The Verdict:
It's appropriate, I suppose, that in a year where the only real wrong Phish can do is to repeatedly fail to put together a consistent run of shows in one location, they would play both the best and worst show of the tour at the same venue within a day of each other. Yin and Yang. MPP 1 and MPP 2.
It's not that this show is bad, of course, and not even just because It's A Phish Show (TM); there are some worthwhile, compelling moments here. It's that, in the context of this tour, it's hard to hear a show like this and not be disappointed. I've been thinking of shows from this year as falling into one of three categories: 1) Top-tier shows that are legitimate highlights across Phish's career, 2) Very, very good shows that would have been a highlight of most previous 3.0 tours but here fall short of category 1, and 3) Pretty darn good shows that would have been well received during most previous 3.0 tours, but here stand out in their relative shittiness.
When I started reviewing this tour, based on the shows I'd seen live and the chatter about the rest of the tour, I expected it to be an awesome tour. And it has been. But I expected it to be awesome because there would be a significant amount of category 1 shows, when in reality I can count the category 1 shows on one hand. What makes this tour great, really (as I'm coming to realize), is the huge percentage of category 2 shows. And that's interesting.
I've spent more time than most people likely have at this point listening to entire Phish tours. And the thing is, when you listen to any tour, you begin to realize that even the "great" tours aren't consistently mind-blowing. Most shows are pretty darn good, a few are excellent, and then there are some clunkers. This makes sense, because most tours have upwards of twenty or thirty or more shows, and really, even Phish at their peak(s) aren't going to bring a show like 8/15/15 or 11/17/97 a bunch of nights in a row. It's like expecting lightning to strike in the same place ten or twenty times. Even most of the "great" shows from "great" tours feature a few strong jams or interesting moments and then lots of what equates to filler for someone who's heard "Golgi" or "Horn" probably close to a thousand times now. That's part of why I was so excited about 8/15/15; almost every single song of the show had compelling moments. And even in the greatest tour, you're lucky to get 2-3 shows like that.
So, excellence comes from turning in really good, category 2-style shows regularly instead. And that's fine. Over twenty-five shows, if twenty or so of them are category 1 or 2, that's pretty incredible. You aren't going to get much better than that. Having a great tour is about consistency, not about blowing the roof off every night. And I actually never realized this until I was listening to MPP 2 and coming to grips with the fact that such a strong show could strike me as so boring only because by consistently playing great shows this year, Phish made "just" very good seem normal. But I don't think they, or anyone else, will ever consistently play transcendent shows (like 8/15 or, say, Mann 2, or at least the second set of Shoreline) because there are just too many shows to play to keep up that level of quality. I've listened to most of Fall '13, the only recent tour mentioned in the same reverent tones as Summer '15, and honestly I don't find it nearly as good. I think that the only reason it's remembered so well is because there were so fewer shows as compared to most tours. There were less than half of the amount of shows that there are in Summer '15. And as the band has shown from Mann on through Dick's, it's actually capable of maintaining an extremely high level of quality for 12 or so shows...almost. Over twice that many? Not so much.
Anyway, this show is (relatively) a blemish on a great tour, and a weird note to end the "regular season" portion of the tour on. The show starts off in Jukebox Mode, and continues that way for half of the first set, before a series of four straight set-ender songs hit, in "No Men," a minimal and languid "Stash," an extended "David Bowie," and a "Possum" that features some fun Trey/Page interplay. The flow is strange in the second half of this set, the last three songs are all worth a listen.
When it comes to the second set, "Disease" is notable, I guess, for running for twelve minutes and never deviating from the Type I mold. The jam features a nice segue into "Slave," and actually playing "Slave" this early in the set seems to give it an energy that's rare for the song. "Light" goes to a near-atonal place, and is one of those compact-but-fascinating jams that 2015 Phish excels at, there's another great segue into "Twist," and then just as its jam seems to be winding up to something interesting, it suddenly peters out. We spend the rest of the set more or less circling the drain. Even the "YEM" sounds a little worn-out.
So again, this isn't a bad show, and the highlights are legit, it's just an anomaly in the consistently great (but not consistently transcendent) tour of 2015.
The Live Review:
8/16/15: MPP2 right here, right now, folks!
8/16/15: YES! Trey starting up Sleeping Monkey again!
8/16/15: Fish adds the ending harmony vocals that they joked about last night.
8/16/15: Not the full song, just Trey playing the progression through a few more times.
8/16/15: Golgi opener.
8/16/15: Golgi gets butt-slammed into Undermind.
8/16/15: Undermind is the typically short, ooey-gooey version of the song the guys have been playing this year.
8/16/15: In short: awesome.
8/16/15: Okay, so I still feel the same as I always do about Julius, but I AM surprised to hear it in a first set.
8/16/15: Slanky version of 555 coming up after Julius.
8/16/15: Solid playing so far, but the most interesting part was that Sleeping Monkey 'opener.'
8/16/15: Not comparing favorably with last night's strong S1.
8/16/15: Nothing is a nice surprise. Definitely should show its head in S1s more often.
8/16/15: No Men! That should pick the energy level up a bit.
8/15/16: Clav-driven jam gets rolling, much to the delight of the crowd.
8/15/16: Short take on No Men's leads into Stash.
8/15/16: Stash went a little more muted in the jam, similar to the 8/12 version.
8/15/16: Sounds like we might get a Bowie set closer. Spooky ambient noise building under Fish's drumming.
8/15/16: This is probably as close as we've gotten to a legitimate Bowie opening since...2004? I don't know.
8/15/16: Okay, so that Bowie was longer than the usual these days, but it still pretty much followed the template.
8/15/16: Except for the spooky intro :)
8/15/16: Not end set. Possum.
8/16/15: So this has been a weird set. The first half was pretty rote, the second half is just a pile of set-closer songs in a row.
8/16/15: Also, ignore all the tweets I began with '8/15/16.' IT IS NOT THE FUTURE.
8/16/15: Neat back-and-forth between Trey and Page in this Possum jam.
8/16/15: Weird, sort-of-Frankenstein set finally ends.
8/16/15: S2 opens with Disease.
8/16/15: Trey having trouble with the opening chords to Disease, changes lyric to be about the demons 'Dancing in Mike's head.'
8/16/15: Super-extended Type I soloing from Trey in this version. It's really good, but definitely stays in the box. Weird way to open S2.
8/16/15: 2009-style wind-down now.
8/16/15: Trey makes a pretty natural segue into Slave. Weird placement for this guy!
8/16/15: I don't know if it's just because it's earlier in the set, but this Slave seems particularly jaunty to me.
8/16/15: Slave > Light.
8/16/15: Some wild pitch-shifted soloing from Trey here, backed by calypso piano from Page. Really weird.
8/16/15: Mike taking over now. This has the potential for some serious evil.
8/16/15: Evil Space Loops descending!
8/16/15: Page is on the electric piano and trying to move to a bliss space, but Trey is blaring over him.
8/16/15: Nice -> Twist. Great assist by Fishman.
8/16/15: More neat loops worming into this Twist jam.
8/16/15: Oops. It sort of fell apart right after that.
8/16/15: Shine a Light!
8/16/15: This is a decent 2015 Phish show so far, and that last jam was awesome...
8/16/15: ...but I have to say that this is probably the worst I've heard Trey ever play over the course of 2 or so hours.
8/16/15: He's not playing at all about 20% of the time, and when he does play, he's hitting bad chords/notes like crazy.
8/16/15: He's completely biffed on Shine a Light many times already, and it's basically a four chord song.
8/16/15: This is one of those cases where the bum notes are actually making it harder to enjoy the show because there are so many of them.
8/16/15: Fuego!
8/16/15: The entire Fuego jam was basically just Trey holding a single note for sixty seconds.
8/16/15: Drone fades into Sneakin' Sally.
8/16/15: Trey is unleashing the echo-funk on Sally.
8/16/15: Echo funk winds down, but instead of a breakdown, > YEM.
8/16/15: In the year of unearned YEMs, this might be the least-deserved one.
8/16/15: I'm pretty sure Trey just yelled 'MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTHER FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKER' at the beginning the YEM vocals.
8/16/15: If so, hilarious.
8/16/15: So the YEM is pretty pedestrian, but, and this won't surprise you, the funk jam has a little extra spice in it.
8/16/15: Sigh-based vocal jam turns into screaming, turns into Sleeping Monkey vocal teases.
8/16/15: Number Line encore.
8/16/15: Typically strong 2015 Number Line, with the high-velocity Trey chording and whatnot.
8/16/15: That was a totally weird show, especially considering it was technically the tour-closer.
8/16/15: Gotta say, I don't feel too good about it.
8/16/15: However, 8/15 might have been my favorite show of the year. So there's that.
8/16/15: More thoughts in the long-form reviews coming hopefully tomorrow.
Nov 20, 2015
2015-08-15 MPP I
The Verdict:
As much as I want to hold on to the dream of being able to make a case for a show I attended being the best show of the tour (in this case, Shoreline), the first MPP show forced me to give up on that wonderful illusion. Because this is almost certainly the best show of the year for me. Something from Magnaball might unseat it, because I haven't listened to that yet, but damn. This show's crazy, and outclasses the "easy" pick for best show, Mann 2, by simply being better at more things than it is.
First off, the first set is one of the best first sets of the year. There isn't a surprise big jam here like there is in many of the other great S1s of this year, but the playing from the opening "Simple" pretty much all the way through is spotless, the setlist choices are impeccable, the "BBFCFM" > "Your Pet Cat" > "BBFCFM" sandwich is fun as hell and perfectly placed, and right as a great set seems to end on a rote note with "Antelope," the boys jam it out a bit for the first time since, oh, maybe Utica '10? There are probably opening frames I like better from this year, but not many and then OH MAN THAT SECOND SET.
