2017-08-04 Baker's Dozen XI (Lemon)

The Verdict:
We're nearly done with the BD run, so it's nice to see the band return to early BD form during the eleventh show.

This first set opens with one of my favorite covers of the run: Blind Lemon Jefferson's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." The band's poppy treatment of the tune is a little weird, but if there are more impressive examples of Phish taking a song out of its original context and making it their own, I can't think of any...except the one that happens later in this show, at least.

Once again, the opening frame doesn't offer up any real diamonds this time around, but it's strong throughout, save for a weird dip in energy 2/3rds of the way through. A great take on "Party Time" sits in the middle of a sequence of old-school tunes, and then just when the "Ocelot," "Poor Heart," "Winterqueen" combo is (maybe) getting you down, the band rounds things out with "Bold As Love" > "First Tube." It's not really a notable first set, but it's one you'd be happy to hear during any normal summer Phish show.

Strangely, set two kicks off with "Dem Bones," almost as if they forgot to do an a cappella number during set one and felt they had to make it up. "No Men" is next, and it goes long and strong, building into a frenzy out of a Trey/Page-led Type I jam before dropping off the deep end into atmospherics. This isn't something you haven't already heard a few times during this run, but it's sixteen minutes of competent, high-momentum improv, and it drops nicely into the Fish-ified cover of "Everything In Its Right Place."

For what it's worth, I'm a huge Radiohead fan and I love this cover. Not only are Fish's creepy vocal loops well done, the roar of the crowd when they first hear and recognize Page's synth tone is spine-tingling. And like with all their best gags, the band keeps bringing Fish's Thom Yorke impression back for the rest of the set.

The cover slides nicely into the Phish song most like it, "What's the Use?," and this take is of the delicate, dynamic variety like the band's been playing it lately. Next up is the highlight of the show for me, the combination of "Scents" -> "Caspian." Like 8/2, it's the late-show jamming that transcends the more template-like "No Men" jam and explores some legitimately new territory. At first, "Scents" reprises the "No Men"-style jamming, so much so that Trey quotes the "No Men" chorus at one point, but then the band transitions into a organ-driven, circus-style jam that's just unlike anything they've played this summer. It lasts for about seven minutes and is easily one of my favorite parts of the entire run so far.

The transition into "Caspian" is nearly flawless, and Caspian proper starts by again taking the easy path...until the bottom drops out completely and the band enters an extremely minimalist jamming space, giving Fish a chance to reprise his Thom Yorke impression.

Last but not least, the set closes with "Fluffhead," a strong take on the tune that finished with one last Radiohead callback by the entire band.

Jamming? Check. Shredding? Check. Energy? Check. Solid setlist? Check. Off-the-wall gimmick? Check. "Frankenstein" encore? Check.

I think the final round of the BD is off to a great start.

The Live Review:
8/4/17: Heading into the final swing of the BD.  
8/4/17: See That My Grave Is Kept Clean opener.  
8/4/17: (Keeping with the Lemon theme, of course)  
8/4/17: This is a really interesting arrangement of the tune.  
8/4/17: That was really cool. PYITE next.  
8/4/17: Trey loop out of the end of PYITE leads into Party Time.  
8/4/17: Big ol' organ solo from Page there in Party Time.  
8/4/17: Now a big ol' rock solo from Trey. Great Type I take on Party Time.  
8/4/17: > BBFCFM!!
8/4/17: Dinner and a Movie! So far, this is looking like another grab-bag set, but I'm liking...what they're grabbing?  
8/4/17: Ah, in some ways this Baker's Dozen journey has always been about me, trying as long as possible to avoid Ocelot.  
8/4/17: That ends now.  
8/4/17: Ocelot was Ocelot. Poor Heart is next, and features a killer piano solo from Page. He's on fire tonight.  
8/4/17: Winterqueen.  
8/4/17: I'm really enjoying live Winterqueen more and more as time goes on, but Ocelot and Winterqueen are a little close together here.  
8/4/17: Majestic take on Bold As Love next. Man, these late BD first-sets are so up-and-down.  
8/4/17: S1 ends with First Tube.  
8/4/17: S2 opens with Dem Bones. I guess that's what we get for no S1 a cappella number :)  
8/4/17: S2 kicks off with No Men, and Trey doing some low-register soloing to start off the jam.  
8/4/17: Page and Trey dueling: Page going for a low-key jam, Trey spiraling up into higher registers.  
8/4/17: Trey wins, of course. Fire jam now.  
8/4/17; Brief dabbling in space-funk, then Trey turns on the pitch-shifter and we go to plinko land.  
8/4/17: Atmospheric jamming -> Everything In Its Right Place
8/4/17: Crowd roar when Page switches up his synth tone. Great moment.  
8/4/17: Page's tone and Fish's vocal loops are surprisingly true to the original song.  
8/4/17: This is great.  
8/4/17: > WTU?
8/4/17: More vocal looping from Fish during WTU?  
8/4/17: Scents!  
8/4/17: I love so much that this song is at least somewhat back in rotation. Driving, Party-Time-like jam forming immediately.  
8/4/17: Anchored by a great bass line from Mike.  
8/4/17: Jam morphs into No Men-type, Trey reprising No Men vocals.  
8/4/17: Now sounding like the outro from Maze.  
8/4/17: Jam just pulled off a really cool modulation into a circus-space sound.  
8/4/17: First half of this Scents jam was really gratifying but not really interesting. By contrast, I'm loving this second half.  
8/4/17: Nice -> Caspian. Feel like if this was 1996, though, Fish would have kept the drums going through the transition.  
8/4/17: All I do is whine, whine, whine, whine, whine  
8/4/17: Rather than keeping up the weird Scents vibe, Trey is SHREDDING this Caspian. Out of control.  
8/4/17: Bottom drops out into a REALLY ambient jam.  
8/4/17: That's just creepy.  
8/4/17: Fish vocal loops returning.  
8/4/17: Fade into Fluffhead!  
8/4/17: Great take on Fluffhead, with a neat final tease of Everything In Its Right Place at the end.  
8/4/17: Frankenstein encore!  
8/4/17: Another Everything In Its Right Place reference in the space section in the middle of Frankenstein.  
8/4/17: That one was pretty similar to 8/2 in a lot of ways. Another grab-bag first set, no real improv, but great song selection.  
8/4/17: Second set was jammy all the way through, but I found Scents -> Caspian way more interesting than No Men.  
8/4/17: The last 2-3 shows have been stronger than the ones in the middle of the run, but still not touching the first five shows. My 2c.    

