I listened to this one in pieces over the course of a few days, so the review might be a little fractured. But that's okay, because that's sort of how I feel about the show, too.
Night three in Miami likely has the highest highlights of the run so far, but the middle of each set sags pretty drastically in comparison. The result is a show that will contribute quite a bit to my best-of-fall playlist, but that I'll probably never listen to in its entirety again.
The opening trio of songs here get things going in a hurry: "Soul Shakedown Party" is just a fun opener, especially for the penultimate 2009 show; Mike kills "Jim," at one point leading Trey around on a fun circular run of notes, and "Jesus Just Left Chicago" features some great clav work from Page.
It's not that I dislike "Dixie Cannonball," and I'm always all for more bluegrass-Mike covers, but this seems to zap the energy from the room. This "Faulty Plan" doesn't do anything for me either. I love the guys' cover of "Corinna," but it sounds a bit too much like "Ether Sunday" for me, and maybe belongs to TAB instead of Phish, at least as the third in a run of fairly flat songs in the middle of a damn 12/30 show. Maybe I'm just grumpy.
Anyway, shit takes off in a big way with a rare, standalone "What's the Use?". I love the hell out of this song, and even the shortish, lonely version on display here is wonderful. It's followed by "Tela," which doesn't do much to ramp up the set's energy, but at least kicks us back into "solid, mellow set" territory. Everybody has a turn flubbing in this take on the song, but it's a 236-song bustout, so I'm not going to complain much.
"Rocky Top" and a fiery "CDT" lead up to a fantastic, out-of-nowhere take on "Bowie" to close the set. The jam starts in a really melodic, mellow register to suit the rest of the set, but it follows a slow, amazingly patient build before exploding into a perfectly-executed peak that I really can't describe further without using explicit sexual metaphors. It's that good.
Anyway, the "Bowie" energy continues straight into the second set with a rare (for '09) "Sand" that more-or-less follows the same pattern: mellow, melodic lead-in to the jam, with Mike funking away underneath, and a slow build into a rock and roll peak. I realize that that description could work for about 4,000 of Phish's jams, and I'm not doing a great job of explaining why this one is especially excellent. But it is. So listen to it.
A standard-gorgeous take on "The Curtain (With)" follows, and then yet another spectacular setlist choice in "Lifeboy" in the cool-down slot. Sheesh...this Miami run isn't necessarily the greatest Phish out there, but the setlist construction doesn't get much better than these last few shows.
"Back on the Train" is the surprise of the fall/winter, if not the surprise of the year. Maybe it's second to the "Fluffhead" opener in Hampton in that category. Maybe. It's a seventeen minute "BOTT," and not only that, the vast majority of that time is an absolutely freeform, quasi-ambient jam that goes so deep into Type II territory that you'll have to check your player to see what song this started as by the 15:00 mark. In terms of sheer musicianship, it's not my favorite jam of the year, but I don't think I've heard any other jam in '09 that matches this one for sheer audacity. It's the kind of jam that a lot of people spent much of 2010 and 2011 hoping to hear again. And here it is.
As if the jam itself wasn't enough, there's also a great > "Wading" at the conclusion, featuring the song coalescing out of an ambient wash and at first actually only featuring Trey's vocals singing the refrain, and then the band harmonizing the refrain before eventually the instruments come in. It's a really beautiful half-minute or so of transition.
Now, as I've said before, I love me some Phish antics, but after such a great run of songs in the first half of this set, it's a bit of a disappointment to see the guys fall into "HYHU" > "Love You" > "HYHU." But I suppose they've earned it. Plus, Fish giving the vacuum away to a lucky fan is just good fun.
However, the slowdown puts a damper on what might have otherwise been a really explosive ending. "Free" is standard fare, and "Boogie On," though never a slouch, is also as straight-laced as can be, until the end when it seems like the boys are going to go deep and Trey ripcords them into "Run Like an Antelope."
Hilariously, though, Page refuses to stop playing "Boogie On," and this leads to a number of "Boogie On" teases scattered throughout a red-hot "Antelope" that makes up a bit for the lull mid-set.
I can see why lots of people hold the Miami run up as distinctly different and distinctly better than much of fall '09 tour. It's not really that the issues that made much of fall tour underwhelming have disappeared or even really minimized at all, but the highs that made those weaknesses bearable have become so high that it's hard to remember, after something like 12/30's "BOTT" or 12/29's "Tweezer," that a lot of the show was just boilerplate.
Let's see how 12/31 ends us up, shall we?
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