2014-07-12 Randall's Island II

The Verdict:
Lest the last few shows' reliance and average sets sprinkled with killer jams make the greedy part of you want a show that's both frighteningly consistent and full of ridiculous jams, N2 of Randall's is here for you. The first is lacking a monster like the "Gin" from N1, unfortunately, but the song choice is excellent and the playing is consistently top-notch. "Devotion" and "Halfway To the Moon" get their best readings yet, "ASIHTOS" is shredded absolutely to death by Trey, and the "Antelope" disappears under a curtain of loops and wonderful feedback.

Everything about S2 is better than almost all things. There's no real jamming in "PYITE," but the band stretches out the intro and for a moment it's not clear whether they're going to return to the song, until they do, and then give it an amazingly confident reading. The "Carini" > "Ghost" pair is just absurdly good, as "Carini" goes the space jazz route, sounding like a "Simple" jam that's been fired into the stratosphere, and the "Ghost" heads into ultra-reverby funk territory before landing perfectly in "Wingsuit." If this awesome trifecta wasn't enough, next is a note-perfect Type I version of "Rock and Roll" and yet another extended "Hood," this time with a blues jam, of all things.

Just in case you're not dead yet, there's a triple encore featuring "Tube" and "First Tube."

My god. N3 coming up next.

The Live Review:
7/12/14: Pure S1 opening rock from a Bag &gt 46 Days combo to start.

7/12/14: Coordinated chanting for PYITE.

7/12/14: Yarmouth Road!

7/12/14: Trey is doing that Halfway To the Moon thing where he just plays slide notes that clash slightly with the rest of the song.

7/12/14: Can't someone just write fucking parts for him for these songs so he doesn't drag them down everytime? Page? Scott? Mike?

7/12/14: Devotion To a Dream is currently entering the ranks of the Solid First Set Rockers. I'm okay with that.

7/12/14: I wish Sing Monica would do that, but so far it sucks live. Which is weird because the studio version is hilariously good.

7/12/14: Free is sounding a little better lately. I mean, it's still stuck in the S1 < 8 minute closet, but maybe it'll bust out someday.

7/12/14: My Sweet One! Aww, that's cute.

7/12/14: Band biffs ending to BOTT, Trey restarts w/ 'We haven't used that ending in a long time...' :)

7/12/14: Crowd now chanting 'One more time!' Band obliges. Hilarious.

7/12/14: Despite my earlier bitching, that was a good Trey-outing on Halfway.

7/12/14: I'm starting to think Sparkle is going to be the dark horse Most Times Played winner this tour.

7/12/14: That ASIHTOS was way too short, but featured a lot of thematically-appropriate whale pedal (get it?).

7/12/14: The Line's outro jam gets me every time.

7/12/14: Antelope to close S1?

7/12/14: YEAH, BIG FUCKIN' SURPRISE THERE

7/12/14: Aw, he dedicated it to the Dude of Life's children, who are at their first Phish concert. Now I feel like a dick.

7/12/14: That Antelope was actually pretty psychotic.

7/12/14: The screamers finally get their wish as S2 opens with PYITE. Trey and Fish playing with the intro a bit.

7/12/14: Trey struggling a little with the composed part, but overall this is a solid version, bolstered by the extended intro.

7/12/14: &gt CAAAAAAAAAAAARIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

7/12/14: This is a surprisingly straightforward, rocking Carini, at least at the 6:00 mark.

7/12/14: Okay, now things are getting weird. Page synth, Fish slowing the beat.

7/12/14: This is what a Simple jam would sound like if you blew it out the airlock into the vacuum of space.
7/12/14: This jam certainly isn't changing the world, but it's absolutely a blast to listen to.

7/12/14: Death Jazz &gt Fade Out &gt

7/12/14: Rarely these days does a Ghost start out as 'rocking,' but this one sure has.

7/12/14: Page and Trey are batting the ball back and forth early on.

7/12/14: Now moving into some straight-ahead rock territory, but good straight-ahead rock territory.