2017-08-02 Baker's Dozen X (Holes)

The Verdict:
The improvement that began on 7/30 and continued on 8/1 continues further during the tenth BD show. We still haven't regained the heights reached by those initial five shows, but we're getting closer.

This is the fifth show in the row without any real standout improv in the first set, and it's a bit of a rollercoaster of highs and lows. An interesting take on Tom Waits's "Way Down In the Hole" kicks things off, but then things hang in limbo for a few tunes until "Guyute" shifts things back into gear, kicking off a high-energy segment of old-school tunes, including one of my favorite (jammed-out) takes on "Meat" ever. It segues into an extra-spicy "Maze," but rather than ending the set on that note, the band strings together a bunch more low-energy tunes ("Ginseng," "WAN," and "Heavy Things") before ending with a totally standard "Antelope." YMMV here, but this set drug on about twenty minutes too long for me (see the live review for more on this).

Fortunately, the second set is another master class in improv. The entire set is sandwiched in a "Mike's Groove" that starts off with a massive, twenty-two minute "Mike's," which is really the only way that song should be played. Fish kicks off what's an easy MVP set for him while Trey and Page use loops and synth, respectively, to explore a number of different spaces during the huge jam. The droning ending leads into a theme-appropriate but highly dark and disturbing take on "O Holy Night!" which in turn transitions into a huge "Taste."

For my money, this "Taste" is the jam of the evening, going nearly twenty minutes and providing a lot more novel exploration of the minimal and synth styles that have been popular during this run than "Mike's" did.

"Wingsuit" provides a much needed cooldown (which isn't really a cooldown because there's a great Trey/Mike jam during the outro but I digress) after the jam sandwich that started the set. Then it's a pretty standard "Sally" and shredded-but-only-Type-I "Groove" to wrap things up.

