaged. Unfathomable numbers and unfathomable destruction all along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Hurricane Harvey was certainly an all-timer. From afar, it has been remarkable to witness communities coming together to help one another. The water will recede,...

The Bluest Tape College Football Preview, Redux For this week’s Bluest Tape, we have a special guest, ESPN Senior Writer Mark Schlabach, who further breaks down the upcoming college football season for us. No surprise, he likes Ohio State and Alabama, too. Mark attended the University of Georgia from 1991-96, and, like many UGA students at that time, found himself at the Georgia Theatre and other...

Forget Phil Steele. Forget Pat Forde. Forget Tony Barnhart. When you want hard-hitting hot takes about the upcoming college football season, everyone knows that The Bluest Tape is the place to get them. What, that’s not the case? Okay, maybe we overstated a bit, but still, we kind of know what’s going on, so give us a chance. Anyway, we pair our preseason top four with four great shows from Widesp...

Mikey and Us, Volume Two: Jeff’s Picks Just a few short days ago, we remembered the fifteenth anniversary of Michael Houser’s passing. It seems like yesterday, doesn’t it? This week, we look back at Mikey’s career with several selections curated by Jeff. We start off where we often do, way back in 1996, this time in the heart of the fantastic fall tour at the Barrymore Theatre in Madison, WI. Go a...