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.
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