The second show of the summer picks up where the strong playing (and jamming!) of the first show left off. The first set is a great mix of new and old first-set style songs, bolstered by an extra jolt of whatever it is that makes those tried-and-true first set tunes still sparkle after fifty or three hundred plays. "Farmhouse" is a bit of a surprise in the opening slot, I'm glad to hear that "Yarmouth Road" is still getting played, "Devotion To a Dream" is growing into a "Heavy Things" or "Jibboo"-esque mini-jam live, and "Strange Design" takes the rarity slot. The pairing of "Mound" and "Roggae" is a great idea, and this "Ocelot" trumps my distaste for the song by heading into a bit of a blissful jam space instead of going the usual blues-rock route.
The second set is a monster in the mold of 7/1's latter half. So far, Phish has been including the typical single "big" jam in each second set, but have started surrounding it with more clever segues and short-but-effective jams than they did in, say, '11 or '12. The thing is that they can get so deep so fast nowadays that filling the second set with 12 and 14 minute songs might not look, on paper, as good as a 35 minute jam, but many of these jams get more mileage than their minute-age let on. It's true here, for sure.
"Gin" seems a strange choice to open the set, but it delivers on its promise by heading into Type II funk territory that oddly resembles "Waiting All Night" before switching to an ambient space that sets up a great segue into "Limb By Limb." This "Limb" also goes Type II, heading to a dark space that is inundated with Trey loops before segueing into "Winterqueen." "Winterqueen" and "The Line" both feature nice little rock and roll mini-jams as outros and keep the energy of the set rolling along. Then there's a late-set "Tweezer" that, like the "Limb" is short but manages to cover a number of different, very satisfying jamlets before dissolving into a pedestrian take on "Caspian." The rest of the set is pretty standard, but we've got three legitimate jams here and some thoroughly enjoyable takes on a few new songs. For my money, this show easily tops 7/1. Onward and upward!
The Live Review:
7/3/14: Farmhouse opener? Well, even if S1s are getting played mostly straight still, at least the song choices are interesting.
7/3/14: Wolfman's in the two-slot. Dives straight into some clav-heavy funk.
7/3/14: Like the placement for Maze.
7/3/14: Woo! Glad to see that Yarmouth Road hasn't fallen by the wayside.
7/3/14: Trey's outro solo is not great, but still a treat to hear.
7/3/14: Strange Design next!
7/3/14: Actually love the studio Devotion b/c of the 'overproduced' sound. But the live versions so far have been great, too.
7/3/14: Ocelot next. So far, the set's fun, but nothing remarkable. Liked the mini-extended take on Devotion.
7/3/14: Ocelot jam is actually sort of neat. Veering into bliss-rock territory instead of the usual blues vamp.
7/3/14: Weird to hear a short version of CDT, after the recent monsters.
7/3/14: Like the pairing of Mound, Roggae.
7/3/14: Page and Mike doing a lot of the heavy lifting on this Roggae. Trey keeps trying to derail them with some spotting whale pedal.
7/3/14: Page heavy again on Possum. Great stuff!
7/3/14: Bathtub Gin is an unexpected opener for S2. Even the crowd seems confused.
7/3/14: Developing this a bit more than it usually gets in its S1 slot.
7/3/14: Still Type I, but building up a hell of a momentum.
7/3/14: Nevermind. We just peaked and then went funk Type II. (11:00).
7/3/14: Sounds like a fast, funk version of Waiting All Night. If that makes any sense.
7/3/14: Ambient-ish space > LxL.
7/3/14: Oh boy. Looks like Limb might be going Type II.
7/3/14: This jam has hit about three distinct spaces in four minutes, all of them good. Now it's a sort of dark, rolling thing.
7/3/14: Trey is looping over this madness like crazy.
7/3/14: This is the weirdest thing I've heard Phish play (for more than 45 seconds) in a long time.
7/3/14: Nice > Winterqueen.
7/3/14: Wow. Great, rock and roll outro jam to Winterqueen. Makes me not even miss the horns :)
7/3/14: Page leading The Line outro jam now. These new songs lead so well into these neat little rock and
roll outro bits. Keep 'em coming.
7/3/14: Oh boy. You know how I feel about late-set Tweezers.
7/3/14: We're getting some dark-stadium-funk here. Not sure if that makes sense either.
7/3/14: Trey's picked up a cool riff and is running with it.
7/3/14: I don't have any half-cocked adjectival trainwrecks to describe what the band is doing right now, but the interplay is incredible.
7/3/14: Slick, natural segue into Caspian.
7/3/14: Quick version of Caspian, > Sparkle. Sparkle seems like an odd choice for late-set action.
7/3/14: And it's the 'Lope to close set two. How often does that happen nowadays?
7/3/14: Standard Antelope, but after most of that set, I'm not complaining.
7/3/14: Sing Monica is one of those songs that lends itself more to that overproduced album sound than the live setting.
7/3/14: Still nice in the encore slot, though. Still sounds like Tuesday.
7/3/14: Tweeprise to close, of course. Great second set.
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