Marco Benevento & Mike Gordon Share Story Behind 53-Minute Version Of ‘Foam’

Longtime collaborators Marco Benevento and Mike Gordon will reunite for a set at Benevento's Follow The Arrow Festival this Saturday, June 29 at Arrowood Farms in Accord, New York. The keyboardist and Phish bassist previewed their performance and spoke about the legendary 53-minute “Foam” they laid down with drummer Joe Russo in a new Jambands.com interview.

Mike Gordon embarked on a series of runs with the Benevento/Russo Duo between 2004 and 2006. The trio pulled into Athens, Georgia on April 27, 2005 and laid down a deliciously experimental version of Phish classic “Foam” as their first set at the Georgia Theatre.

After Mike Gordon responded to Mike Greenhaus of Relix’s question about the “Foam” by bringing up the seven-second reprise of the song they played the next night, the pair recalled what went down in Athens. “I remember liking the idea of taking songs that had these compositional parts that I played over the years and changing them so that what used to be a written part could open up and become a vamp,” Gordon explained. “And so we took some parts of the song and just paused something that would normally just be played all the way through. I really wanted to try that, and it worked out really well for that ‘Foam.'”

Marco Benevento remembered the “Foam” was taken deep as a “you snooze you lose” moment for a gig that “was kind of undersold,” which Gordon compared to Phish covering Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon in Utah seven years prior. “We had done a bunch of shows together during the couple of months—or even year—before that which did well, and I remember being like, ‘Where is everybody tonight?’ And we were like ‘OK! Look, just to let everybody know, you gotta come to every gig because you never know what might happen that one night you miss,” Benevento recalled. “I remember being like, ‘We’re just gonna give them a huge surprise because the room is half full and that’s messed up.'”

Watch the Benevento/Russo Duo featuring Mike Gordon’s “Foam” from April 27, 2005 below:

Marco Benevento told Greenhaus Mike Gordon has been on his radar since he launched Follow The Arrow. While the set is billed as a duo performance, there will be plenty of gear for special guests. “We may have some people come up and play a tune or two with us, which is what I’m all about, musically. I have always been into the spontaneous side of things,” Benevento said. “My mentality is: ‘Sure, we can think of some songs we want to play, but let’s leave room for the unknown’ because that’s really when you’re walking the tightrope in front of everybody. And people at the festival love to see musicians searching and being unpredictable. You never know what’s gonna happen.

“Since the festival has an easy-going vibe, we want to leave room for the unknown. We don’t know who’s gonna sit in, so there is that unknown, but we also want to leave room for deeper levels of the unknown, like, ‘How many songs are we gonna do? How much are we gonna sing? How much are we gonna jam?,'” Gordon added. “We’ve had lots of ideas, but I like the idea of just simply not knowing where it’s gonna land. That’s where the fun is.”

Other topics hit upon were a Benny Goodman set the pair played in 2006, their contributions to Trey Anastasio’s Bar 17 album, their inital meeting and more. Visit Jambands.com to read the full interview.