This is the set that Phish has been trying to play for two years. All of those shows during '14 and '15 where they passed up monster jams in obvious places to work in clever segues and neat little 2-3 minute jamlets never quite seemed to land right because there just wasn't the right balance between deep jamming and segue-based improv. When you come for the jams, it's hard to swallow "only" the song-to-song momentum and brief flickers of occasional brilliance in their place. But this set has both, and in perfect balance.
"Halley's" doesn't really belong in this set because "46 Days" is where the magic starts. This is the peak (so far, at least) of the Bend "Simple"-style jamming that the guys have been flirting with all tour. This "46 Days" is nasty, then takes a now-predictable but still gorgeous turn to Bliss Town before landing in a perfect segue into "Bug," of all things. A short "Steam" follows, which segues perfectly into "What's the Use?" before heading back into "Steam" to finish the final verse and then segue into "Piper." "Piper" is easily the best version of the year, moving from a lurching, grinding, murky jam into straight-up rock territory which leads to a flawless "Tweezer" segue, and "Tweezer" proper features a heavy funk jam that gets spacey enough for Mike to perform "NO2" over it while the rest of the band continues to jam "Tweezer." Yeah. Fuck.
"Walls" closes the set in typical fashion, and the banter-laden "Sleeping Monkey" > "Tweeprise" is the perfect encore. This is the show, folks. It's not as if we haven't had an embarrassment of riches this tour, but this show feels like a culmination. If Magnaball is anywhere near this good, I've got plenty of A+ Phish to get me through my holiday travels...
I am so serious about how good this show is, instead of posting select videos, I'm just posting the entire show below. Click through to YouTube to be able to select particular tracks in the video description.
The Live Review:
8/15/15: Alright, time to knock out the MPP run!
8/15/15: Simple opener. Now that's interesting.
8/15/15: Fantastic Simple solo from Trey to open the show. Page beating up on the keys.
8/15/15: Glide!
8/15/15: Now that was neat to hear.
8/15/15: Buried Alive! So far, another great setlist for S1.
8/15/15: Great little solo in Buried Alive. Trey is on fire. Next up is McGrupp.
8/15/15: Roggae! I love it!
8/15/15: Great version. I didn't get as peaky as some other recent versions, but stayed muted and gorgeous the entire time.
8/15/15: Pretty standard but energetic take on LxL next.
8/15/15: When I get up for work, I try to kill youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
8/15/15: WHY
8/15/15: BBFCFM gets mashed up with a Your Pet Cat sample. Then, 'Why am I running?!' > Your Pet Cat.
8/15/15: > BBFCFM!
8/15/15: Well, that was fun. Now, Horn.
8/15/15: Quick Horn > Blaze On.
8/15/15: Straightforward Blaze On, but with a loopy fade-out that lands in Antelope.
8/15/15: Nice little Trey/Page breakdown in the middle of this Antelope.
8/15/15: Antelope is nowhere near one of my favorite Phish songs, but I love it about 1000% more when it breaks away from the usual pattern.
8/15/15: Now, it's a soupy, note-bendy little jam that's sort of a Type 1.5 space...and moving back into usual Antelope territory.
8/15/15: End set.
8/15/15: S2 opens with Halley's Comet. I sure doubt that this'll be the one that goes deep, but one can always hope.
8/15/15: Typical Halley's gets butt-slammed into 46 Days.
8/15/15: Trey laying down a nasty, distorted solo. Sort of 2003-2004.
8/15/15: After vocal refrain, we're headed almost immediately into a Bend Simple-like EVIL jam.
8/15/15: Page plinking out rapid notes on the piano, now over to the clav.
8/15/15: Trey keeping the distortion coming, and now Mike it taking over.
8/15/15: I'm pretty sure that bass-led Phish jams are the best Phish jams.
8/15/15: Fadeout w/ loop foundation. Might be doing one of those patented '15 bliss-jam transitions here.
8/15/15: If so, this is one of my favorite iterations of it so far this year.
8/15/15: Blissed out over here. Trey laying down a solo now. First real, clean melody playing he's done in the entire jam.
8/15/15: Trey teases Bug during the outro, then -> Bug. Nice segue.
8/15/15: Bug fades into Steam. Interesting.
8/15/15: Straightforward rock solo from Trey out of the lyrics, backed by creepy screaming from who I assume is Fish.
8/15/15: Awesome sort-of -> What's the Use?
8/15/15: > Steam! Back to finish the remaining verses, I guess.
8/15/15: Trey interweaving Piper's opening with the Steam progression now. Fish switching over.
8/15/15: Interesting organ-driven Piper jam right now.
8/15/15: Now we're in space-funk territory.
8/15/15: Murky jam space blossoming into a rock throwdown.
8/15/15: Nasty Piper jam -> Tweezer. Holy shit, what a segue.
8/15/15: Starting to think...could this be...better than the Mann show?!
8/15/15: Pretty sure, yeah.
8/15/15: This Tweezer is definitely of the loop-heavy funk variety.
8/15/15: Loop is almost a siren now.
8/15/15: Or maybe it's Mike's drill?
8/15/15: Hoooooooly shit. Mike starts lyrics for NO2 over the Tweezer jam.
8/15/15: This is my favorite fucking thing.
8/15/15: Show of tour, folks. *Slams book*
8/15/15: Back into the Tweezer jam. Dying over here.
8/15/15: Oooh...they end the jam almost immediately. Taking that jam deep would have made this show literally incomprehensibly good.
8/15/15: But we'll have to settle for Walls instead )
8/15/15: If there's a song that's going to get me to play air guitar in my office 100% of the time, it's the last few minutes of Walls.
8/15/15: Website that rated Phish songs didn't include Page's favorite song at #1.
8/15/15: (It's Sleeping Monkey)
8/15/15: I love this ongoing thing about Page loving Sleeping Monkey.
8/15/15: Sleeping Monkey > Tweeprise.
As much as I want to hold on to the dream of being able to make a case for a show I attended being the best show of the tour (in this case, Shoreline), the first MPP show forced me to give up on that wonderful illusion. Because this is almost certainly the best show of the year for me. Something from Magnaball might unseat it, because I haven't listened to that yet, but damn. This show's crazy, and outclasses the "easy" pick for best show, Mann 2, by simply being better at more things than it is.
First off, the first set is one of the best first sets of the year. There isn't a surprise big jam here like there is in many of the other great S1s of this year, but the playing from the opening "Simple" pretty much all the way through is spotless, the setlist choices are impeccable, the "BBFCFM" > "Your Pet Cat" > "BBFCFM" sandwich is fun as hell and perfectly placed, and right as a great set seems to end on a rote note with "Antelope," the boys jam it out a bit for the first time since, oh, maybe Utica '10? There are probably opening frames I like better from this year, but not many and then OH MAN THAT SECOND SET.
This is the set that Phish has been trying to play for two years. All of those shows during '14 and '15 where they passed up monster jams in obvious places to work in clever segues and neat little 2-3 minute jamlets never quite seemed to land right because there just wasn't the right balance between deep jamming and segue-based improv. When you come for the jams, it's hard to swallow "only" the song-to-song momentum and brief flickers of occasional brilliance in their place. But this set has both, and in perfect balance.
"Halley's" doesn't really belong in this set because "46 Days" is where the magic starts. This is the peak (so far, at least) of the Bend "Simple"-style jamming that the guys have been flirting with all tour. This "46 Days" is nasty, then takes a now-predictable but still gorgeous turn to Bliss Town before landing in a perfect segue into "Bug," of all things. A short "Steam" follows, which segues perfectly into "What's the Use?" before heading back into "Steam" to finish the final verse and then segue into "Piper." "Piper" is easily the best version of the year, moving from a lurching, grinding, murky jam into straight-up rock territory which leads to a flawless "Tweezer" segue, and "Tweezer" proper features a heavy funk jam that gets spacey enough for Mike to perform "NO2" over it while the rest of the band continues to jam "Tweezer." Yeah. Fuck.
"Walls" closes the set in typical fashion, and the banter-laden "Sleeping Monkey" > "Tweeprise" is the perfect encore. This is the show, folks. It's not as if we haven't had an embarrassment of riches this tour, but this show feels like a culmination. If Magnaball is anywhere near this good, I've got plenty of A+ Phish to get me through my holiday travels...
I am so serious about how good this show is, instead of posting select videos, I'm just posting the entire show below. Click through to YouTube to be able to select particular tracks in the video description.
The Live Review:
8/15/15: Alright, time to knock out the MPP run!
8/15/15: Simple opener. Now that's interesting.
8/15/15: Fantastic Simple solo from Trey to open the show. Page beating up on the keys.
8/15/15: Glide!
8/15/15: Now that was neat to hear.
8/15/15: Buried Alive! So far, another great setlist for S1.
8/15/15: Great little solo in Buried Alive. Trey is on fire. Next up is McGrupp.
8/15/15: Roggae! I love it!
8/15/15: Great version. I didn't get as peaky as some other recent versions, but stayed muted and gorgeous the entire time.
8/15/15: Pretty standard but energetic take on LxL next.
8/15/15: When I get up for work, I try to kill youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
8/15/15: WHY
8/15/15: BBFCFM gets mashed up with a Your Pet Cat sample. Then, 'Why am I running?!' > Your Pet Cat.
8/15/15: > BBFCFM!
8/15/15: Well, that was fun. Now, Horn.
8/15/15: Quick Horn > Blaze On.
8/15/15: Straightforward Blaze On, but with a loopy fade-out that lands in Antelope.
8/15/15: Nice little Trey/Page breakdown in the middle of this Antelope.
