As many of you know, Reba is my passion. I've been working towards listening to every Reba ever played, and I've now made it through 197 versions, or about 56% of the 349 Rebas, including every version (except one) from 1993-2011. As I continue to work through the earlier versions of the song, I thought it was time to share my opinions with the rest of phish.net.

If you are interested, the spreadsheet on which I am recording my rating of each Reba is available here. For those versions which are noted "Full Review Available," those reviews are available here.

A few notes:

The purpose of this project is NOT to objectively identify the "Best Reba Ever." The ratings are simply a tool to keep track of my favorite versions of my favorite Phish song and to stimulate discussion about them, nothing more. I am no more or less qualified to rate these different versions than any other Phish fan, so I welcome and encourage comments and debate about the merits of different Rebas. If, on the other hand, you find the concept of rating and comparing versions to be silly and pointless to begin with, please ignore this whole endeavor and rage on!!

Since this is completely subjective, I have no qualms about changing ratings as I hear more versions and my opinions evolve. Quite a few of the versions I graded when I first started reviewing Rebas 15 years ago have been regraded. I don't follow specific requirements when I grade a version, but there are qualities I usually look for: Clean execution of the composed music, beautiful work in the initial, quieter section of the jam, strong tension/release towards the end, and the attempt to do something different with the song. Some "type II" versions and a select few others have been left unrated and are marked "NR" in the rating column.

As far as the full reviews go, again, please take them for what they are worth. The terms I use for the different sections were chosen 15 years ago, so I've decided to leave them as they are (though I considered changing them a bit). I have decided to resume writing the reviews, mostly because it's enjoyable for me and I find it a challenge to describe music with words. I'm sure I fail at that more often than not, but I consider it a worthwhile exercise.

And a little history:

I was inspired to start writing reviews of Reba in 1996 after reading the reviews of Bathtub Gin written by Benjy Eisen and reviews of You Enjoy Myself and Mike's Song by Charlie Dirksen (@Icculus). I enjoyed listening to the songs while reading along so much, I decided I wanted to write reviews, too (check out the archived reviews page.). Having been recently tremendously moved by hearing the 10/21/95 Lincoln Reba, I decided to make Reba my song, and started posting my reviews to rec.music.phish. This led to further involvement with the community, and I assisted with compiling the Reba jamming chart for the first Mockingbird Foundation book. There have been some detours since then, but since discovering Kevin Hoy's spreadsheet I now can at least get close to hearing every version of Reba ever captured.

So, there it is. I welcome comments and debate in this thread, and I will post here when I upload new reviews or make significant additions to the spreadsheet.

Thank you, Phish.net!

/Bag'd
//Tag'd

@Slothberries said:

Right on, Emu. sounds like a hell of a project.

Thank you, sir! It's been a blast. I'm looking forward to hopefully discovering cool little nuggets in the older versions.

You're awesome @theEmu. Sounds like a fun project, Reba's one of my favorites.

@Busta_Move said:

You're awesome @theEmu. Sounds like a fun project, Reba's one of my favorites.

Back atcha, dude!

@TheEmu said:

@Slothberries said:

Right on, Emu. sounds like a hell of a project.

Thank you, sir! It's been a blast. I'm looking forward to hopefully discovering cool little nuggets in the older versions.

sure thang. and thank you, emu. lately it seems like as though .net has become another social networking site, with more focus being placed on relationship problems than Phish music. its refreshing to see someone put their time and energy into the music. thanks, buddy!

I think I love you.

is anyone else having trouble viewing the ratings page that emu created? i have a macbook, and the file is saving as a .xls, but it looks like a mess in this format. im seeing lots of weird numbers and symbols, almost like the file is encrypted somehow.

@Slothberries said:

is anyone else having trouble viewing the ratings page that emu created? i have a macbook, and the file is saving as a .xls, but it looks like a mess in this format. im seeing lots of weird numbers and symbols, almost like the file is encrypted somehow.

I tried opening it and it only gave me a link to mediafire I am PC

@Slothberries Oops I found what I did wrong. I just noticed the master list at the bottom of excel wow i have a lot of reading I think

@Kurtzboy said:

@TheEmu, you are forever "The Reba Dude" in my mind now.

@Slothberries, I'm on a mac, and I was able to view it. It sent it to "Numbers", fwiw.

is "Numbers" some sort of program? i dont think i have that

it opened up in text edit, by default. like i said, it was a mess, so i tried saving it as a PDF and viewing it through Preview, but that didnt work either.

@Slothberries said:

@Kurtzboy said:

@TheEmu, you are forever "The Reba Dude" in my mind now.