7/12/14: Lots o' loops at the 10:00 mark.

7/12/14: Now it's a funky, Twist-like jam.

7/12/14: Reverb funk?

7/12/14: Once again, a great landing in Wingsuit.

7/12/14: That Wingsuit was the best Wingsuit. Effortless move into Rock and Roll. This set is enormous.

7/12/14: Short RnR, but Trey shredded the HELL out of it.

7/12/14: We're back in blues-jam mode here for another Type II Hood, of all things. Awesome.

7/12/14: Great return from the jam to the conclusion in Hood.

7/12/14: It's not as weird as the 7/1 version, but I think I like it better anyway.

7/12/14: Tube for the encore!

7/12/14: Joy'd.

7/12/14: First Tube! Triple encore!


7/12/14: Wow. That second set/encore is what the kids would call 'totes ridic.' Randall's is gonna give SPAC a run for its run money.

2014-07-11 Randall's Island I

The Verdict:
I started up the first night of the Randall's run this morning wondering if it was going to be able to top the excellent SPAC run from earlier in July, and so far I'd say it's off to a great start. S1 would be a standard run through heavily rock-oriented greatest hits that closes with a "Stash" that manages to blend bliss and tension jamming in an interesting way...were it not for the "Gin" sitting in the middle of it all. A 15-minute monster, this thing achieves Tahoe Tweezer-style transcendence for the last few minutes, with the whole band just blowing through the jam's typical structure and replacing it with a driving, melodic masterpiece. This might be my favorite 4-5 minutes of Phish yet this year, and that's saying a lot, considering how many highlights there have been so far.

Just in case that "Gin" wasn't enough by itself, S2 features a wonderful pairing of "Steam" > "Disease." The "Steam" is short and features a lot of lyrical flubs, but it also does that thing where all of a sudden, about 7 or 8 minutes in, you have no idea what song this is or how the band is making these sounds, but you know it's amazing. I actually fell asleep in the middle of S1 last night and when I woke up, this was playing and I thought that my playlist had played through the whole show and moved on to another artist. It's that weird. And that good. The "Disease" that follows moves from standard Type I soloing to a fun-but-plain blues jam that eats up most of the track's time, but in the last three or so minutes, Page pushes things into a weird, ethereal space, reminiscent of some of the better "Simple" jams. There's a great segue into "Golden Age," but the rest of the set is pretty standard-great. With a consistently well-played show, though, and three marquee jams, this is one of the strongest entries in the summer so far.

The Live Review:
7/11/14: Getting on my good side early with a Moma opener.

7/11/14: Great Ya Mar in the three-spot. 'Cactus' takes 'Leo''s usual solo spot, to great effect.

7/11/14: Oh, and there was a KDF in there somewhere, but whatever.

7/11/14: This Gin is in danger of getting weird. Trey is stretching and squishing the main melody early on in the jam.

7/11/14: Big-time peak at 9:00. Nice.

7/11/14: And right when the song would normally end, we take a huge left turn. Loop time!

7/11/14: Trey dropping another one of those awesome leads. This is happening in the fourth song of the show, people.

7/11/14: This has that unstoppably rolling, Tahoe-Tweezer feel to it. Probably the single best jam bit I've heard since then.

7/11/14: Talking about from 11:00-15:00 or so. Other jams since then I've probably liked better overall.

7/11/14: Great, sudden end w/ return to opening riff.

7/11/14: End set one. #lolz

7/11/14: Aaaand we're back with 555 after that brain-numbing Gin.

7/11/14: Fiery 555 heads directly into a fast-paced and well-played (!) Rift.

7/11/14: Rift > Sample. This is turning into a hits set, but at like double the usual tempo. And after that Gin, it's hard to complain.

7/11/14: This Waiting All Night is way the hell better than the last version that they played.
RT @drewphish: This is a great groove! We should collectively clap just barely after 2 and 4 to make it even better!