8/15/15: Antelope is nowhere near one of my favorite Phish songs, but I love it about 1000% more when it breaks away from the usual pattern.
8/15/15: Now, it's a soupy, note-bendy little jam that's sort of a Type 1.5 space...and moving back into usual Antelope territory.
8/15/15: End set.
8/15/15: S2 opens with Halley's Comet. I sure doubt that this'll be the one that goes deep, but one can always hope.
8/15/15: Typical Halley's gets butt-slammed into 46 Days.
8/15/15: Trey laying down a nasty, distorted solo. Sort of 2003-2004.
8/15/15: After vocal refrain, we're headed almost immediately into a Bend Simple-like EVIL jam.
8/15/15: Page plinking out rapid notes on the piano, now over to the clav.
8/15/15: Trey keeping the distortion coming, and now Mike it taking over.
8/15/15: I'm pretty sure that bass-led Phish jams are the best Phish jams.
8/15/15: Fadeout w/ loop foundation. Might be doing one of those patented '15 bliss-jam transitions here.
8/15/15: If so, this is one of my favorite iterations of it so far this year.
8/15/15: Blissed out over here. Trey laying down a solo now. First real, clean melody playing he's done in the entire jam.
8/15/15: Trey teases Bug during the outro, then -> Bug. Nice segue.
8/15/15: Bug fades into Steam. Interesting.
8/15/15: Straightforward rock solo from Trey out of the lyrics, backed by creepy screaming from who I assume is Fish.
8/15/15: Awesome sort-of -> What's the Use?
8/15/15: > Steam! Back to finish the remaining verses, I guess.
8/15/15: Trey interweaving Piper's opening with the Steam progression now. Fish switching over.
8/15/15: Interesting organ-driven Piper jam right now.
8/15/15: Now we're in space-funk territory.
8/15/15: Murky jam space blossoming into a rock throwdown.
8/15/15: Nasty Piper jam -> Tweezer. Holy shit, what a segue.
8/15/15: Starting to think...could this be...better than the Mann show?!
8/15/15: Pretty sure, yeah.
8/15/15: This Tweezer is definitely of the loop-heavy funk variety.
8/15/15: Loop is almost a siren now.
8/15/15: Or maybe it's Mike's drill?
8/15/15: Hoooooooly shit. Mike starts lyrics for NO2 over the Tweezer jam.
8/15/15: This is my favorite fucking thing.
8/15/15: Show of tour, folks. *Slams book*
8/15/15: Back into the Tweezer jam. Dying over here.
8/15/15: Oooh...they end the jam almost immediately. Taking that jam deep would have made this show literally incomprehensibly good.
8/15/15: But we'll have to settle for Walls instead )
8/15/15: If there's a song that's going to get me to play air guitar in my office 100% of the time, it's the last few minutes of Walls.
8/15/15: Website that rated Phish songs didn't include Page's favorite song at #1.
8/15/15: (It's Sleeping Monkey)
8/15/15: I love this ongoing thing about Page loving Sleeping Monkey.
8/15/15: Sleeping Monkey > Tweeprise.
Nov 6, 2015
2015-08-14 Walnut Creek
The Verdict:
So, the Walnut Creek show is in an unenviable spot, sitting as it does between the Mann run and the MPP run. But it shouldn't be overlooked: it's certainly not one of the better shows of the year, but there's a lot here to enjoy nonetheless.
Note: I'm pasting in audio-only "videos" for this show because for some reason it's missing from phishtracks, and there are almost no quality videos from the show.
The first set starts off with the awesome slow "Llama." I really enjoyed this retooling of a classic and am hoping that we might see more of this done with other S1 mainstays next year. There aren't really any more surprises in the opening frame, but the playing is strong and kinetic up until "Maze"...but then things just sort of sputter out. It's not that the playing is bad or anything, but there are just too many "sit down" songs in a row, and then when the band ramps back up, they do so with a tepid version of "Wolfman's," a song that's been revived to the point where a monster S1 jam is a given...usually.
The weirdness continues when S2 opens with "The Wedge," which stays completely in the lines. Luckily, next is "Golden Age," and like the 8/4 and 9/4 versions, it gets pretty far Out There. This guy goes after the echo-funk jam first, before eventually segueing into a "Split"-soundalike space that carries through for a few minutes. Ultimately, we get a fadeout into "Reba." The rare second-set "Reba" is choppy through the composed section, but Trey leads the band through the jam to a typically strong 2015 version.
The "Mike's" that follows sort of sums up the rest of the show: incredible energy, but no big jam. The second "Mike's" jam is apparently a thing of the past already, but this version is a powerful, guitar-led ride nonetheless. The "Ghost" goes the way of the Bend "Simple," with evil echoes and loops filling most of its running time until a great segue into "No Quarter." This is the hardest-rocking and cleanest version of the band's cover of the Led Zeppelin song yet, and the "Groove" that closes off the Mike's sandwich returns to the guitar pyrotechnics that started this sequence. Especially compared to Mann 2, there's nothing here that jams on that level, but this closing sequence is fantastic anyway, and that "Golden Age" ain't too shabby either. Don't write this one off.
The Live Review:
8/14/15: Slow Llama to start. Awesome.
8/14/15: Dear @phish, please play Llama like this more often.
8/14/15: Great opener. Chalkdust next.
8/14/15: Re-envisioning some of the classic S1 songs might be a way to keep opening sets fresh.
8/14/15: I imagine it's not terribly hard for consummate musicians to say 'Let's just play a funk version of Llama tonight.'
8/14/15: Moma Dance third. Trey MuTroning it up during the intro.
8/14/15: Trey trying to do something different with the outro solo. It's not really working.
8/14/15: On the other hand, this is one of those days when it's just really fun to be listening to Phish while I work.
8/14/15: Yarmouth Road! Nobody will ever stop me from loving this song. It is GOOD.
8/14/15: This one keeps the little jam before the bridge lyrics, like the version in Bend.
8/14/15: Tuuuuuuuube.
8/14/15: Bouncin'. They've been playing this a lot this year. Kind of neat.
8/14/15: Bouncin' > Maze.
8/14/15: Another day, another great Maze.
8/14/15: Waiting All Night next. Setlist flow is a little herky-jerky now, but loving the song choices.
8/14/15: Lawn Boy.
8/14/15: Devotion is next. Considering how this set started, this is starting to feel a little saggy.
8/14/15: Wolfman's now. This set seems long.
8/14/15: Rather than going the funk direction with this one, the guys take it in a more straight-up rock direction.
8/14/15: Compact but peaky version there.
8/14/15: Suzy Greenberg next. This set refuses to end!
8/14/15: Pretty sure Fish just screamed 'Forgotten my name, huh?! My name is MAX!!!'
8/14/15: So, S2 starts with The Wedge. It's a little weird to me how often they've been throwing this in early in S2s.
8/14/15: There's never really any pretense toward jamming it, either. It just sits there.
8/14/15: Setlist weirdness aside, that was a great Wedge solo from Trey.
8/14/15: Golden Age!
8/14/15: Trey has the ability to either play the guitar correctly or get the lyrics right.
8/14/15: He keeps alternating between each approach.
8/14/15: This tune is responsible for a few of the more interesting jams of the tour. I wish they'd practiced it more.
8/14/15: Page over to the organ right away to start the jam.
8/14/15: That was fucking slick.
8/14/15: I think I like Golden Age jams almost all the time because the basic Type I beat Fish plays is just awesome.
8/14/15: Time for some echo-funk jamming!
8/14/15: Mike is laying down a hell of a bassline for this jam.
8/14/15: SOAM-like jam emerging now.
8/14/15: Page keeping the descending chord jam going while Trey solos over it.
8/14/15: Creepy echo-y fadeout.
8/14/15: > Reba.
8/14/15: That moment when Trey leads the segue into the next song and then can't start the song correctly.
8/14/15: Like the S2 Reba call, though.
8/14/15: Okay, Trey just played the end of the song during the beginning of the chase sequence.
8/14/15: Maybe there's just too many songs in there. Maybe the break before MSG will knock the GD songs out and make room.
8/14/15: Well, gripes about the composed part aside, Trey is laying down a great 2015-style Reba jam.
8/14/15: This song has been consistently great this year.
8/14/15: Mike's Song jam starts off with some chunky Trey chording. Now seamless move into a rock solo.
8/14/15: I think they're playing it a little faster than usual. Feels really kinetic.
8/14/15: Trey's doing some really wild stuff during this Mike's jam.
8/14/15: No second jam in Mike's. Loopy ending leads to Ghost instead.
8/14/15: Stop-start, weird opening to Ghost. I like it.
8/14/15: Last two Ghosts have had beginnings that are more playful, like Bowie or Hood. It's cool.
8/14/15: Totally evil Ghost jam. Reminiscent of Bend Simple.
8/14/15: Rock solo emerging from the fuzz, now.
8/14/15: Serious blues rock happening now.
8/14/15: Trey picking the outro riff up, but Page moving to the organ.
8/14/15: Angry chords mixing with a gorgeous Page melody now.
8/14/15: NO QUARTER
8/14/15: My favorite Zeppelin song, and will never forget screaming my damn head off when Page started it at Dick's '14.
8/14/15: I could not believe it. Thought for sure the 'N' was going to be 'Nothing.'
8/14/15: That was probably the hardest-rocking and 'best' (whatever that means) No Quarter yet.
8/14/15: > Groove.
8/14/15: Groove is a bit uptempo.
8/14/15: Trey laying down a hell of a little solo already.
8/14/15: Trey is teasing something and I'm going to fucking freak out if I can't figure out what.
8/14/15: Oh, duh. No Quarter. It's been a long day, folks.
