The Verdict:
I was really interested to dig back into the Dick's run from this year, not just because they were my last shows of the year, but also because coming after the incredible Magnaball and sitting at the end of the phenomenal 2015 summer tour, these shows had some serious hype to live up to. Unsurprisingly, they failed to reach the ridiculously high bar the recent festival sets had...umm...set. But taken out of the context of this self-defeating line of thought that every show Phish plays needs to be better than the previous show or else it's crap, how do they stand as summer 2015 shows? That's what I'm most interested in, and what I want to weigh in on over the next three reviews.
Night one is absolutely a strong 2015 show. It might fall just short of being worth mentioning as part of the upper echelon of '15 shows, but there's a lot to dig into here. On the other hand, there's a lot of "What If?" moments in the show that are hard to overlook.
On the positive side, the first set is great, with a long, albeit Type I, "Ghost" early on, an extended "Halley's" that features some fantastic playing from Trey, a rocktastic "Gin" that has no business being in a first set except as the closer, and a "46 Days" that gets weird before heading into a patient "Antelope" segue.
On the negative side, "Ghost" doesn't go deep to the degree you might expect, the "Halley's" jam is absolute fire until Trey suddenly yanks it into "Undermind," losing the rest of the band in the process, "Gin" isn't its usual 2015 Type II self, and that "46 Days" jam was seriously going places before Trey jumped over a great Page-and-Mike jam to start up what goes on to be a tepid "Antelope."
On the positive side, the second set features a great mixture of the long jams and short-jams-and-segues play styles we've seen throughout 2015, with a mini space jam emerging from "Wolfman's," a satisfying extended version of "Blaze On" that's up there with the best versions of the year, and a "Golden Age" that reaches the sixteen-minute mark by pulling a lot of tricks that are outside the usual jamming oeuvre of the band this year. The "Fuego" jam is short, but is possibly the most interesting (and angriest) jam of the night, and the way Page directs it into "Wading" is just perfect. And lest you have an appetite for antics, Fish sings "Bike," pretends the vacuum hose is his dick, and climbs on top of Page's piano for the encore.
On the negative side, "Wolfman's" seems to be heading in a promising, ultra-rare Type II direction before it just fizzles and forces a transition into "Blaze On," the excellent "Golden Age" jam is preceded by a badly butchered composed section, and the "Fuego" jam also seems to run out of juice just as it's getting really interesting.
In short, it's hard not to see this as a "What If?" show in many respects. Even as-is, it's a strong entry into this summer's tour, but had a few of those "What If?"s come to pass, we might be talking best-of material here, and it's hard not to think about that in the looming shadow of Magnaball excellence.
Second set starts at 1:28:00:
The Live Review:
9/4/15: Alright, here we go. Tube opener.
9/4/15: Mix sounds different than Magna on LP. Bass is clearer. Mike sounds fantastic.
9/4/15: Maybe it's just because I've been away from the funk for three weeks.
9/4/15: Slow tempo meaty take, > Ghost.
9/4/15: Nice surprise to see this in the first set, but there's something about a Ghost that happens in the sunlight that seems wrong.
9/4/15: 1st show I've listened to in weeks. Can already tell it's going to be biased by that 'Oh shit, Phish is awesome!' feeling.
9/4/15: Trey trading rock riffs with Mike's languid bass spaces. Neat.
9/4/15: Gnarly chords from Trey leading to a rock solo explosion.
9/4/15: That Ghost was Type I all the way, but some strong playing nonetheless.
9/4/15: I hate that this Halley's really starts to develop a serious melodic jam and then cuts your hopes short by Trey ripcording it.
9/4/15: Great little jam, but the 'segue' is not fluid AT ALL and the rest of the band has to come to a complete stop to catch up.
9/4/15: Pretty swingin' version of Undermind, though.
9/4/15: Yarmouth Road brings the tempo down a bit.
9/4/15: Sort of a momentum-killer, but I also unabashedly love this song, and think it's been getting more interesting lately.
9/4/15: Huh. A few of the earlier-summer takes on the song had little bridge jams in them. This one doesn't have anything like that.
9/4/15: Gin is next.
9/4/15: Slow build Gin with some lick-trading between Trey and Page.
9/4/15: No, they're not actually licking each other. You knew what I meant.
9/4/15: Like the Ghost, the Gin isn't really Going Places, but man is Trey tearing up the guitar.
9/4/15: PEAKSPLOSION
9/4/15: There have been at least three distinct peaks in this jam.
9/4/15: Wind-down ending now, just like in Ghost.