The Live Review:
8/2/17: Holes night opens with Way Down In the Hole.  
8/2/17: Buried Alive!  
8/2/17: Tight take on Buried Alive. Slow-tempo KDF is next.  
8/2/17: A little extra mustard on the Type I outro in that version.  
8/2/17: Long pause before Guyute starts up.  
8/2/17: It sounds like they may have practiced Guyute a bit.  
8/2/17: I Didn't Know.  
8/2/17: NICU.  
8/2/17: Meat! I love Meat!  
8/2/17: Meat getting some call-and-response action between Trey and Mike.  
8/2/17: A fair amount of echoplex thrown in there, too.  
8/2/17: Straightforward blues rock section, and now easing back into the song proper with some seriously weird looping effects from Trey.  
8/2/17: I really like Meat, and love that they've been stretching it out a bit lately. This is the best version yet.  
8/2/17: No return to Meat lyrics. Noise deconstructs the end of the song, and then > Maze.  
8/2/17: Maze is its usually crazy self.  
8/2/17: Super-hot take on Maze. Ginseng Sullivan next.  
8/2/17: Waiting All Night next. That's a weird call.  
8/2/17: And that's coming from a huge closet WAN fan over here.  
8/2/17: Heavy Things is another weird choice here.  
8/2/17: Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if Phish went back to playing for two hours instead of three.  
8/2/17: That's something that gets talked about surprisingly rarely in all the Internet Phish Analysis Words that people like me write.  
8/2/17: I just wonder, because sometimes at this point in sets like this, it starts to feel like they're still playing just to reach 90 mins  
8/2/17: If that expectation wasn't there, would we enjoy these kinds of sets more, even if they were, say 20-30 minutes shorter?  
8/2/17: I mean, after a great 2017-style 60 minutes or so of great improv, is it better or worse to get 2001 > Cavern > Suzy > Golgi?  
8/2/17: If a set just absolutely fucking delivered for 60 minutes, then closed with Cavern, would you really go home sad about a 65 min set?  
8/2/17: I wouldn't.  
8/2/17: Anyway, while I'm pounding away over here, Heavy Things is being Heavy Things.  
8/2/17: Set keeps rolling with Antelope.  
8/2/17: End set.  
8/2/17: S2 opens with Mike's Song.  
8/2/17: Great interplay between Trey and Page (on organ) during what's becoming a pretty gnarly Type I Mike's jam.  
8/2/17: Trey makes a quick though awkward transition into 'second jam' mode. Crowd goes *nuts*.  
8/2/17: Really like Fish in this jam. Bringing things down from the early guitar heroics now. Synth washes from Page.  
8/2/17: Synth getting some heavy play now.  
8/2/17: Trey developing a riff.  
8/2/17: Now modulating into a more uplifting jam after developing that riff for a bit.  
8/2/17: Nice, patient build here.  
8/2/17: Song ends in an echoplex-driven drone.  
8/2/17: Page singing O Holy Night.  
8/2/17: Get it? Hol(e)y?  
8/2/17: Synth and loops continuing. This isn't totally creepy at all.  
8/2/17: > Taste
8/2/17: Taste outro getting extended.  
8/2/17: Mellow, echo-y jam happening now. Fish keeping a Taste-like beat going.  
8/2/17: Trey using this part of the jam to hint at returning to the Taste theme, but not going there yet. Page back on synth.  
8/2/17: Nice minimalistic jam forming now.  
8/2/17: Mike's jam was one of the more by-the-book BD jams. This one's a bit weirder.  
8/2/17: Again, really like what Fish is doing.  
8/2/17: Return to Taste is nowhere in sight yet as the band builds back out of the quiet spot they were in. Trey crashing out chords.  
8/2/17: Round Room-style jazz jam forming now as Page takes over on piano.  
8/2/17: A heavier jam based on a four-chord progression rolls to a natural end. No return to Taste.  
8/2/17: Wingsuit next.  
8/2/17: That was really, really good, by the way.  
8/2/17: I like me a late-show Wingsuit. It definitely works best at the end of a set with that guitar outro.  
8/2/17: Only played four times as a set-ender, actually, as per @phishnet.  
8/2/17: Some nice full band interplay in the Wingsuit outro now, not just Trey wailing. Mike leading, actually.  
8/2/17: Return to the standard Wingsuit outro at the end.  
8/2/17: Sneakin' Sally next.  
8/2/17: Sally almost immediately moves into echo-funk territory.  
8/2/17: It's definitely feeling very 2015-2016 in here all of a sudden.  
8/2/17: Trey gamely tried to modulate the end of a brief Sally jam into Weekapaug, but it didn't really work. Nonetheless, > Groove.  
8/2/17: Extended take on Groove stays Type I but showcases some great Trey playing.  
8/2/17: End set 2.  
8/2/17: Day in the Life encore.  
8/2/17: Felt like this show was moving back toward the unpredictability and magic of those first five BD shows.  
8/2/17: Not a lot of meat in the first set still (minus the Meat, heh heh) but enough great tunes in there to make it a solid frame anyway.  
8/2/17: Minus the bit of drag at the end, of course.  
8/2/17: Second set was great, with a seriously deep Mike's second jam, weird Holy Night, upper-tier-of-BD Taste jam.  
8/2/17: No jams in the fourth quarter, but a strong end anyway.  
8/2/17: And FINALLY a 3.0 Mike's Groove worth your time.  
8/2/17: Even counting ballads, I think hearing the opening notes of Mike's is the worst momentum killer for me at a show.  
8/2/17: Which sucks, because I love that song so much.  
8/2/17: But for 99% of this era, hearing Mike's, esp. in the second set, means you know that you're in for a...  
8/2/17: ...kinda boring, predictable 9 minute reading of Mike's, a few ballads or other short songs, and then a boring six minute Groove.  
8/2/17: I'm amazed at how happy it made me to hear a second set built around a legitimate Mike's Groove...  
8/2/17: ...instead of just hearing it suck up 40+ minutes of what could have been an interesting set.  
8/2/17: More of that, please.  
8/2/17: And yes, hearing Mike's kick in after a lackluster opening to 9/2/17 II was my least favorite part of Dick's this year.  
8/2/17: Really brought the energy down after it became clear there would be no second jam.    