8/14/15: Well, that was fun. A huge Mike's Groove powered almost entirely by Trey's insane rock and roll guitar.
8/14/15: For as great as the whole band has been playing lately, that sort of guitar domination doesn't happen very often post-2010 or so.
8/14/15: Frist Tbue!
8/14/15: Just checking to see if you were paying attention.
8/14/15: First Tube was super hot. Farmhouse encore, though? Weird.
(Sorry, forgot to review the encore last night)
8/14/15: Page piano solo in Farmhouse!
8/14/15: No offense to Trey, but this immediately became one of the prettiest Farmhouses I've heard in a long time.
8/14/15: Fire! Well, that's an interesting pair of songs for an encore.
8/14/15: Some drill there at the end of Fire.
So, the Walnut Creek show is in an unenviable spot, sitting as it does between the Mann run and the MPP run. But it shouldn't be overlooked: it's certainly not one of the better shows of the year, but there's a lot here to enjoy nonetheless.
Note: I'm pasting in audio-only "videos" for this show because for some reason it's missing from phishtracks, and there are almost no quality videos from the show.
The first set starts off with the awesome slow "Llama." I really enjoyed this retooling of a classic and am hoping that we might see more of this done with other S1 mainstays next year. There aren't really any more surprises in the opening frame, but the playing is strong and kinetic up until "Maze"...but then things just sort of sputter out. It's not that the playing is bad or anything, but there are just too many "sit down" songs in a row, and then when the band ramps back up, they do so with a tepid version of "Wolfman's," a song that's been revived to the point where a monster S1 jam is a given...usually.
The weirdness continues when S2 opens with "The Wedge," which stays completely in the lines. Luckily, next is "Golden Age," and like the 8/4 and 9/4 versions, it gets pretty far Out There. This guy goes after the echo-funk jam first, before eventually segueing into a "Split"-soundalike space that carries through for a few minutes. Ultimately, we get a fadeout into "Reba." The rare second-set "Reba" is choppy through the composed section, but Trey leads the band through the jam to a typically strong 2015 version.
The "Mike's" that follows sort of sums up the rest of the show: incredible energy, but no big jam. The second "Mike's" jam is apparently a thing of the past already, but this version is a powerful, guitar-led ride nonetheless. The "Ghost" goes the way of the Bend "Simple," with evil echoes and loops filling most of its running time until a great segue into "No Quarter." This is the hardest-rocking and cleanest version of the band's cover of the Led Zeppelin song yet, and the "Groove" that closes off the Mike's sandwich returns to the guitar pyrotechnics that started this sequence. Especially compared to Mann 2, there's nothing here that jams on that level, but this closing sequence is fantastic anyway, and that "Golden Age" ain't too shabby either. Don't write this one off.
The Live Review:
8/14/15: Slow Llama to start. Awesome.
8/14/15: Dear @phish, please play Llama like this more often.
8/14/15: Great opener. Chalkdust next.
8/14/15: Re-envisioning some of the classic S1 songs might be a way to keep opening sets fresh.
8/14/15: I imagine it's not terribly hard for consummate musicians to say 'Let's just play a funk version of Llama tonight.'
8/14/15: Moma Dance third. Trey MuTroning it up during the intro.
8/14/15: Trey trying to do something different with the outro solo. It's not really working.
8/14/15: On the other hand, this is one of those days when it's just really fun to be listening to Phish while I work.
8/14/15: Yarmouth Road! Nobody will ever stop me from loving this song. It is GOOD.
8/14/15: This one keeps the little jam before the bridge lyrics, like the version in Bend.
8/14/15: Tuuuuuuuube.
8/14/15: Bouncin'. They've been playing this a lot this year. Kind of neat.
8/14/15: Bouncin' > Maze.
8/14/15: Another day, another great Maze.
8/14/15: Waiting All Night next. Setlist flow is a little herky-jerky now, but loving the song choices.
8/14/15: Lawn Boy.
8/14/15: Devotion is next. Considering how this set started, this is starting to feel a little saggy.
8/14/15: Wolfman's now. This set seems long.
8/14/15: Rather than going the funk direction with this one, the guys take it in a more straight-up rock direction.
8/14/15: Compact but peaky version there.
8/14/15: Suzy Greenberg next. This set refuses to end!
8/14/15: Pretty sure Fish just screamed 'Forgotten my name, huh?! My name is MAX!!!'
8/14/15: So, S2 starts with The Wedge. It's a little weird to me how often they've been throwing this in early in S2s.
8/14/15: There's never really any pretense toward jamming it, either. It just sits there.
8/14/15: Setlist weirdness aside, that was a great Wedge solo from Trey.
8/14/15: Golden Age!
8/14/15: Trey has the ability to either play the guitar correctly or get the lyrics right.
8/14/15: He keeps alternating between each approach.
8/14/15: This tune is responsible for a few of the more interesting jams of the tour. I wish they'd practiced it more.
8/14/15: Page over to the organ right away to start the jam.
8/14/15: That was fucking slick.
8/14/15: I think I like Golden Age jams almost all the time because the basic Type I beat Fish plays is just awesome.
8/14/15: Time for some echo-funk jamming!
8/14/15: Mike is laying down a hell of a bassline for this jam.
8/14/15: SOAM-like jam emerging now.
8/14/15: Page keeping the descending chord jam going while Trey solos over it.
8/14/15: Creepy echo-y fadeout.
8/14/15: > Reba.
8/14/15: That moment when Trey leads the segue into the next song and then can't start the song correctly.
8/14/15: Like the S2 Reba call, though.
8/14/15: Okay, Trey just played the end of the song during the beginning of the chase sequence.
8/14/15: Maybe there's just too many songs in there. Maybe the break before MSG will knock the GD songs out and make room.
8/14/15: Well, gripes about the composed part aside, Trey is laying down a great 2015-style Reba jam.
8/14/15: This song has been consistently great this year.
8/14/15: Mike's Song jam starts off with some chunky Trey chording. Now seamless move into a rock solo.
8/14/15: I think they're playing it a little faster than usual. Feels really kinetic.
8/14/15: Trey's doing some really wild stuff during this Mike's jam.
8/14/15: No second jam in Mike's. Loopy ending leads to Ghost instead.
8/14/15: Stop-start, weird opening to Ghost. I like it.
8/14/15: Last two Ghosts have had beginnings that are more playful, like Bowie or Hood. It's cool.
8/14/15: Totally evil Ghost jam. Reminiscent of Bend Simple.
8/14/15: Rock solo emerging from the fuzz, now.
8/14/15: Serious blues rock happening now.
8/14/15: Trey picking the outro riff up, but Page moving to the organ.
8/14/15: Angry chords mixing with a gorgeous Page melody now.
8/14/15: NO QUARTER
8/14/15: My favorite Zeppelin song, and will never forget screaming my damn head off when Page started it at Dick's '14.
8/14/15: I could not believe it. Thought for sure the 'N' was going to be 'Nothing.'
8/14/15: That was probably the hardest-rocking and 'best' (whatever that means) No Quarter yet.
8/14/15: > Groove.
8/14/15: Groove is a bit uptempo.
8/14/15: Trey laying down a hell of a little solo already.
8/14/15: Trey is teasing something and I'm going to fucking freak out if I can't figure out what.
8/14/15: Oh, duh. No Quarter. It's been a long day, folks.
8/14/15: Well, that was fun. A huge Mike's Groove powered almost entirely by Trey's insane rock and roll guitar.
8/14/15: For as great as the whole band has been playing lately, that sort of guitar domination doesn't happen very often post-2010 or so.
8/14/15: Frist Tbue!
8/14/15: Just checking to see if you were paying attention.
8/14/15: First Tube was super hot. Farmhouse encore, though? Weird.
(Sorry, forgot to review the encore last night)
8/14/15: Page piano solo in Farmhouse!
8/14/15: No offense to Trey, but this immediately became one of the prettiest Farmhouses I've heard in a long time.
8/14/15: Fire! Well, that's an interesting pair of songs for an encore.
8/14/15: Some drill there at the end of Fire.
2015-08-12 Mann II
The Verdict:
The second Mann show was just about as good as everyone online made it out to be. As has been the case this year, mostly because of the band's high level of playing in general, what really sets the shows with strong S2s apart from the pack is a good S1. And this one achieves top-tier status in exactly this way.
Unlike the S1s of the last few shows, none of the songs here are tunes we haven't heard a few times already this tour. But, the flow and song choice are impeccable, there's a "Martian Monster" jam in "Free" as a throwback to the previous night's show, and a smooth-as-hell funk jam in "It's Ice." Oh, and legitimate jams in "Cities" and "Stash." The "Cities" jam falls into what I'm calling the "echo-funk" genre of jams, a la "Mike's" from Dick's '14, the 8/9 "Tweezer" or the 8/5 "Sand." The "Stash" is a bit more pedestrian, but opens with a few minutes of Mike-led jamming that's unique for a "Stash" jam. Worth a listen.
The second set, then, is where the magic really happens. There's two things that need to be said about this set. First off, it's only five songs long. The caveat to that is that "Gin," "No Men's," and "Hood" are all long, but really 2015-average. I don't bring this up to be a dick, but to just point out that as awesome as this set is, I've heard better jams out of each of these three songs already this year, so these performances aren't necessarily the be-all-end-all of jamming as some might have you believe. They're great takes, though, and you should probably listen to them.
The second, and more important thing about this second set is that "Twist" and "Scents" are two of the best jams of the year so far, and they happen back-to-back. So definitely listen to that shit. In the end, it adds up to a second set that matches, and probably defeats heavy-hitters like 7/24 or 8/7. It's very, very good.
The Live Review:
8/12/15: Finally checking this show out.