@Slothberries, I'm on a mac, and I was able to view it. It sent it to "Numbers", fwiw.

is "Numbers" some sort of program? i dont think i have that

it opened up in text edit, by default. like i said, it was a mess, so i tried saving it as a PDF and viewing it through Preview, but that didnt work either.

nevermind...i looked it up. its part of iwork

@BathtubG said:

Great work! I too am obsessed with Reba. Just curious about the rating for example 6-24-94 has a 13.5 and also has an F, what does that mean?

I'm pretty sure that the A,B,C... grades on the right are just there as a key, which is repeated so it stays on screen while scrolling. So if you see a 9 you can look and see that it's a C+.

Awesome list emu, I'm looking forward to listening to those 15's.

I just checked out the 10/31/94. Usually I just listen to the second set, I've never noticed how amazing that Reba is. Thanks again for posting this.

Gotta ask. Which is your favorite? Or favorite few.

Wow! This song is the kind of song that's a different experience every time. An improv tour de force.

I noticed that the 4/15/92 Reba got a got a D- (one of my favorites). That's the first version I thought of when I saw this thread. Either I have no taste in Reba, or it is definitely a subjective spread sheet.

I know what you have made would be the finest in the nation.

Oooh I see my favorite Reba (Halloween 94) has a rating of 15!

@tvlxql9x said:

So what exactly is the JC column?

I was wondering that, too.

@conradjohansen said:

@tvlxql9x said:

So what exactly is the JC column?

I was wondering that, too.

Sorry, I meant to post these explanations in the initial post then forgot!

An X in the "JC" column indicates that they are on the Phish.net Reba Jamming Chart. A "?" indicates that I might recommend that version for addition to the Jamming Chart.

Owe you a funny story still. Least I can do. You're Awesome BTW!!!

@Busta_Move said:

What are thoughts on the Reba from 11/24/09?

Here are the notes I made from my first listen:

"Mostly good composition. 1st swallow is rough, Fishman has to get restarted. Noodly but smooth start. Seems on the verge of hitting a real nice groove, then pulls away...and now the cat's getting sick...not too bad, though. Only mildly good ending. Sigh. C-/C"

When I say "sick cat" I'm talking about some of Trey's playing, especially in the June 2010 versions. I don't know what he's attempting, but to my ears it sounds pretty awful. I will give this version another listen and report back, though.

Also, @MountainKung303 I'll put 4/15/92 in my next batch to listen to.

@TheEmu said:

@conradjohansen said: [quote]But I won't lie. My favorite is easily 8/16/93. I love the risk-taking, the ebb and flow, the powerful ending, even the little intro before they start. It was the first "type-II" Reba I heard, and I fell so instantly in love with it that I assumed everyone knew it was the best Reba ever and had to be reminded that other people might have different opinions. I know it has its flaws, but it will forever be my fave.

That is a great one, I'll have to relisten to it to get my real thoughts on it. It is looong and it get's pretty far out there.

@bostonron said:

@TheEmu said:

@conradjohansen said:

Gotta ask. Which is your favorite? Or favorite few.

But I won't lie. My favorite is easily 8/16/93. I love the risk-taking, the ebb and flow, the powerful ending, even the little intro before they start. It was the first "type-II" Reba I heard, and I fell so instantly in love with it that I assumed everyone knew it was the best Reba ever and had to be reminded that other people might have different opinions. I know it has its flaws, but it will forever be my fave.

I'm with you. While I'm not as into Reba as you clearly are, it's still one of my favorite Phish songs. And 8.16.93 is my favorite. For every reason you mentioned, plus I love, love, love Trey's final solo going into the end. He just flows so smoothly but with so much fire and passion. Nailing every note with speed and precison, while maintaining a melodic theme. His solo reminds me very much of 12.31.93 Hood's. Awesome project BTW. I could see myself doing something like this with Hood, as I am just as passionate about Hood as you are with Reba. This chart will work nicely with the "official" .net jamming chart. Great work, man.

Thanks, Ron! And totally do it, it's a lot of work but a lot of fun!

I am impressed @TheEmu. Very impressed indeed.

@MountainKung303 - 4/15/92 I thought has a few issues. The 2nd "Swallow" is botched pretty good (Trey is going well then bam, just falls over), it's really short (less than 10 minutes w/o whistling) and, most importantly, I don't think the bulk of the jam gels particularly well. On the plus side, though, Trey comes up with some interesting ideas towards the end, and it finishes pretty strongly, even if it goes right into the classic Reba wail and toms out quickly. I gave it a C/C+ (marked down from a full C+ due to the botched swallow and awkward middle section of the jam).

It was this one, from the Variety Arts Center you were talking about? Because the one two days later is the excellent Warfield '92 version, which I think is much better.

@TheEmu

What are the "three best Rebas of 3.0?"