7/11/14: Looks like Stash to close S1.

7/11/14: Can you have a bliss jam and a tension jam at the same time? Because that's what they seem to be doing right now.

7/11/14: Loop/bliss/tension jam lifting off NOW.

7/11/14: Kind of a rough landing back in the climax of the song there, but definitely an interesting version.

7/11/14: S2 starts off with Steam! Trey's having some trouble with the lyrics, but it's great to hear this song anyway.

7/11/14: They just did that thing where they perfectly drop into an unexpected jam space with no hesitation. At 6:30.

7/11/14: This is about as cool as it seemed yesterday when I woke up in the middle of it and thought it was the weirdest Phish jam ever.

7/11/14: It's not, really, but there's a lot of driving, dark, almost-funk in the middle that's pretty wild.

7/11/14: Jam sort of sputters and Trey restarts the main riff, but for a few minutes that was amazing.

7/11/14: DwD is next. So far, a pretty hot Type I jam, with a little bit reminiscent of the Steam jam thrown in for good measure.

7/11/14: Seamless move to a jazzy space at around 8:00.

7/11/14: This has turned into a pretty straightforward but really fun blues jam.

7/11/14: Oh no, there's wooing! That means this jam will now be hated by people who hate fun! #phish

7/11/14: Page just pushed things into an ethereal-sounding space toward the end (16:00).

7/11/14: The last few minutes of that jam really made it for me. Also, a great -> into Golden Age.

7/11/14: Trey's having serious lyrics issues tonight.

7/11/14: The end of the Golden Age jam is headed in the same direction as the end of the DwD, but with Page on electric piano.

7/11/14: Now turning sinister...and > Limb. Now *that* might not-unfairly be called a ripcord. Sounded like it was going somewhere great.

7/11/14: Vocal flub leads to a pretty great goofy-mouth-sounds moment from (I think) Trey.

7/11/14: Otherwise, standard Limb > Fuego.

7/11/14: Nice piano-heavy outro jam on Fuego.

7/11/14: Electric piano jam over the Bowie intro!

7/11/14: Not my favorite Bowie of the modern era, but moved from each of the usual spaces into the next really well, which many don't do.

7/11/14: And Cavern, for the old-school S2 finish!

7/11/14: Zero'd.

7/11/14: I guess the good news is that there can't be a Zero closer for either of the next two nights, right? Right?!

2014-07-09 The Mann II

The Verdict: 
The first set of night two at the Mann is sort of an inverse of the 7/8's first set. Where 7/8's first set had great song choices that were played, overall, at a bit below average quality, 7/9's first set is a sort of weird disaster in set construction that gets by anyway because the songs are played with such gusto you forget how little sense they make together. This set features takes on "Stealing Time" and "Alaska" that even got my attention, there's a "McGrupp" in there, and the closing "Antelope" hearkens back to those crazy early '09 versions in the best way.

S2 is a lot like the night one in the sense that there's not much there except for when there is. Specifically, the "Chalkdust Torture" and "Twist" jams are amazing, and the rest might as well be in a first set somewhere. Like the "Fuego" and "Ghost" from the first night, if you get a lot of mileage out of the jams here, you won't miss the consistency, but if they don't click with you, the whole thing will come off feeling inconsistent. For my money, the "Chalkdust" jam is incredible and the "Twist" is another deconstruction of a song that's really getting shaken out of its stale shell this year.

The Live Review:
7/9/14: Glide opener. Brave decision. Trey's actually handling it pretty well so far.

7/9/14: Spoke too soon :)

7/9/14: The vocals of Sing Monica never quite have the punch live of the studio version. The outro jam on this version is hot, though.

7/9/14: Really good S1-type version of Birds here, too. The lack of energy I was complaining about last night is definitely gone.

7/9/14: Great Wolfman's next. Nice minimalist funk breakdown in the middle and Trey firing on all cylinders for the climax at the end.

7/9/14: Trey's even nailing the ever-elusive Sugar Shack solo. The Glide opener aside, maybe this is going to be one of *those* Trey nights.