8/12/15: Bag opener. Always a good sign.
8/12/15: That was a great little version of Bag. Fish is a monster. Hopefully that continues throughout the show.
8/12/15: Bag > Free.
8/12/15: Martian Monster tease during the Free breakdown. Now samples. I love that this is carrying over from last night.
8/12/15: Legit MM jam now.
8/12/15: -> Free.
8/12/15: Ya Mar!
8/12/15: Sample is next.
8/12/15: THINK OF LONDON SMALL CITY
8/12/15: DARK
8/12/15: (It's Cities next)
8/12/15: Echo-funk a la Mike's at Dick's last year or 8/9 'Tweezer' or 8/5 'Sand.'
8/12/15: Mike's taking more of a lead here, though.
8/12/15: YESSSSSS THIS IS RAD
8/12/15: This is Phish, folks. Trey adding a solo overtop now.
8/12/15: That was fantastic. Jam naturally comes to an end.
8/12/15: Stash, the quintessential 'We're jamming but not' S1 song. Let's see if that changes this time around.
8/12/15: Awesome beginning to the Stash jam. Mike is an alien.
8/12/15: After the initial bass jam in Stash, the song follows the typical build structure, but it's a particularly good one nonetheless.
8/12/15: Trey really laying down some serious licks.
8/12/15: Birds of a Feather is next.
8/12/15: When will we finally get the inevitable Birds -> The Birds -> Birds sequence?
8/12/15: Trey is losing his damn mind on the guitar over here and the rest of the band can't figure out when he's going to end this Birds.
8/12/15: The Line. Boom.
8/12/15: It's Ice. Everyone's standing up again.
8/12/15: Superfunk breakdown in It's Ice again.
8/12/15: End set with a rambunctious Zero.
8/12/15: Set two starts off with Gin.
8/12/15: Nice building progression starts the Gin jam off right away.
8/12/15: Great melody soloing now from Trey over the new progression.
8/12/15: Fantastic soloing now from Trey. Fish picking up the tempo.
8/12/15: Huge peak now...return to the Gin riff afterward.
8/12/15: Page throws in a Rhapsody in Blue tease during the sound explosion at the end of the song.
8/12/15: No Men's.
8/12/15: Loopy funk time!
8/12/15: Big ol' sloppy ropes of funk just slapping you in the fuckin' face
8/12/15: Okay, I've had enough of myself.
8/12/15: Evil breakdown around 9:00 mark.
8/12/15: Neat jam developing here, returning, sort of, to typical No Men's realm after the breakdown but strong rock soloing by Trey.
8/12/15: TWIST
8/12/15: Major minimalist breakdown early in Twist.
8/12/15: Page working the electric piano, Trey over to a No Quarter-y tone.
8/12/15: Fish is being amazing with cymbals during this breakdown.
8/12/15: Foundation and bass bombs from Mike while Trey lays down an eerily distorted melody solo.
8/12/15: They're staying in this weird space for a LONG time. It's good.
8/12/15: Holy shit, whale pedal!
8/12/15: I'm having 2010 reviewing flashbacks NOOOOOOOOOOooooooo
8/12/15: He's using it to some pretty great effect here, though.
8/12/15: Jam still staying pretty low-key. Mike is driving now. About 13 mins in.
8/12/15: Transitioning into something new now. Something like a cross between Manteca and the Mule Duel.
8/12/15: Picking up the pace now. Heading into bliss-jam territory.
8/12/15: Build leads back into the Twist riff.
8/12/15: After 19 minutes.
8/12/15: That was pretty fantastic. Maybe not the weirdest jam Phish has played lately, but definitely the longest Weird Jam in some time.
8/12/15: Long pause, now.
8/12/15: SCENTS
8/12/15: Intro first. I think. I can't remember.
8/12/15: This has always been one of my favorite Phish jam launchpads, for as little as it's really been played.
8/12/15: Maybe we'll hear it more often in 2016.
8/12/15: So far, Trey is just noodling, but hey, I'm still jazzed to hear this song at all.
8/12/15: Okay, space rock time now.
8/12/15: Trey has been repeating the same distorted rock riff over and over for a few minutes while the jam builds. Really cool.
8/12/15: Return to the vocal refrain at the end of the jam. Fade out. So good.
8/12/15: Hood is next. Setlist reminds me a bit of the Shoreline show.
8/12/15: Hood jam goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
8/12/15: Great staccato interplay between Mike and Trey near the beginning of the jam here.
8/12/15: Really great build going on right now.
8/12/15: Only thing I don't like about Hoods lately is that Page always starts the outro riff on piano before the rest of the band does.
8/12/15: Vastly prefer when they all suddenly bust into it at once.
8/12/15: Trey is doing a fantastic job of building tension right now while crawling toward the outro patiently.
8/12/15: Page just prematurely ejaculated again.
8/12/15: Held note from Trey.
8/12/15: There she blows.
8/12/15: Trey: 'Thank you. Your trip is short.'
8/12/15: Loving Cup encore. Seems appropriate.
8/12/15: Hell of a solo by Trey to close the show.
8/12/15: Well, that was a great show. Upper-echelon for sure. In competition with 7/24 and 8/7, and probably better than them in some ways.
8/12/15: Great first set, two legit S1 jams, then the back-to-back-to-back madness of S2.
8/12/15: For all the screaming about this show, though, I didn't find it notably better than many other great shows this summer.
8/12/15: Second set was only five songs, but there have been more interesting versions of Gin, No Men's and Hood already for sure.
8/12/15: Nice to hear them stretched out, nonetheless, though.
8/12/15: Twist > Scents was frigging awesome, though.
The second Mann show was just about as good as everyone online made it out to be. As has been the case this year, mostly because of the band's high level of playing in general, what really sets the shows with strong S2s apart from the pack is a good S1. And this one achieves top-tier status in exactly this way.
Unlike the S1s of the last few shows, none of the songs here are tunes we haven't heard a few times already this tour. But, the flow and song choice are impeccable, there's a "Martian Monster" jam in "Free" as a throwback to the previous night's show, and a smooth-as-hell funk jam in "It's Ice." Oh, and legitimate jams in "Cities" and "Stash." The "Cities" jam falls into what I'm calling the "echo-funk" genre of jams, a la "Mike's" from Dick's '14, the 8/9 "Tweezer" or the 8/5 "Sand." The "Stash" is a bit more pedestrian, but opens with a few minutes of Mike-led jamming that's unique for a "Stash" jam. Worth a listen.
The second set, then, is where the magic really happens. There's two things that need to be said about this set. First off, it's only five songs long. The caveat to that is that "Gin," "No Men's," and "Hood" are all long, but really 2015-average. I don't bring this up to be a dick, but to just point out that as awesome as this set is, I've heard better jams out of each of these three songs already this year, so these performances aren't necessarily the be-all-end-all of jamming as some might have you believe. They're great takes, though, and you should probably listen to them.
The second, and more important thing about this second set is that "Twist" and "Scents" are two of the best jams of the year so far, and they happen back-to-back. So definitely listen to that shit. In the end, it adds up to a second set that matches, and probably defeats heavy-hitters like 7/24 or 8/7. It's very, very good.
The Live Review:
8/12/15: Finally checking this show out.
8/12/15: Bag opener. Always a good sign.
8/12/15: That was a great little version of Bag. Fish is a monster. Hopefully that continues throughout the show.
8/12/15: Bag > Free.
8/12/15: Martian Monster tease during the Free breakdown. Now samples. I love that this is carrying over from last night.
8/12/15: Legit MM jam now.
8/12/15: -> Free.
8/12/15: Ya Mar!
8/12/15: Sample is next.
8/12/15: THINK OF LONDON SMALL CITY
8/12/15: DARK
8/12/15: (It's Cities next)
8/12/15: Echo-funk a la Mike's at Dick's last year or 8/9 'Tweezer' or 8/5 'Sand.'
8/12/15: Mike's taking more of a lead here, though.
8/12/15: YESSSSSS THIS IS RAD
8/12/15: This is Phish, folks. Trey adding a solo overtop now.
8/12/15: That was fantastic. Jam naturally comes to an end.
8/12/15: Stash, the quintessential 'We're jamming but not' S1 song. Let's see if that changes this time around.
8/12/15: Awesome beginning to the Stash jam. Mike is an alien.
8/12/15: After the initial bass jam in Stash, the song follows the typical build structure, but it's a particularly good one nonetheless.
8/12/15: Trey really laying down some serious licks.
8/12/15: Birds of a Feather is next.
8/12/15: When will we finally get the inevitable Birds -> The Birds -> Birds sequence?
8/12/15: Trey is losing his damn mind on the guitar over here and the rest of the band can't figure out when he's going to end this Birds.
8/12/15: The Line. Boom.
8/12/15: It's Ice. Everyone's standing up again.
8/12/15: Superfunk breakdown in It's Ice again.
8/12/15: End set with a rambunctious Zero.
8/12/15: Set two starts off with Gin.
8/12/15: Nice building progression starts the Gin jam off right away.
8/12/15: Great melody soloing now from Trey over the new progression.
8/12/15: Fantastic soloing now from Trey. Fish picking up the tempo.
8/12/15: Huge peak now...return to the Gin riff afterward.
8/12/15: Page throws in a Rhapsody in Blue tease during the sound explosion at the end of the song.
8/12/15: No Men's.
8/12/15: Loopy funk time!
8/12/15: Big ol' sloppy ropes of funk just slapping you in the fuckin' face
8/12/15: Okay, I've had enough of myself.
8/12/15: Evil breakdown around 9:00 mark.
8/12/15: Neat jam developing here, returning, sort of, to typical No Men's realm after the breakdown but strong rock soloing by Trey.
