The Verdict:
The first two BGCA shows comprised the first back-to-back great Phish shows in awhile. While it would be nice to be able to say that night three rounds out the run in similar style, it really doesn't.
The good news is that the first set is amazing. It's that once-in-a-tour rarities set that Phish always seems to pull out these days, but with more verve and an even better song selection than usual. From the jaw-dropping bustout "Demand" opener to the straightforward-but-beautiful "Bowie" closer, everything is perfectly paced and there are a number of bustouts that should have even the most jaded fan of "classic" Phish smiling.
Then, the second set.
As has often been the case with second sets during this tour, there's just never any liftoff. Worse than that, there are enough false starts to leave you with that "If only..." feeling by the end. "No Men" seems like it might be a promising, jammy start to the set, but Trey guts it out of nowhere for "Mike's," and as the meat in the "Mike's" sandwich we get a nice "Fee" bustout and a compact "Seven Below," but those are followed by a bummer of a "Waiting All Night," "Jibboo," "Miss You" sequence that forms the middle of the set. "WAN" and "Jibboo" both feature some great soloing from Trey, but it's hard to care as the run just feels like it's running out of gas here in the final set. Things don't really recover after that. The second set ends with "Julius" and the encore is "Zero," which makes it feel a bit like the band is in on the joke, but it's not that funny.
Come for the first set, though. It's really good. Then leave.
The Live Review:
7/20/16: Demand opener. I remember the crowd being surprisingly quiet during this. Tape reinforces my memory of this.
7/20/16: Is it possible that sold-out BGCA just didn't know Demand?!
7/20/16: I personally had a miniature stroke of amazement and had to be helped up off the floor. 7/20/16: Well, peeps made up for it by FREAKING OUT when The Curtain With started.
7/20/16: Incidentally, when you're on n3 of BGCA and tired of road tripping for 2 straight months and trying to decide if ur gonna hit LA...
7/20/16: ...The Curtain With is the perfect song: 'Follow the lines going south!'
7/20/16: This song being played on 7/20 is at least 50% of why I ended up driving to The Forum and Chula last summer.
7/20/16: All that said, Trey's guitar is pretty anemic during this version for some reason.
7/20/16: Alumni Blues > Jimmy Page > Alumni Blues.
7/20/16: Fuck Your Face > Cry Baby Cry.
7/20/16: Trey dedicates Sing Monica to Bob Ezrin.
7/20/16: > McGrupp
7/20/16: You know it's one of those first sets when you get Alumni Blues > Jimmy Page > Alumni > FYF > Cry Baby Cry > Monica > McGrupp.
7/20/16: Loving the setlist, of course, but Trey is struggling a lot more than I remembered from seeing it live.
7/20/16: Attendance bias, I guess.
7/20/16: > The Very Long Fuse
7/20/16: I love how airy the riff on Fuse is. Weird stand-out in the Haunted House batch of songs for that reason.
7/20/16: > BBFCFM. Even by 'rarity first set' standards, this set is super-weird and awesome. 7/20/16: > Walk Away.
7/20/16: Trey hosing down the crowd during a short Walk Away.
7/20/16: Student just came in to pick up a paper, noticed TAB poster: 'Hey! Trey's great! I saw him play with Phil Lesh at the Warfield!'
7/20/16: That had to have been 1999, right?
7/20/16: Sanity.
7/20/16: This is the best Sanity b/c Trey yells 'I don't need a place to hide...RAWHIDE!' and Fish immediately responds with 'YAH!'
7/20/16: Song ends as a march, because Phish.
7/20/16: Sanity -> Bowie intro.
7/20/16: Bowie jam starts out muted and builds slowly. Big modular turn at about 8:30 though. Getting more interesting.
7/20/16: Moving that second jam space pretty flawlessly into the Bowie peak.
7/20/16: End set. NMINML is next.
7/20/16: And by 'next,' I mean 'opens the second set.' I'm tired.
7/20/16: Fadeout from Trey. Fishman pushing the beat.
7/20/16: Trance-y sort of riffing from Page.
7/20/16: Slow-developing No Men's jam garroted by Trey for Mike's.
7/20/16: Trey deploying the echo in Mike's.
7/20/16: Great echo-funk jam building.
7/20/16: > Fee.
7/20/16: Neat little harmonics jam outro to Fee. Very short. Seven Below is next.
7/20/16: Short Type I jamlet in Seven Below. Then, Waiting All Night.
7/20/16: Nobody cares because it's a god-damn second set Waiting All Night in a jamless show, but Trey's solo here is killer.
7/20/16: Jibboo next.
7/20/16: Same with Jibboo. Trey took literally the shittiest part of the show setlist-wise and decided to start playing all-star guitar.
7/20/16: Miss You seems like a fantastic fucking setlist choice right about now.
7/20/16: That was sarcasm.
7/20/16: You know what Phish fans really want to do in the middle of the second set at a historic venue?
7/20/16: Think about people they'll never see again and how that makes them sad, that's what. 7/20/16: Miss You is a great song, but if they're going to insist on playing it live, it's a end-set-one sunset song, and that's it.
7/20/16: Finally the Groove comes along. Some echo chording from Trey.
7/20/16: Great drumming from Fish on this Groove. He's going nuts.
7/20/16: Percussion jam!
7/20/16: Second set's going to end with Julius. Encore is going to be Wading, Zero. Because that's the kind of show this is.
7/20/16: Well, that was just about as weird as I remembered it being.
7/20/16: First set was tightly paced with LOTS of awesome rarities. Second set was just a pacing nightmare and absolutely no exploration.
7/20/16: Well-played second set, but who cares when the whole thing is a Mike's Sandwich with ballad bread?
7/20/16: Err...'ballad meat.' Which is a thing that I laughed really hard at as I typed it. GET YER BALLAD MEAT
7/20/16: Unfortunately, my griping about this show will just be followed by my griping about The Forum show.
7/20/16: aka THE WORST PHISH SHOW THERE IS
7/20/16: I might be a little biased, but...we'll see. I guess.
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