7/9/14: Spoke too soon again. Trey falls to the behemoth known as Sugar Shack.

7/9/14: Huh. That was even a decent Alaska. And you know how I feel about Alaska.

7/9/14: McGrupp!

7/9/14: This is the set where there are lots of songs that I don't like but have good versions. Stealing Time was pretty great.

7/9/14: It's mandatory to like Horn, though.

7/9/14: I'm having a lot more fun hearing Devotion To a Dream evolve than I thought I would.

7/9/14: Silent > Antelope to close a S1 that was way better than it looks on paper.

7/9/14: Trey doing some awesome loopy, tension-building stuff in this Antelope.

7/9/14: This is my favorite Antelope in awhile.

7/9/14: RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN

7/9/14: S2 kicks off with what I believe is the first of many outer space CDTs from this tour.

7/9/14: Yup. Track length is way up there. Yum yum.

7/9/14: Actually, the early Type I soloing at the beginning of this CDT is really, really good.

7/9/14: Oh my shit this is good. At the 7:00 mark now.

7/9/14: This jam is managing to be both dark and driving at the same time. Page is adding some great synthy accents.

7/9/14: Trey is having no trouble at all just generating piles of memorable improvised melodies throughout this jam.

7/9/14: REALLY good > Wingsuit. There's that use of Wingsuit as a 'landing pad' everyone was hoping for.

7/9/14: Love Wingsuit, but don't like how quickly Trey returns to the main melody in the outro jam. Deserves a real Dark and Down style jam.

7/9/14: Winterqueen! Been a fan of this one since seeing the 7/25 version.

7/9/14: This one's nice, too. The jam is a little less effortless, if that makes any sense, but still purty.

7/9/14: Another slow, syrupy Twist is next. Everyone playing around a bit with the intro.

7/9/14: No huge jams, but based on the versions I've heard so far, Twist should be considered the 'MVP' of the tour for sheer inventiveness.

7/9/14: Wow. That was an awesome 10 minutes of Twist. Little section in the middle that departed from the usual structure for some space.

7/9/14: Trey bending notes like crazy at the end.

7/9/14: Twist > Crosseyed?! Oh shit, yes.

7/9/14: A little loop action making its way into this Crosseyed.

7/9/14: Great, weird fade-out, with 'Still waiting' vocals and atonal guitar > Waste.

7/9/14: That could probably be construed as a 'ripcord' by those who can't hear when a jam has run its course. I thought it was purty.

7/9/14: A nice Waste breather before B> Mike's.

7/9/14: For those of you playing at home, remember that translates to 'Waste, butt-slammed into Mike's.' :)
7/9/14: Mike's is staying funky, which actually plays more to 2014 Trey's strengths. More chording, less sort-of-limp-sounding shredding.

7/9/14: Sneakin' Sally out of a strong Mike's. This S2 is killer.

7/9/14: Pretty standard Sally, but a great choice for set closer.

7/9/14: No, #phish fans! Stop cheering for the Julius encore! It just encourages it!

7/9/14: Ah, nice move to close that Mike's Groove up before ending the show. Pretty funky Weekapaug.

2014-07-08 The Mann I

The Verdict:
S1 of the first night at the Mann features some fantastic song choices, but no real notable performances minus a top-shelf short-but-weird "Tube." Definitely lacking the energy of many other '14 S1s, but if you like what you see on the setlist, it's worth a listen.

S2 should be all about the 26-minute "Fuego" that winds around and around and moves effortlessly between all kinds of weird spaces before transitioning into "The Line." But really, the "Tweezer -> Ghost" combination is notable here as well, for a short-but-sweet "Tweezer" and loop-filled "Ghost" that's just downright weird. I might prefer the 7/4 "Fuego" for its purposefulness, but this one's just so huge it's impossible to dislike it.

The Live Review:
7/8/14: Axilla I is a quality opener. Though I often wonder what happened to Axilla II.