8/12/15: TWIST
8/12/15: Major minimalist breakdown early in Twist.
8/12/15: Page working the electric piano, Trey over to a No Quarter-y tone.
8/12/15: Fish is being amazing with cymbals during this breakdown.
8/12/15: Foundation and bass bombs from Mike while Trey lays down an eerily distorted melody solo.
8/12/15: They're staying in this weird space for a LONG time. It's good.
8/12/15: Holy shit, whale pedal!
8/12/15: I'm having 2010 reviewing flashbacks NOOOOOOOOOOooooooo
8/12/15: He's using it to some pretty great effect here, though.
8/12/15: Jam still staying pretty low-key. Mike is driving now. About 13 mins in.
8/12/15: Transitioning into something new now. Something like a cross between Manteca and the Mule Duel.
8/12/15: Picking up the pace now. Heading into bliss-jam territory.
8/12/15: Build leads back into the Twist riff.
8/12/15: After 19 minutes.
8/12/15: That was pretty fantastic. Maybe not the weirdest jam Phish has played lately, but definitely the longest Weird Jam in some time.
8/12/15: Long pause, now.
8/12/15: SCENTS
8/12/15: Intro first. I think. I can't remember.
8/12/15: This has always been one of my favorite Phish jam launchpads, for as little as it's really been played.
8/12/15: Maybe we'll hear it more often in 2016.
8/12/15: So far, Trey is just noodling, but hey, I'm still jazzed to hear this song at all.
8/12/15: Okay, space rock time now.
8/12/15: Trey has been repeating the same distorted rock riff over and over for a few minutes while the jam builds. Really cool.
8/12/15: Return to the vocal refrain at the end of the jam. Fade out. So good.
8/12/15: Hood is next. Setlist reminds me a bit of the Shoreline show.
8/12/15: Hood jam goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
8/12/15: Great staccato interplay between Mike and Trey near the beginning of the jam here.
8/12/15: Really great build going on right now.
8/12/15: Only thing I don't like about Hoods lately is that Page always starts the outro riff on piano before the rest of the band does.
8/12/15: Vastly prefer when they all suddenly bust into it at once.
8/12/15: Trey is doing a fantastic job of building tension right now while crawling toward the outro patiently.
8/12/15: Page just prematurely ejaculated again.
8/12/15: Held note from Trey.
8/12/15: There she blows.
8/12/15: Trey: 'Thank you. Your trip is short.'
8/12/15: Loving Cup encore. Seems appropriate.
8/12/15: Hell of a solo by Trey to close the show.
8/12/15: Well, that was a great show. Upper-echelon for sure. In competition with 7/24 and 8/7, and probably better than them in some ways.
8/12/15: Great first set, two legit S1 jams, then the back-to-back-to-back madness of S2.
8/12/15: For all the screaming about this show, though, I didn't find it notably better than many other great shows this summer.
8/12/15: Second set was only five songs, but there have been more interesting versions of Gin, No Men's and Hood already for sure.
8/12/15: Nice to hear them stretched out, nonetheless, though.
8/12/15: Twist > Scents was frigging awesome, though.
Nov 1, 2015
2015-08-11 Mann I
The Verdict:
This show reminds me a lot of 8/8, plus the first set from 8/9. Like 8/9, S1 is full of rarities and unexpected songs...and two satisfying jams. For my money, it's pretty easily the best first set of the year so far. The entire thing is peppered with "Martian Monster" references, including a brilliant "Martian Monster" > "Axila I" > "Skin It Back" -> "Martian Monster" -> "Skin It Back" sequence. "Dog Faced Boy" gets a slowed-down, minimal take that's, frankly, just gorgeous. "Bowie" features a short jam that's nonetheless one of the better ones the guys have put together in awhile, and "Ghost" starts off with...umm..."ghost noises" from Fish and samples from Page before continuing on to features a pretty satisfying first set jam. Oh, and in-between "Bowie" and "Ghost" is a "Scent" anchored by the most interesting marimba lumina solo Fish has put on yet. So...yeah. It's a good set. Honestly, if you want to listen to anything from the first set, you should just listen to the entire first set, so here you go:
The second set is the third in a row that falls into that one-big-jam-then-many-small-seguey-jams category, and fortunately it's more in the mold of 8/8 than 8/9. That is to say, while none of the songs after "Fuego" really Go Deep, but there's some great momentum and each song offers up at least a minute or two of something unique and interesting. But first, the "Fuego." It reminds me instantly of the Dick's "Disease": a standard-strong Trey-led jam that smoothly moves into a blissful progression that builds to a really effective and composed-sounding peak. I prefer the "Disease," personally, but if you're only going to have one long jam in a set, you could do worse than this one.
Afterward, the "Rock and Roll" offers up a little space-funk, "46 Days" is dirty as all hell, "Taste" even gets slightly extended interestingly, and "Sand" is yet another strong Type I entry in two years' worth of them at this point. The second half of the set post-"Sand" falls into serious Jukebox Mode territory, but there are plenty of riches before that. Overall, this is one of my favorite shows of the year so far aside from the obvious 7/24 and 8/7. Below those two, though, I'd list a second tier of 7/31, 8/1, 8/4, and this show.
The Live Review:
8/11/15: Okay, so I'm hungover as hell today, so if I'm crabbier than usual, that's why.
8/11/15: Crowd Control opener.
8/11/15: Trey starts out rough, but is nailing a nice little solo now.
8/11/15: I'm keeping an ear on him after 8/9 :)
8/11/15: MARTIAN MONSTAH
8/11/15: Martian astronauts getting crunched real good. Crunchy crunchy astronaut bones.
8/11/15: MM > Axila I. Great transition.
8/11/15: Okay, well Trey is definitely not in any better shape than he was during 8/9 I.
8/11/15: Great setlist so far, though.
8/11/15: Skin It Back! Hot damn!
8/11/15: Woo! -> Martian Monster!
8/11/15: Okay, so that was Martian Monster > Axilia I > Skin It Back -> Martian Monster (w/ Skin It Back jam).
8/11/15: Rad.
8/11/15: Vultures! Crazy S1 for the second show in a row!
8/11/15: If we got a serious jam in here somewhere, that would be $$$.
8/11/15: Personally, I'm hoping for a potato to the throat.
8/11/15: YES. #potato #throat
8/11/15: Love the 'Woo's at the end of Vultures.
8/11/15: Dog-Faced Boy! Guys, we need more S1s like this.
8/11/15: Beginning of the song is primarily Page on piano instead of guitar.
8/11/15: Slower tempo than the studio version. Nice harmonies.
8/11/15: Bowie! I think that actually counts as a rarity this year, sadly.
8/11/15: Martian Monster sample during intro.
8/11/15: Jam starts off with some chording and then a nice mellow melody solo from Trey. Nice momentum so far.
8/11/15: Now Trey, Mike, and Page all echoing the same riff.
8/11/15: Lots more Mike up front in the jam section than usual. Nice.
8/11/15: Really compact Bowie, but a nice little jam in dere.
8/11/15: Long break post-Bowie.
8/11/15: Farmhouse.
8/11/15: Nice little broken-down, piano-led jam here in Farmhouse.
8/11/15: Scent!
8/11/15: Martian Monster sample from Page in the middle of his Mule Duel solo. Mike (?) synth bomb,
8/11/15: Could be the marimba lumina? Fuck if I know.
8/11/15: Yeah, it is.
8/11/15: Martian Monster chewing samples on top of Fish's marimba solo. This is hilariously weird.
8/11/15: Ghost! Fish (?) making hilarious ghost noises during the intro.
8/11/15: Wind samples from Page.
8/11/15: That was the most fun I've had during the first two minutes of Ghost in a long time.
8/11/15: Martian Monster tease before the drop, and then they NAIL it. Who the fuck are these guys?!
8/11/15: More MM jamming and samples.
8/11/15: Really neat Ghost jam developing now. Trey laying down a great solo, driving beat from Fish. Page echoing Trey on electric piano.
8/11/15: Trey head-fakes toward making the typical 2015 Bliss Jam turn, and then digs deeper into his original soloing.
8/11/15: Very Twist-like jam now. If this set hadn't already been 115 minutes long, they totally could have pulled off a great -> there.
8/11/15: Instead, drop back into Ghost coda.
8/11/15: Wind-down now.
8/11/15: Fuego to open S2!
8/11/15: Echo-y goodness from Trey in a really minimalist start to what seems like a legit Fuego jam.
8/11/15: Slow-burning bliss progression.
8/11/15: This is a bit Hood-y or Slave-y.
8/11/15: Neat peak to the jam now.
8/11/15: Jam reminds me a bit of the Dick's Disease.
8/11/15: > Rock and Roll.
8/11/15: Standard Rock and Roll, but now Trey is chording some funk shit.
8/11/15: Really neat, really muddy jam happening now, after vocal reprise.
8/11/15: Improbably, that ended in 46 Days.
8/11/15: 46 Days...46 Days...46 Days...and this battle station will be quite operational when your friends arrive.
8/11/15: Really dirty 46 Days solo leads a deconstruction jam. Weird beat by Fish, Trey chording arrhythmically, heavy echo effects.
8/11/15: Noodly outro riff turns the interesting-but-short 46 days jam -> Taste.
8/11/15: Trey even throwing some funk chording into the Taste outro 'solo.' Neat.
8/11/15: I think Fish just faked us out with the Split beat...maybe? Into 2001 instead, anyway.
8/11/15: This 2001 has a little meat on its bones.
8/11/15: Neat wind-down ending to 2001 lands directly in Sand.
8/11/15: Echo-and-clav-based jam here.
8/11/15: This jam isn't treading any new ground, but it's pure, distilled funk.
