Phish Debuts ‘Roses Are Free’ In Rochester In 1997

On December 11, 1997 Phish brought what still stands as one of the best tours in their 32-year history to Rochester War Memorial in Rochester, New York. The show is best known for hosting the debut of the foursome’s take on the Ween classic “Roses Are Free” within a six-song second set.

Filmmaker Todd Phillips was on hand to capture the action for a documentary that would eventually be released in 2000 as Bittersweet Motel. The film featured a cool montage that shows Phish rehearsing “Roses Are Free” and leads into the actual performance. Take a look:

Few in the venue seemed familiar with the song, but it would become a fan-favorite cover in short order, especially after Phish took “Roses Are Free” deep on April 3, 1998 at the Nassau Coliseum as part of the Island Tour. Recently, Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo discussed Phish’s cover and the genesis of the song with the Phish.net Team:

Aaron wrote this song and recorded it in his apartment in Stockton, NJ during the very fertile writing period preceding Chocolate and Cheese. There was no bass on it. I immediately fell in love with the song and thought it was the closest thing we’d ever recorded to truly emulate Prince, who is our musical hero.

The demo was on four tracks with two vocals, drum machine and keyboard. I heard it as being symphonic. I think it’s ironic that as many times as we’ve worn our Prince inspiration on our sleeves that no one ever picked up the obvious, massive Prince influence of the song. When we re-recorded it for Chocolate and Cheese we filled up 24 tracks with parts.

We never played it live, it had never even occurred to us until Phish started playing it out. Now it’s one of my favorite songs to perform live, as the whole band is playing the entire time. Usually it’s our finale of finales, the last song of the last encore.

Phish, by covering it, made it one of our popular and most crowd pleasing tunes. For that we owe Trey forever because it opened up so many people’s ears to the music of Ween and introduced us to a whole new audience within the jam band scene, which never would have happened otherwise.