The Verdict:
Strawberry night blew my mind. Here's why.
Opening with a "Strawberry Fields Forever" cover done a capella is pretty awesome. Following that up with a 17-minute "Moma Dance" and a ten minute "Breath and Burning" is just hilariously good. The "Moma" jam is long and deep, the one thing the first night was arguably missing. A funk-plinko hybrid jam drives "Breath and Burning" and a "Funky Bitch" that Trey just annihilates. And that's your first quarter, folks.
The second quarter is almost as good, with great takes on "Mound," "Foam," (!) and "Coil," as well as a particularly good version of "Roggae" in the mix.
If for some reason you were thinking, insanely, "That amazing first set fucking sucked," well, the second set is here for you.
The opening "Disease" doesn't quite reach the heights of the Dayton version, but is satisfying nonetheless, covering ground similar to the previous night's "Tweezer": fun, but not particularly interesting. Still, I'll take it. Especially since it's followed by a pitch-perfect, Phish-style cover of "Strawberry Letter 23."
"I Always Wanted It This Way" goes abstract for an extended jam, using loops and Page's new synth to great effect, then segues into the bustout "All of These Dreams," a great call for a cooldown song if I've ever heard one. And you're going to need that cooldown, because what follows is an awesomely dissonant 3.0-style take on "Split" that dead-stop-segues into a "Disease Reprise"!
I love me those six- (or five-) song second sets, but what I like even more is a show where you can't really tell the first set from the second, and that's what we've got here. There's so much to enjoy in this show it's almost embarrassing. And there are eleven more shows left.
The Live Review:
7/22/17: Time for BD2, also known as the first time in three years I didn't see a Phish show on my birthday.
7/22/17: Of course, after 7/22/16, maybe it's better if there ISN'T a Phish show on my birthday :)
7/22/17: Anyway, a cappella Strawberry Fields Forever opener. Song call isn't surprising, but the arrangement is. Nice.
7/22/17: Halley's second.
7/22/17: Love the big ol' crowd roar at the strawberry goo lyric.
7/22/17: Quick but hot little solo from Trey, then > Moma.
7/22/17: I was just about to gripe about the predictable Halley's > Moma combo, but they look to be taking Moma for a walk.
7/22/17: Nice repeating riff from Trey there for a bit as the jam lifts off.
7/22/17: Evil guitar tone from Trey now. Things turning more ominous.
7/22/17: Whoa. Neat transition out of the evil jam and into something prettier. Trey and Rhodes playing off of each other. Mike droning.
7/22/17: Awesome, abstract space now with Trey chording and Page playing synth underneath.
7/22/17: Love the fractured beat that Fish is laying down.
7/22/17: Song breaks up. Breath and Burning follow up.
7/22/17: Page over to clav, and now we're jamming B+B, too.
7/22/17: Echoplex now. Fish picking up the beat.
7/22/17: Fast-paced almost-plinko jam now. Love what Mike is playing.
7/22/17: Brief ambient noise fade-out > Funky Bitch.
7/22/17: Okay, for the record, they did NOT jam out Funky Bitch, but Trey completely annihilated his solo.
7/22/17: 27 minute jam sequence in the first four songs of the show. Just sayin'. Oh, and another one was an a capella Beatles debut.
7/22/17: Mound. What would a Mound jam even be like?
7/22/17: No Mound jam :) FOAM is next, though!
7/22/17: I'm happy to report that there no major flubs in Foam. That makes a quality first set by itself.
7/22/17: Solid Foam. Roggae next. What a great setlist!
7/22/17: The only gripes I'd usually have would be the Moma and B+B BUT NOT THIS TIME
7/22/17: Extra-delicate breakdown in Roggae.
7/22/17: Giant peak in Roggae. Top-shelf take.
7/22/17: Coil as a first-set closer?! Yes!
7/22/17: That was such a hilariously good first set I'm sort of terrified to hear the second set.
7/22/17: Sublime = beauty + attraction + fear. Sort of how I feel about the Gorge RnR every time I listen to it.
7/22/17: Seemed like an extended solo from Page at the end. End set.
7/22/17: Set two opens with Disease. If this one's anything like the Dayton version, I'm going to lose my mind.
7/22/17: Keeping things simple early on. Pretty typical Disease jam.
7/22/17: Going spacey now. Nice minimalist riff from Trey. Mike playing over it.
7/22/17: SPACE DISCO!
7/22/17: Page is doing the synth/Rhodes thing. PRAISE JESUS
7/22/17: Building out of that extended (and awesome) space disco jam now.
7/22/17: Monster peak now.
7/22/17: That jam was definitely more 7/21 Tweezer than Dayton Disease, but that doesn't mean I wasn't fist-pumping in glee at the end.
7/22/17: (I was)
7/22/17: That said, I'd love to see some of the weirder jamming (7/21 Everything's Right, 7/22 Moma) make it into these monster jams.
7/22/17: Still 11.5 shows left, though :)
7/22/17: Disease ends on a scream of feedback and noise.
7/22/17: Strawberry Letter 23 debut.
7/22/17: I do believe we just got some Trey falsetto there.
7/22/17: > Birds. Strawberry Letter 23 actually *sounded* like a Phish song. Hope that stays in the rotation. It should.
7/22/17: Quick, hot take on Birds. At this point it's almost a relief to hear a normal song played normally.
7/22/17: YES! I Always Wanted It This Way! This is definitely my favorite Big Boat song to hear live.
7/22/17: NO I'M NOT JOKING
7/22/17: Echoplex and synth jam. It sounds like Trey is killing a robot with his guitar.
7/22/17: Heavy synth jamming now. Trey maybe on marimba? Sounds a bit like a CRB jam with those weird pitch-shifted notes.
7/22/17: This has become more of a percussion jam now, but it's still pretty great. Crowd roaring.
7/22/17: Lands in All of These Dreams! Amazing!
7/22/17: Great ballad break choice. Page and Trey trading solos. SOAM next.
7/22/17: Particularly gauzy and echo-heavy Split jam here.
7/22/17: I really love what Fish is playing here. Trey getting more frenetic.
7/22/17: Squealing echoes, sonic chaos.
7/22/17: > Disease Reprise! Shit.
7/22/17: Sounded like Trey just pulled that out of nowhere. Rest of the band took a minute to catch up. But great.
7/22/17: Awesome, bluesy, Type I jam of Disease. About 7 minutes.
7/22/17: > Shine a Light.
7/22/17: End set. Encore kicks off with Peaches. Glad this one is showing up more lately, too.
7/22/17: > Cities. Seems like an odd placement.
7/22/17: Short Cities. Kind of a bummer use of that tune for the run. Anyway, encore wraps up with a high-energy My Sweet One.
7/22/17: That show was bonkers. Every show this tour with the possible exception of Northerly 3 has been top-shelf Phish...
7/22/17: ...but this was a whole other level above that.
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