8/11/15: At the end of the Sand jam, Trey plays the opening chords of The Horse, and then Page picks it up for a piano version. > Silent.
8/11/15: Cavern. I think we're in safe mode the rest of the night. Pretty great set, though.
8/11/15: Number Line starts over the last chord of Cavern.
8/11/15: I've been liking the new noodly style Trey's been laying on Number Line lately. Let's see if it comes up tonight.
8/11/15: End set.
8/11/15: Julius closes. I can't stand this song as an encore choice, but I'm glad lots of other people enjoy it.
8/11/15: It's a fun song, and a catchy one, but also the epitome of mid-tempo, rote Phish. Which is a bad thing for encores.
This show reminds me a lot of 8/8, plus the first set from 8/9. Like 8/9, S1 is full of rarities and unexpected songs...and two satisfying jams. For my money, it's pretty easily the best first set of the year so far. The entire thing is peppered with "Martian Monster" references, including a brilliant "Martian Monster" > "Axila I" > "Skin It Back" -> "Martian Monster" -> "Skin It Back" sequence. "Dog Faced Boy" gets a slowed-down, minimal take that's, frankly, just gorgeous. "Bowie" features a short jam that's nonetheless one of the better ones the guys have put together in awhile, and "Ghost" starts off with...umm..."ghost noises" from Fish and samples from Page before continuing on to features a pretty satisfying first set jam. Oh, and in-between "Bowie" and "Ghost" is a "Scent" anchored by the most interesting marimba lumina solo Fish has put on yet. So...yeah. It's a good set. Honestly, if you want to listen to anything from the first set, you should just listen to the entire first set, so here you go:
The second set is the third in a row that falls into that one-big-jam-then-many-small-seguey-jams category, and fortunately it's more in the mold of 8/8 than 8/9. That is to say, while none of the songs after "Fuego" really Go Deep, but there's some great momentum and each song offers up at least a minute or two of something unique and interesting. But first, the "Fuego." It reminds me instantly of the Dick's "Disease": a standard-strong Trey-led jam that smoothly moves into a blissful progression that builds to a really effective and composed-sounding peak. I prefer the "Disease," personally, but if you're only going to have one long jam in a set, you could do worse than this one.
Afterward, the "Rock and Roll" offers up a little space-funk, "46 Days" is dirty as all hell, "Taste" even gets slightly extended interestingly, and "Sand" is yet another strong Type I entry in two years' worth of them at this point. The second half of the set post-"Sand" falls into serious Jukebox Mode territory, but there are plenty of riches before that. Overall, this is one of my favorite shows of the year so far aside from the obvious 7/24 and 8/7. Below those two, though, I'd list a second tier of 7/31, 8/1, 8/4, and this show.
The Live Review:
8/11/15: Okay, so I'm hungover as hell today, so if I'm crabbier than usual, that's why.
8/11/15: Crowd Control opener.
8/11/15: Trey starts out rough, but is nailing a nice little solo now.
8/11/15: I'm keeping an ear on him after 8/9 :)
8/11/15: MARTIAN MONSTAH
8/11/15: Martian astronauts getting crunched real good. Crunchy crunchy astronaut bones.
8/11/15: MM > Axila I. Great transition.
8/11/15: Okay, well Trey is definitely not in any better shape than he was during 8/9 I.
8/11/15: Great setlist so far, though.
8/11/15: Skin It Back! Hot damn!
8/11/15: Woo! -> Martian Monster!
8/11/15: Okay, so that was Martian Monster > Axilia I > Skin It Back -> Martian Monster (w/ Skin It Back jam).
8/11/15: Rad.
8/11/15: Vultures! Crazy S1 for the second show in a row!
8/11/15: If we got a serious jam in here somewhere, that would be $$$.
8/11/15: Personally, I'm hoping for a potato to the throat.
8/11/15: YES. #potato #throat
8/11/15: Love the 'Woo's at the end of Vultures.
8/11/15: Dog-Faced Boy! Guys, we need more S1s like this.
8/11/15: Beginning of the song is primarily Page on piano instead of guitar.
8/11/15: Slower tempo than the studio version. Nice harmonies.
8/11/15: Bowie! I think that actually counts as a rarity this year, sadly.
8/11/15: Martian Monster sample during intro.
8/11/15: Jam starts off with some chording and then a nice mellow melody solo from Trey. Nice momentum so far.
8/11/15: Now Trey, Mike, and Page all echoing the same riff.
8/11/15: Lots more Mike up front in the jam section than usual. Nice.
8/11/15: Really compact Bowie, but a nice little jam in dere.
8/11/15: Long break post-Bowie.
8/11/15: Farmhouse.
8/11/15: Nice little broken-down, piano-led jam here in Farmhouse.
8/11/15: Scent!
8/11/15: Martian Monster sample from Page in the middle of his Mule Duel solo. Mike (?) synth bomb,
8/11/15: Could be the marimba lumina? Fuck if I know.
8/11/15: Yeah, it is.
8/11/15: Martian Monster chewing samples on top of Fish's marimba solo. This is hilariously weird.
8/11/15: Ghost! Fish (?) making hilarious ghost noises during the intro.
8/11/15: Wind samples from Page.
8/11/15: That was the most fun I've had during the first two minutes of Ghost in a long time.
8/11/15: Martian Monster tease before the drop, and then they NAIL it. Who the fuck are these guys?!
8/11/15: More MM jamming and samples.
8/11/15: Really neat Ghost jam developing now. Trey laying down a great solo, driving beat from Fish. Page echoing Trey on electric piano.
8/11/15: Trey head-fakes toward making the typical 2015 Bliss Jam turn, and then digs deeper into his original soloing.
8/11/15: Very Twist-like jam now. If this set hadn't already been 115 minutes long, they totally could have pulled off a great -> there.
8/11/15: Instead, drop back into Ghost coda.
8/11/15: Wind-down now.
8/11/15: Fuego to open S2!
8/11/15: Echo-y goodness from Trey in a really minimalist start to what seems like a legit Fuego jam.
8/11/15: Slow-burning bliss progression.
8/11/15: This is a bit Hood-y or Slave-y.
8/11/15: Neat peak to the jam now.
8/11/15: Jam reminds me a bit of the Dick's Disease.
8/11/15: > Rock and Roll.
8/11/15: Standard Rock and Roll, but now Trey is chording some funk shit.
8/11/15: Really neat, really muddy jam happening now, after vocal reprise.
8/11/15: Improbably, that ended in 46 Days.
8/11/15: 46 Days...46 Days...46 Days...and this battle station will be quite operational when your friends arrive.
8/11/15: Really dirty 46 Days solo leads a deconstruction jam. Weird beat by Fish, Trey chording arrhythmically, heavy echo effects.
8/11/15: Noodly outro riff turns the interesting-but-short 46 days jam -> Taste.
8/11/15: Trey even throwing some funk chording into the Taste outro 'solo.' Neat.
8/11/15: I think Fish just faked us out with the Split beat...maybe? Into 2001 instead, anyway.
8/11/15: This 2001 has a little meat on its bones.
8/11/15: Neat wind-down ending to 2001 lands directly in Sand.
8/11/15: Echo-and-clav-based jam here.
8/11/15: This jam isn't treading any new ground, but it's pure, distilled funk.
8/11/15: At the end of the Sand jam, Trey plays the opening chords of The Horse, and then Page picks it up for a piano version. > Silent.
8/11/15: Cavern. I think we're in safe mode the rest of the night. Pretty great set, though.
8/11/15: Number Line starts over the last chord of Cavern.
8/11/15: I've been liking the new noodly style Trey's been laying on Number Line lately. Let's see if it comes up tonight.
8/11/15: End set.
8/11/15: Julius closes. I can't stand this song as an encore choice, but I'm glad lots of other people enjoy it.
8/11/15: It's a fun song, and a catchy one, but also the epitome of mid-tempo, rote Phish. Which is a bad thing for encores.
2015-08-09 Alpine II
The Verdict:
The second Alpine show wasn't quite as satisfying as the first for me, though it seems like the general opinion on phish.net would disagree with me.
Admittedly, the first set is great from a setlist perspective. The song choices are just fantastic, including a "Very Short Fuse" opener, a "Forbin's" > "Mockingbird" sequence with some fun bird-shit-related narration, and a spacey "Brian and Robert." The problem, as I expressed during the live review below, is that Trey, and to a lesser extent the rest of the band, struggle with a lot of these rarities to the point that it sort of took me out of the show a bit. I'm sure that this set was incredibly fun live, and it's easier to be more critical when you can hear the details at home on the SBD, but there it is. It doesn't help either that the set closes with a "Split" that, in a year with some great versions, follows a completely predictable path.
Set 2 starts off with "Antelope," which is pretty weird, and other than that it actually follows a pretty similar path to 8/8's second set; it just doesn't have the same energy or flow, which makes it seem a bit pale by comparison. Pretty much everything in this set, with the exception of "Tweezer" and the second jam in "Mike's" is played completely straight. Fortunately, the second jam in "Mike's," although emerging in the weird 2015 way instead of the more organic "original" way, is totally weird in one of those "I've never heard Phish make these sounds before!" ways, and "Tweezer" is a phenomenal version that, in any other year, would be near the top of everyone's list for the whole summer. So you've got a little to dig into there. Honestly, though, the first set is better than the second, and the degree to which you'll appreciate the show overall has a lot to do with how much you enjoy setlist rarities and how much you can overlook some pretty serious flubs over the course of a 90 minute set.
The Live Review:
8/9/15: Noodling from Trey pre-opener. Now some clav.
8/9/15: Fuse sample. Crowd goes nuts. Very Long Fuse first.
8/9/15: Forgot how mellow this tune is. Awesome.