7/8/14: I prefer I, but it'd be fun to see II pop up every once in awhile.

7/8/14: Gumbo is one of those songs, like Moma, that I'll never get sick of in the first set. This one has a particularly good outro jam.

7/8/14: Trey seems to have some trouble with Taste these days. Still, nice early-show choice.

7/8/14: Unlike Gumbo, I'm sad to see 555 apparently relegated to a first-set, non-jam slot.

7/8/14: This hasn't been as high-energy as some S1s so far in 2014, but the song choices are great. Trey using loops now in Tube.

7/8/14: Post-2.0, Tube isn't one of those songs with 'recommended versions,' but this one is a recommended version.

7/8/14: Next is one of the stronger live versions of Halfway To the Moon so far.

7/8/14: Camel Walk! Pretty sure I heard some guy yelling for it earlier in the show.

7/8/14: Any S1 with Tube and Halley's in it almost makes me forget my sadness at the lack of Tube and Halley's jams :)

7/8/14: Great old-school segue from Halley's to It's Ice!

7/8/14: Nothing to say next except that Phish played Ocelot.

7/8/14: S1 closes w/ an uneven but high-energy Walls. S2 opens with some dude screaming 'VULTURES!!' at the top of his lungs, then 46 Days.

7/8/14: 'Warm up' version of 46 Days, similar to the one they played on Letterman.

7/8/14: Fuego in the second spot. Heard a lot about this version, looking forward to hearing it.

7/8/14: Things taking a dark turn at 9:30.

7/8/14: Great combination of the Taxi theme and Pink Floyd here.

7/8/14: Really great combo of bliss-jamming by Trey and Page and space-bass by Mike.

7/8/14: Jam reminiscent of Free now. Sort of.

7/8/14: Fishman driving everyone ahead of him with a flurry of beats.

7/8/14: Really interesting funk space now, featuring Page with a killer organ solo.

7/8/14: Very jazzy outro-type section now.

7/8/14: > The Line

7/8/14: Great jam, in the sense that there were a lot of discrete sections that all flowed naturally into one another.

7/8/14: My only complaint is that it was lacking any real 'it' moment (or moments). But hey, it was a 26-minute Fuego!

7/8/14: The Line > Number Line. I can only imagine an epic amount of pisses were taken during this segment by packs of jaded 'fans.'

7/8/14: Phish apologizes for the previous sequence with a Tweezer.

7/8/14: Tweezer jam goes for the throat right away with an awesome, high-speed funk jam.

7/8/14: Great, slow, Trey-versus-the-band segue into Ghost.

7/8/14: If you wanted to grumble, you could make the argument that Mike was about to take the jam somewhere cool and Trey derailed.

7/8/14: Ghost jam picks up pretty much where the Tweezer jam left off. Pretty cool.

7/8/14: That was a really unique, loopy Ghost jam. Started in one place and 10 minutes later was still there.
Unsure if it was good or not.

7/8/14: Nice segue into 2001.

7/8/14: Love how they've been playing with the Hood intro a little bit lately.

7/8/14: This Hood jam has a lot more interplay than most. Trey laying back, playing some more abstract stuff. Nice build.

7/8/14: Definitely not a 7/1 Hood here, but it's a good cap to a great set.

7/8/14: Hood gets butt-slammed into Tweeprise!

7/8/14: I really need to come up with a symbol that means 'butt-slammed' to go along with > and ->

7/8/14: Hood B> Tweeprise? I like it.

7/8/14: Ah, there's that junk-kicking combo of Tweeprise to close second set and Possum to encore that we all know and 'love.'

7/8/14: Pretty sure someone on the SBD yells 'I am the devil!' just before Possum starts. Awesome.

7/8/14: What S1 lacked in verve, it made up for in song choice.

7/8/14: S2 sagged a bit in the middle, but was a monster nonetheless. Tweezer -> Ghost would have been a highlight by itself.


7/8/14: But then there's that 26 minute Fuego. Which was the best.

