Four shows into Fall '09, with 11/20 set 2 the only real bit of music worth noting (except maybe bits of 11/18), listening to all this old Phish when there's so much good new Phish to revisit was starting to become a bit of a drag. 11/24 isn't a vast improvement by any means, but it's a perfectly average-great Phish show, and for that I'm thankful. At least for now.
Most of what's worth hearing here, even from an average-great frame of reference, happens in the second set. "Chalkdust" always succeeds or fails as an opener based on the amount of punch it brings. When the band comes out ready to kick ass, you hear it right away in a song like this. When they come out to play some songs and have a good time, you don't get that punch, and this "Chalkdust" falls into the second category, unfortunately. It's followed immediately by a long "Gin," but despite the length, it's a standard reading. "Cities" is pretty tepid as well, but it's the first time I really noticed how much Mike stands out in this show. I don't know if he's playing with even more verve than usual here or if it was just the mix, but he sounded like he was everywhere during this show, and it saved a number of songs that would have otherwise been just "meh."
Anyway, "Cities" is all Mike, then there's a really loose and fun take on "Camel Walk" that leads into "The Curtain With." This song seems to be everywhere lately when I listen to Phish, and so it was nice to hear. It's a solid version, but really only novel because of its relative rarity. Mike comes back to the fore on "Moma" and the "Reba" is a great choice for late in a first set, but again, doesn't really stack up to any of the far superior high-end 3.0 versions. All in all, a really standard set with some good song choices, but at least fall tour first sets seem to have finally hit a good balance between interesting song choices and steady execution.
In a way, I think "Possum" is the highlight of this show. No, seriously. Stop laughing. It opens the second set with the energy that "Chalkdust" was lacking, and Trey is playing some interesting leads for the first time in the show. Mike, still, is just going straight-up nuts on bass, and it feels like maybe the show has started over, in a good way. I guess whether this transition is really a transition for the better depends on how you feel about this "Disease." I'm conflicted. It rocks in a typical Trey-led way for the first ~9 minutes, then Trey tries a change of guitar tone and there's a slight move toward a more blissy jamming space. This falls apart quickly, though, and Trey tries to default to the usual '09 mid-jam funk zone. Fortunately, Fish and Mike fucking refuse to allow this to happen, keeping the rhythmic momentum going and pushing the jam into a more interesting soundscape. We get some great little Page bits around 1230 as the momentum starts to wind down, and then a really brief section of something at 1430 that I'm going to call "space-blues." It's awesome and lasts for far too short a time. Overall, this "Disease" is a bit disjointed and not necessarily that excited as a whole, but there are a few neat ideas that hint at something beyond the second-song-second-set jam structure we're getting accustomed to here late in the year. The neat segue into "Twenty Years Later" doesn't hurt, either.
This "Hood" is wonderful. It's short, but nice and noodly, with a slow build that blasts into a great climax. It doesn't do anything special, but it does its thing really, really well. The momentum builds into a neat little jam in "Mango Song" with Mike taking the lead again.
Unfortunately, "Mike's" is short and just about as plain as you can get. The segue into "Simple" is solid, and there's pretty much never a "Simple" jam I don't like, but this one is aborted way too quickly in favor of "Slave." This "Slave," though, follows the pattern of the earlier "Hood," and is a great version for it. The peak is absolutely explosive, and it leads into a really wacky "Groove" wherein Fish switches up the usual beat about two minutes in to something much slower and, somehow funkier. What results is a cowfunk jam right out of 1997, closing the show proper with the kind of energy and invention that would have been nice to hear for the first 75% of the show. But I'm griping. If you can't get enough of '09 "Disease" jams, this one won't disappoint you. The "Hood" is boilerplate "Hood," but in the best way, and the "Simple" > "Slave" > "Groove" run is a great omen for the remainder of the tour. I hope.
Oh, the "Day In The Life" closer doesn't hurt either. I'm feeling optimistically hopeful for 11/25.
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