The Verdict:
The three-set NYE show proper magnifies all the good and the bad about 12/30. Again, the first set is rote, though it's rote while also being played with an intense amount of energy. There are some neat moments, like the crowd sing-along on "I Didn't Know" and the "Reba," but in general there's not much to write home about. Don't get me wrong, it's about as great as average-great gets, but there's not a lot of relisten potential.
For the first half of the second set, oddly, this trend continues. Essentially, we've got 1.5 opening sets here. But then "KDF" heads into murky, ambient territory and all hell breaks loose. The "KDF" jam is one of the weirdest in quite some time, as it swerves into Drive-In territory and then departs for parts unknown. It's sewn to "Twist" by a short-but-wacky "Piper," and then "Twist" goes on to move through mutron-powered funk and a "The Dogs"-like peak that's on a level with the previous night's "Gin." It's that good. And this is just the second set.
The third set's meat is near the front, as it opens with a twenty-one-minute "No Men's" that goes totally off the Drive-In end and stays there for a long, long, satisfying time. A brief interlude for the year to end and then there's also a fifteen-minute "Blaze On" jam that gets all clavvy and such (as is typical) before moving into an atypical space where Trey takes over lead and lays down a gorgeous melody solo to close out the song.
Everything after that is back in the greatest-average-great territory, but it's nice to hear a "Bowie" with some teeth and a "Horse" where Trey actually plays his guitar. And, man, this show has four contenders for top-tier-2015 jams...even if the rest of the show was just "Jennifer Dances" over and over again, it would be a tour highlight.
The Live Review:
12/31/15: Probably will not get through this entire show today, but I'll at least get started.
12/31/15: Moma Dance opens. Fish getting flashy with the beat already. Good sign.
12/31/15: A FROTHING CAP
12/31/15: Early Possum, and Trey be sprayin' notes all over the place.
12/31/15: Mike sounds great on this mix. Pumped. It's a good @phish day. Summer tour dates now, please?
12/31/15: Page takes an awesome organ solo in Possum.
12/31/15: Super-hot Possum > Wolfman's.
12/31/15: Another massive Type I jam here. These guys are serious tonight.
12/31/15: Birds is next.
12/31/15: Short take there, but way more interesting than the usual 3.0-filler style.
12/31/15: I Didn't Know!
12/31/15: AWESOME. Crowd singing in place of band. Singing all the parts.
12/31/15: Fish wants to sing one more song with the audience.
12/31/15: Fish and crowd singing Happy Birthday to his daughter.
12/31/15: Martian Monster!
12/31/15: More crowd participation w/ a MM stop-start woo jam.
12/31/15: Reba is an interesting call, here.
12/31/15: Rebas have been really good this year and this one's no exception. Fantastic solo.
12/31/15: Walls, presumably to close S1.
12/31/15: No serious jam in the first set, but the first four songs were all super-hot. Sing-a-long shenanigans after. Strong Reba + Walls.
12/31/15: Second set opens with The Wedge, weirdly enough.
12/31/15: The Wedge gets butt-slammed into Wilson.
12/31/15: Wilson sounding a little more heavy-metal than usual.
12/31/15: ASIHTOS is next. Standard Type I action so far.
12/31/15: Like many of the S1 songs, ASIHTOS doesn't go deep, but definitely brings the heat.
12/31/15: Yarmouth Road at high tempo.
12/31/15: This is starting to seem like the second part of a really solid, but straightforward first set.
12/31/15: Your mileage might vary according to your appreciation for that sort of thing.
12/31/15: Trey hangs back a bit and lets Mike lead the Yarmouth jam.
12/31/15: Now KDF.
12/31/15: Weird S2 so far.
12/31/15: Early on in the solo, Trey is getting a little atonal. Might be headed somewhere interesting.
12/31/15: Really spacey, Birds-like jam taking shape now.
12/31/15: Just drone, piano, and drums now.
12/31/15: Super minimalist yet groovy jam.
12/31/15: I really dig this. Different than pretty much all the big jams so far this year.
12/31/15: Maybe a little Drive-In Jam flavor in there, though.
12/31/15: That was one of the coolest jams I've heard from Phish in a long time. Weirdly minimal and spooky, but still melodic.
12/31/15: Slow segue into Piper.
12/31/15: Piper is really just an interlude, but it's about as good as you could ask for in a six-minute version.
12/31/15: Slow, grungy segue into Twist.
12/31/15: Awesome latin-infused vibe to the beginning of the Twist jam.
12/31/15: Return to the typical Twist riff now, but continuing past it into a second jam.
12/31/15: Mutron and funk action now.
12/31/15: Sounds a hell of a lot like a low-tempo The Dogs now.
12/31/15: Huge build, fantastic Trey solo, and then a return to the Twist riff. That was amazing.
12/31/15: Two of my easy-favorite jams of 2015 (and that's saying something) now on 12/30 and 12/31.
12/31/15: Super-short S2, but the back end was AWESOME.
12/31/15: Low-tempo, funky No Men's to start S3.
12/31/15: Solo gets weird early on, segues into a No Quarter/ASIHTOS-type jam.
12/31/15: Piano accents in the darkness.
12/31/15: Organic turn toward a more blissful, though still low-key space now. Trey putting down a melody.
12/31/15: Great beat from Fish is the foundation for synth and all sort of weird stuff for the next few minutes. This is amazing.
12/31/15: Ambient wash suddenly at about 11:00.
12/31/15: Sort of back to where we left off before the ambient bit now.
12/31/15: Extremely patient jam is going into deeeeep space here.
12/31/15: So glad I'm not high right now because I'd be shitting myself.
12/31/15: The Carinval of the Damned Jamming.
12/31/15: Now '99-era anthemic space rock.
12/31/15: This is absolutely nuts. How is this not everyone's favorite jam of ever?
12/31/15: Perfect > countdown > Auld Lang Syne
12/31/15: > Blaze On, crowd loses it.
12/31/15: Great straightforward solo to start the Blaze On jam.
12/31/15: Loops and clav now.
12/31/15: Neat, mellow chording now, over a bass drone.
12/31/15: Another fantastic solo from Trey now. Wow.
12/31/15: This is just beautiful.
12/31/15: Wrap back to Blaze On vocal outro. Then butt-slammed into Carini!
12/31/15: Holy hell, brilliant Trey solo AGAIN in Carini. Slinky as all hell.
12/31/15: Mike taking over now as the jam mellows out.
12/31/15: Great -> Bowie from Fish.
12/31/15: Bowie doesn't deviate massively from the typical mode, but Trey's suddenly astonishing soloing skills kick in here again.
12/31/15: Brief break after Bowie before The Horse.
12/31/15: Trey playing this time instead of Page.
12/31/15: I'm disappointed with the crowd's lack of reaction to the 'I think this exact thing happened to me...' line.
12/31/15: Number Line is next.
12/31/15: Somehow, that was the ugliest version of Number Line in pretty much forever.
12/31/15: Tube encore? Ooookay.
12/31/15: Tube > Cavern. Weird encore.
12/31/15: That said, everything from KDF to Bowie was absolutely brilliant.
12/31/15: There's arguably a lot of (well-played) filler in this show, but when you get a chunk of Phish music like that in the middle...
12/31/15: ...who cares?
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