2014-07-05 SPAC III

The Verdict:
Well, the SPAC run definitely delivered on the promise hinted at by 7/1's tour opener. Each show was a little different: N1 was consistent throughout with the "Gin" > "Limb" jam highlight; N2 was a bit rockier but delivered a few huge jams to make up for it, and N3 is lacking as many quality jams but features a great first set, lots of the AWOL-so-far composed classics, and an early tour highlight in "Piper."

The first set is the epitome of a great setup. Things start off a bit rocky, but by the time Trey starts to warm up in "Undermind," we've already had a "Crowd Control" opener, a "Myfe," and a marimba lumina jam, so I'm willing to give it a pass. "Foam" makes a rare appearance and Fish gets to bust out the vacuum for "I Didn't Know." For me, though, the brief "Wombat" is the easy highlight of this set. It's a lot heavier and has a lot more momentum to it than the studio version or earlier live versions do/did, and the funk outro hints at great things to come.

S2 starts off with a "Carini" -> "Waves" pairing that's almost, but not quite as good as it looks on paper. The Carini modulates from a quiet breakdown of the Type I jam into a bliss space before Trey starts (prematurely?) strumming the chords to "Waves." "Waves" stays standard, pretty Type I until after the outro vocals, where the song continues, moving into a surprisingly jazzy mini-jam. Maybe the highlight here is how perfectly the end of this jazz jam lands in "Wingsuit." I was just a little disappointed by the "Carini" -> "Waves" pairing if only because neither song really seemed to reach its full potential, but that's not a complaint that I can level at this "Piper":

It's just really good.

Anyway, "Divided Sky," "Fluffhead," and "YEM" all make appearances in this show on top of an above-average first frame and the seriously deep "Piper" jam. Though I loved me some of that 7/4 "Fuego," I've gotta say that is the best show of the three-show run, all things considered.

The Live Review:
7/5/14: What is it with Crowd Control openers on the third night of three-night runs? I'm pretty sure that's a thing. #phish

7/5/14: Great little Trey solo here to open. Page playing off it on piano.

7/5/14: My Friend, My Friend is next. Rougher intro than the 7/25 version, but nice to hear early on in the show.

7/5/14: Speaking of things that are nice to hear early on in a show, Scent of a Mule is third!

7/5/14: Great pre-duel jam by Page. I say only Page because Trey sort of just sat it out. Now some marimba from Fish.

7/5/14: That was a great three-member version of Scent. If this is anything like 7/4, Trey'll need 3-4 more songs to warm up.

7/5/14: Okay, I'll eat my words now, thanks to this Undermind.

7/5/14: Ambivalence = hearing ASIHTOS and Undermind back-to-back, but having them each be < 8 min. versions.

7/5/14: 'Moses DeWitt' performing a vacuum solo now for I Didn't Know.

7/5/14: Foam is one of those songs that I always forget about b/c they don't play it that often nowadays. Then it starts and I'm like YESSSS

7/5/14: This version of Wombat sounds a lot fuller. I like it.

7/5/14: Oh man. And the jam is just waiting to morph into something straight out of '97. Sort of does here, but just a little too short :)

7/5/14: Divided Sky! Just to remind us that not all Phish songs are either 6 minute ditties or 20 minute free-form jams :)

7/5/14: Had a moment the other night listening to Velvet Sea on a midnight drive home from Portland. Like it as the comedown song here.

7/5/14: Bowie to close S1. Not sure I'll ever get enough of hearing this song, even in its current, somewhat hobbled form.

7/5/14: Pretty standard Trey-led run so far, here. Fish is keeping the momentum rolling, though.

7/5/14: Great song choices, and (after the first three songs) solid playing throughout S1. Good to see DSky, and an average-great Bowie.

7/5/14: CARINI OPENER. That can't possibly be a bad sign, right?

7/5/14: Major fadeout at 6:00. Trey starting back up with a quiet melody.