8/9/15: Holy shit, Forbin's.
8/9/15: Trey narration referencing how short his narrations are these days, and story about sleeping in the lot overnight.
8/9/15: Trey got shit on by a bird. Threatens audience with vengeance from the 'second shitter' on the 'grassy knoll.'
8/9/15: Trey struggling mightily with the arpeggios here. Great narration, though.
8/9/15: Brian and Robert! No way!
8/9/15: Lots of loops and echoes Fish using a different beat than the studio version.
8/9/15: Saw It Again! Holy this setlist!
8/9/15: Second solo plus insane shouting after the 'end' of Saw It Again.
8/9/15: Long pause after Saw It Again.
8/9/15: Esther! Holy crap.
8/9/15: Trey struggling a little again here, but great to hear this tune nonetheless.
8/9/15: Weigh is next.
8/9/15: 'Woo's during Weigh.
8/9/15: The Sloth!
8/9/15: Sanity is next. The hits just keep on coming.
8/9/15: This is fantastic setlist, but it's worth mentioning that this is the sloppiest I've heard Trey sound in a long time.
8/9/15: Almost definitely, it's because of the rare songs, but it takes a little bit of the piss out of the set.
8/9/15: Fuse samples and loops in the Sanity 'jam.'
8/9/15: Split maybe as the set closer?
8/9/15: Slow, really syrupy jamming to start.
8/9/15: Jam is sort of hinting at some of the darker, angrier Splits from later in the summer, but not quite getting there yet.
8/9/15: Second set opens with Antelope. That's weird.
8/9/15: Pretty pedestrian Antelope. Great peak, though.
8/9/15: Carini is next. Some typical soloing fuzzes out into something softer. Page to electric piano. Mike building a great bassline.
8/9/15: Not much happening here. Trey pulls the cord and moves to Waves.
8/9/15: Short Waves, but an ambient outro that sounds like Trey is starting up Tweezer a minute or two early.
8/9/15: Nice segue out of Waves, there.
8/9/15: Lots of echo-y goodness from Trey early on in this jam.
8/9/15: Tweezer is getting the Dick's Mike's Song '14 treatment here. Plus some synth from Page.
8/9/15: Page actually leading a little now on the electric piano.
8/9/15: Really driving, bliss-y progression emerging now.
8/9/15: This is badass.
8/9/15: Jam lands in Dirt. Second Dirt of the season, I think.
8/9/15: Mike's getting a bass solo. Neat!
8/9/15: Late-show Mike's to follow Dirt.
8/9/15: Manteca-y solo from Trey in an absolutely filthy tone to start.
8/9/15: Rest of the first jam is pretty straightforward. Second jam starts weirdly, like in Nashville. BUT IT STARTS
8/9/15: Page to clav. Money time.
8/9/15: Funk jam with staccato chords. Really hard to describe but Oh Shit awesome.
8/9/15: Crowd filling in with 'Woo's.
8/9/15: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: he who fears the 'Woo' has no real joy in his heart.
8/9/15: Jam fades out, > Blaze On.
8/9/15: Standard Blaze On, but nice to see it in the Mike's sandwich.
8/9/15: Extremely short but hot Groove.
8/9/15: Reprise to close the set.
8/9/15: Forgot to mention last night that the encore was Contact, Frankenstein.
8/9/15: Weird, weird show. If you're a 'repetitive setlist' complainer, you'll love it.
8/9/15: S1 setlist was totally out there, but so was Trey. I typically point out flubs just because I feel compelled to as a reviewer...
8/9/15: ...but they don't usually bother me. His playing was so rickety on all the rarities in S1, though, that it took away from the fun.
8/9/15: Like 8/8's S2, this S2 had great flow and energy, but not nearly as much to dig into.
8/9/15: The Tweezer was really special, and so was the second Mike's jam, but everything else was pretty rote.
8/9/15: Frankenstein closer sounded like Trey had never played it before.
8/9/15: Band was clearly loving being in Alpine, but just listening on tape it was one of my least favorite shows of tour so far.
The second Alpine show wasn't quite as satisfying as the first for me, though it seems like the general opinion on phish.net would disagree with me.
Admittedly, the first set is great from a setlist perspective. The song choices are just fantastic, including a "Very Short Fuse" opener, a "Forbin's" > "Mockingbird" sequence with some fun bird-shit-related narration, and a spacey "Brian and Robert." The problem, as I expressed during the live review below, is that Trey, and to a lesser extent the rest of the band, struggle with a lot of these rarities to the point that it sort of took me out of the show a bit. I'm sure that this set was incredibly fun live, and it's easier to be more critical when you can hear the details at home on the SBD, but there it is. It doesn't help either that the set closes with a "Split" that, in a year with some great versions, follows a completely predictable path.
Set 2 starts off with "Antelope," which is pretty weird, and other than that it actually follows a pretty similar path to 8/8's second set; it just doesn't have the same energy or flow, which makes it seem a bit pale by comparison. Pretty much everything in this set, with the exception of "Tweezer" and the second jam in "Mike's" is played completely straight. Fortunately, the second jam in "Mike's," although emerging in the weird 2015 way instead of the more organic "original" way, is totally weird in one of those "I've never heard Phish make these sounds before!" ways, and "Tweezer" is a phenomenal version that, in any other year, would be near the top of everyone's list for the whole summer. So you've got a little to dig into there. Honestly, though, the first set is better than the second, and the degree to which you'll appreciate the show overall has a lot to do with how much you enjoy setlist rarities and how much you can overlook some pretty serious flubs over the course of a 90 minute set.
The Live Review:
8/9/15: Noodling from Trey pre-opener. Now some clav.
8/9/15: Fuse sample. Crowd goes nuts. Very Long Fuse first.
8/9/15: Forgot how mellow this tune is. Awesome.
8/9/15: Holy shit, Forbin's.
8/9/15: Trey narration referencing how short his narrations are these days, and story about sleeping in the lot overnight.
8/9/15: Trey got shit on by a bird. Threatens audience with vengeance from the 'second shitter' on the 'grassy knoll.'
8/9/15: Trey struggling mightily with the arpeggios here. Great narration, though.
8/9/15: Brian and Robert! No way!
8/9/15: Lots of loops and echoes Fish using a different beat than the studio version.
8/9/15: Saw It Again! Holy this setlist!
8/9/15: Second solo plus insane shouting after the 'end' of Saw It Again.
8/9/15: Long pause after Saw It Again.
8/9/15: Esther! Holy crap.
8/9/15: Trey struggling a little again here, but great to hear this tune nonetheless.
8/9/15: Weigh is next.
8/9/15: 'Woo's during Weigh.
8/9/15: The Sloth!
8/9/15: Sanity is next. The hits just keep on coming.
8/9/15: This is fantastic setlist, but it's worth mentioning that this is the sloppiest I've heard Trey sound in a long time.
8/9/15: Almost definitely, it's because of the rare songs, but it takes a little bit of the piss out of the set.
8/9/15: Fuse samples and loops in the Sanity 'jam.'
8/9/15: Split maybe as the set closer?
8/9/15: Slow, really syrupy jamming to start.
8/9/15: Jam is sort of hinting at some of the darker, angrier Splits from later in the summer, but not quite getting there yet.
8/9/15: Second set opens with Antelope. That's weird.
8/9/15: Pretty pedestrian Antelope. Great peak, though.
8/9/15: Carini is next. Some typical soloing fuzzes out into something softer. Page to electric piano. Mike building a great bassline.
8/9/15: Not much happening here. Trey pulls the cord and moves to Waves.
8/9/15: Short Waves, but an ambient outro that sounds like Trey is starting up Tweezer a minute or two early.
8/9/15: Nice segue out of Waves, there.
8/9/15: Lots of echo-y goodness from Trey early on in this jam.
8/9/15: Tweezer is getting the Dick's Mike's Song '14 treatment here. Plus some synth from Page.
8/9/15: Page actually leading a little now on the electric piano.
8/9/15: Really driving, bliss-y progression emerging now.
8/9/15: This is badass.
8/9/15: Jam lands in Dirt. Second Dirt of the season, I think.
8/9/15: Mike's getting a bass solo. Neat!
8/9/15: Late-show Mike's to follow Dirt.
8/9/15: Manteca-y solo from Trey in an absolutely filthy tone to start.
8/9/15: Rest of the first jam is pretty straightforward. Second jam starts weirdly, like in Nashville. BUT IT STARTS
8/9/15: Page to clav. Money time.
8/9/15: Funk jam with staccato chords. Really hard to describe but Oh Shit awesome.
8/9/15: Crowd filling in with 'Woo's.
8/9/15: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: he who fears the 'Woo' has no real joy in his heart.
8/9/15: Jam fades out, > Blaze On.
8/9/15: Standard Blaze On, but nice to see it in the Mike's sandwich.
8/9/15: Extremely short but hot Groove.
8/9/15: Reprise to close the set.
8/9/15: Forgot to mention last night that the encore was Contact, Frankenstein.
8/9/15: Weird, weird show. If you're a 'repetitive setlist' complainer, you'll love it.
8/9/15: S1 setlist was totally out there, but so was Trey. I typically point out flubs just because I feel compelled to as a reviewer...
8/9/15: ...but they don't usually bother me. His playing was so rickety on all the rarities in S1, though, that it took away from the fun.
8/9/15: Like 8/8's S2, this S2 had great flow and energy, but not nearly as much to dig into.
8/9/15: The Tweezer was really special, and so was the second Mike's jam, but everything else was pretty rote.
8/9/15: Frankenstein closer sounded like Trey had never played it before.
8/9/15: Band was clearly loving being in Alpine, but just listening on tape it was one of my least favorite shows of tour so far.
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