9/4/15: WAN'd.
9/4/15: I always say this, but I love WAN when it's played right.
9/4/15: It always makes me think of the solid version that opened the Eugene show, one of my favorite Phish shows I've seen.
9/4/15: The version got stronger as it went, incidentally. Horn next.
9/4/15: The Wedge. Set is drifting a little at this point.
9/4/15: Trey's giving the fretboard a major workout in this Wedge.
9/4/15: 46 Daaaaaaaays.
9/4/15: Trey's laying on the heavy distortion right off the bat, here.
9/4/15: Dark space immediately after the usual solo.
9/4/15: Descending progression from Trey and Page.
9/4/15: Page to the electric piano.
9/4/15: Gorgeous Page-and-Mike space interrupted by Trey's > Antelope.
9/4/15: Trey has a looping note playing over the intro, too.
9/4/15: Pretty standard Antelope, otherwise.
9/4/15: Weird set. Strong playing throughout, but really no flow after that car crash into Undermind.
9/4/15: 'Average-great' first set for 2015, but frustrating in the shadow of Magnaball b/c of missed opportunities.
9/4/15: Aborted Halley's jam, weird segue into Undermind, short, plain Ghost, short Gin (esp. weird for '15), aborted 46 Days jam.
9/4/15: Any 1-2 of those songs really goes deep and this is a different conversation. But they don't.
9/4/15: Wolfman's opens S2.
9/4/15: Chording-funk jam almost immediately.
9/4/15: Loops over a surprisingly heavy, rock-oriented Wolfman's jam.
9/4/15: Murky space now reminiscent of the 46 Days 'jam'
9/4/15: Another potential jam there that didn't coalesce, but now > Blaze On.
9/4/15: End of composed section of Blaze On stretching out into a languid funk-rock jam. Page on the clav, but lower down than usual.
9/4/15: Loop-rock now, with Trey's arpeggios and Page's intertwining.
9/4/15: Evil-sounding progression starts up at about 10:30.
9/4/15: About 5-6 minutes of really interesting, complex jamming finally fades out here and Trey starts up Golden Age.
9/4/15: Trey would be an invincible human who never aged and never died if the third verse of Golden Age didn't exist.
9/4/15: It's like his own personal facet of entropy.
9/4/15: Page has places he wants to go early in this jam, but Trey is just doing the usual solo thing.
9/4/15: Okay, Trey finally got the message.
9/4/15: Funky chords from Trey, while Page is stringing together some absolutely phenomenal piano runs.
9/4/15: Playing with all sorts of different, mellow ideas here. Now Trey seizes on a two-chord progression and Fish picks up the beat.
9/4/15: Synth and bass bombs now. Crowd cheering.
9/4/15: Really bouncy progression now.
9/4/15: Fish is definitely the MVP of this jam. Changing up to some seriously weird beats on a dime.
9/4/15: A build toward the end of the jam, but it's not peaky; instead, it's almost fuzzy, and really busy-sounding.
9/4/15: That jam was totally weird and more interesting for it. Might be a little too all-over-the-place if you're looking for trajectory.
9/4/15: Roses!
9/4/15: Extended ending to Roses. Thought we were going to go Worcester '12 there for a second. But, > Fuego.
9/4/15: Ending section of Fuego is totally going Bend Simple right now.
9/4/15: Trey's heavy riffs and Fish's drumming contrasted with Page's delicate piano notes is pretty fantastic here.
9/4/15: Over the buzz and distortion, a move to a lighter space, now.
9/4/15: Major-key space peters out with a Page fill. Now more loops and distortion building.
9/4/15: -> Wading! Nicely done.
9/4/15: I like the Blaze On jam and really like the Golden Age jam, but the Fuego -> Wading is the best part of the show for me.
9/4/15: Piano outro from Wading -> Walls keeps the piano segues theme going.
9/4/15: Walls gets extended a little more than usual to suit the placement as S2 closer.
9/4/15: Encore starts with HYHU.
9/4/15: Bike.
9/4/15: Fish sucks.
9/4/15: Back into HYHU, with, as I remember, Fish running in circles around the stage like a maniac.
9/4/15: The 'real' encore song is Loving Cup.
9/4/15: Like the first set, I think the second set is a strong addition to 2015 S2s, it just suffers in comparison to Magnaball.
9/4/15: Would like to have seen Wolfman's go deeper, but Blaze On and Golden Age are strong jams.
9/4/15: Fuego was brilliant but too short, and the encore was fun as hell.
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