7/5/14: Neat sort-of proggy-sounding bliss jam coming out of this breakdown.

7/5/14: Trey just started a new song over the still-developing Carini jam, but the new song was Waves, so I guess that's okay.

7/5/14: Waves is standard Type I until after the outro, where it's switched to a jazzy sort of thing. #wavessecondjam

7/5/14: *Perfect* slowdown into Wingsuit. Wow.

7/5/14: That's some 90s setlist-placement shit right there.
Happy birthday to the Hollywood Hood! The perfect conclusion to an amazing run. #phish

7/5/14: Piper, out of a Wingsuit shredfest. Slow intro build, by 3.0 standards at least.

7/5/14: Lotta momentum here. Heading confidently into funk-land.

7/5/14: Typed 'fuck-land' at first. Don't think I'd want to see a show where the band went to fuck-land.

7/5/14: This is really good. Modulating between a lot of spaces quickly, but confidently.

7/5/14: This jam almost sounds like the outro to KDF. Waiting for Trey to sing the lyrics.

7/5/14: Piper -> Fluff. BOOM.

7/5/14: Maybe the shortest Heavy Things ever, but the majority of it was a great organ solo from Leo.

7/5/14: Page continues to dominate through the first half of this Slave.

7/5/14: Okay, Trey came back to dominate the second half, so it's all good. Fishman, of course, is just dominating everything.

7/5/14: YEM!

7/5/14: Trey having some serious trouble with the arpeggios at the beginning.

7/5/14: Funk jam breaks down into a really quiet space. Crowd clapping along. On the beat, actually.

7/5/14: Pretty interesting Mike-centric thing going on here now.

7/5/14: Mike and Fish basically pulled that YEM from 'mediocre' territory into 'awesome' territory through sheer force of will.

7/5/14: Suzy encore closes an excellent run.

2014-07-04 SPAC II

The Verdict:
Onward and upward indeed. At least if you're a jam-hound. 7/4 is a bit less consistent than the previous two nights, with a wonky first set and a saggy back half of set two. But wow, the highlights are likely the highest the band's provided so far, three shows into summer 2014.

Highlights in the first set include the obligatory "Star Spangled Banner" opener, a loose and loop-filled "Melt" closer, and a surprisingly solid "Reba" sandwiched mid-set between a bunch of lackluster performances of typical first set songs, the most egregious of which is probably "Waiting All Night," one of my favorite songs off Fuego that's played here as if the band had never heard the song before in their lives. So yeah, I'm pretty ambivalent about S1.

Fortunately, S2 more than bails it out. There's a gorgeous, 20-minute, multifaceted "Fuego" to start that moves from a mellow, "ASIHTOS"-type space to a slow build that rivals most "Hood"s. Then there's a great segue into a "Disease" that would be the jam highlight of any show pre-fall 2013, which segues into a slow, bluesy "Twist" via some mouth-popping noises from a few of the band members. Finally, "Light" graces us with a few beautiful minutes of what I'm currently calling "funeral funk." All in all, this run of jamming is easily the best so far this tour. Which is good, because the rest of the set pretty much hits with a dull thud. Anyway, a less even show this time around, but I'll happily trade consistency for the first half of that second set and the "Melt" jam.

Live Review:
7/4/14: Star Spangled Banner opener. #shockapella

7/4/14: 555. I don't know if I ever will get sick of this song. So good. Love the Fishman vocals. Not something I usually say.

7/4/14: Trey is swaggering the shit out of this version.

7/4/14: From what I can tell, there are two Treys on this summer tour: mellow-accenting Trey and hesitant-shredding Trey.

7/4/14: I vastly prefer the former if those are the only two options, but this 555 contains a lot of the latter.

7/4/14: KDF will always sound like summer '09 to me. That's all.

7/4/14: Yeah, Trey sounds really out of it so far. Hoping he warms up. Weird. Everyone else sounds fine.

7/4/14: Seems a lot more comfortable w/ Moma. Of course, it's sort of become the quintessential Trey-warm-up song.

7/4/14: 'Hey guys, Trey's playing is really rusty right now. Let's play Reba next!' #sense

7/4/14: Perhaps I doth protest too much. Nice interplay between Page and Trey on this Reba jam. Actually effective use of the whale.

7/4/14: This first set so far is making me appreciate the 7/16 and 7/25 S1s more in retrospect, though.

7/4/14: Like the pairing of Reba/Waiting All Night. I shall dream of someday hearing a Reba ->

7/4/14: Wow. This version sort of sounds like they heard someone else's song on the radio and decided to play it five minutes b4 the show.

7/4/14: We're not talking like fall '09 sloppiness here or anything, but definitely a step down from 7/1 and 7/3.

7/4/14: Jim intro sees an extended solo from Mike before Trey comes roaring back in.

7/4/14: Fish is tearing it up, as usual. Maybe this is the summer of Fish?

7/4/14: Delay loop effect put to good use by Trey during the Jim mini-jam.

7/4/14: 46 Days sounds a lot like the rhythm-heavy version they played at Jazz Fest.

7/4/14: Pre-tour, Fish makes comment that band can no longer play Rift well. Band plays Rift every other night for entire tour.

7/4/14: I did really love the 7/16 version, though. Let's see how this one goes.

7/4/14: Melt! I feel like I haven't heard this one in awhile. Looking forward to it.

7/4/14: Mostly the usual dissonant Split jam here, but it starts to build up a bit of evil energy starting at about 6:30.

7/4/14: Here comes the delay loop. Oh yes.

7/4/14: Much looser Melt jam than usual. Late return to the normal outro progression. Fish is a beast.

7/4/14: This doesn't exactly save the whole S1, but it helps a lot.

7/4/14: Whoops! That was not the end of the set. Coil is next.

7/4/14: Someone (Mike?) hits the super-high note on the Coil outro vocals (a la the studio version). Trey cracks up.

7/4/14: Would have loved to have seen that happen live :)

7/4/14: S1 is definitely nothing spectacular, but it ends on a high note.

7/4/14: Set two, fuegopener.

7/4/14: This is just a wonderfully Phishy song.

7/4/14: At about 10 minutes, a move into a ASIHTOS-type space.

7/4/14: Page and Mike driving a really mellow jam, now. A really *great* mellow jam.

7/4/14: Slowly building momentum here.

7/4/14: That was one of the better slow builds in a jam outside of Slave and Hood I've heard in a long time.

7/4/14: Great -> into Disease, here. The early Disease jam is really Page-led on piano.

7/4/14: Some really solid space-funk jamming, now.

7/4/14: Disease jam -> Someone Making Mouth-Popping-Noises jam -> Twist.

7/4/14: Great, mellow blues jam out of Twist. Page doing some great electric piano work.

7/4/14: We've gone super spacey, now...aaaaand > Light. Trey starts in the wrong key and restarts.

7/4/14: Pretty typical Light jam to start off. Trey's doing a bit more with tension than usual.

7/4/14: Starts getting pretty arrhythmic at about the 6:30 mark.

7/4/14: Page developing an awesome electric piano riff.

7/4/14: Is 'darkness funk' a thing?

7/4/14: Funeral funk.

7/4/14: Not on par with the jams earlier in the set, but in most shows would have been the highlight :)

7/4/14: Can't tell if that was a nice -> Theme or just Trey not remembering what key the song starts in. Hate when that happens.

7/4/14: Music nerds: why can Trey play an entire David Bowie with no mistakes but he can't ever nail that outro riff in Theme?

7/4/14: I normally love all things Number Line, but this one got off to a really rough, weak start. The jam's building, though.

7/4/14: First Tube!

7/4/14: Well, that picked the energy back up quite a bit.

7/4/14: Zero'd.

7/4/14: Well, at least that was the shortest Zero I've heard in awhile. #countyourblessings


7/4/14: Seriously, though: gigantic second set.