Chris Robinson Brotherhood, 07-07-17 Oregon Country Fair (Late Show)

The Live Review:
Alright, now here are some words about the late show CRB played at the Oregon Country Fair on 7/7.  
7/7/17: New Cannonball Rag opener.  
7/7/17: Tony doing some serious work during the jam section to make things more dynamic than usual. Great version.  
7/7/17: Great second solo from Adam to round out the jam.  
7/7/17: > Tomorrow's Blues.
7/7/17: Especially reverb-heavy drop into the post-lyrics jam this time. Band sounds really locked-in.  
7/7/17: Reflections on a Broken Mirror. Fantastic ballad tune.  
7/7/17: Behold the Seer is next. Love hearing this one live, and more electric than on the album.  
7/7/17: The little funk breakdown in the middle is especially great, and Chris's harmonica outro.  
7/7/17: Try It Baby next.  
7/7/17: Neal and Adam both getting some surprising mileage out of Try It Baby. This is great.  
7/7/17: Meanwhile In the Gods next. This is one of my favorite CRB tunes lately.  
7/7/17: Great spacey, Floyd-like jam gives way to a funky outro. Meanwhile... getting significantly jammed out here.  
7/7/17: Neal builds the whole thing up into a crashing guitar finale before >     Shake Rattle and Roll.
7/7/17: Loving this setlist.  
7/7/17: Neal just laid down a fantastic solo in Shake Rattle and Roll.  
7/7/17: Ain't It Hard But Fair  
7/7/17: Features an exceptionally high-energy scat session between Chris and Neal in the middle.  
7/7/17: I Ain't Hiding! Another one of my favorites.  
7/7/17: An especially hot disco-funk jam emerging from the tail end of I Ain't Hiding.  
7/7/17: > Narcissus
7/7/17: Chris really attacking the vocals in this version.  
7/7/17: Vibration and Light Suite.  
7/7/17: Extra-spacey deep dive immediately after the lyrics in this version.  
7/7/17: Jam > Ride
7/7/17: Vibration > Ride is a pretty crazy combination. That's nearly 30 minutes of jam.
7/7/17: Everyone firing on all cylinders at the moment at the 9:00 mark in Ride.  
7/7/17: Great vocal breakdown and end set.  
7/7/17: Rock and Roll encore.  
7/7/17: I love when CRB plays Rock and Roll or After Midnight. So many good Phish memories :)  
7/7/17: Fantastic setlist for that one-set show, and some serious jams in Meanwhile, Vibration, and Ride. Good times.    

2017-08-01 Baker's Dozen IX (Maple)

The Verdict:
The ninth BD show shares a lot of DNA with the eighth. Again, the first set is heavily (surprisingly) song-based, while all the magic happens in the second set. This time around, though, there's a lot more magic than in the past few shows.

I actually don't have a lot to say about the first set. I really enjoyed Trey's Jimi-fied take on "O Canada" to start the show. I liked hearing "Guelah" and Page inserting "Maple Leaf Rag" into it (even if it came after an awkward few seconds of silence instead of as a true segue). Sure, some of the other songs are nice rarities, and Trey ended the set in shreddy fashion with "Walk Away," but this is another of those sets that just doesn't have that special feeling that so many of the opening frames had earlier on in the run. Maybe it's just the no repeats gimmick necessarily resulting in some stilted setlists? YMMV.

The second set, however, is a monster. "Golden Age" is the twenty-minute jam of the night, and it explores a few spaces: what I'm affectionately calling "new plinko," a mellow, melodic groove, and a darker 2.0-like space that recalls the "Drowned" from the previous show. There have definitely been jams during the BD that I've liked better, but during a normal tour, this would be in the absolute upper echelon.

From there, a slightly extended take on "Leaves" serves as our cooldown tune before we jump into the real meat of the set.

Yep, that twenty minute "Golden Age" was sort of the warm up.

What we have next is a "Swept Away" > "Steep" sequence that sees "Steep" get built out into a shrieking Type II blues jam, a "46 Days" that sandwiches perhaps the best instrument switching jam thus far in the midst of a solid Type II jam (with regular instrumentation), a "Piper" that eases into yet another darker, abstract space like those the band has been so fond of lately, and a tension-heavy, high-energy "Possum" to wrap the whole thing up.

In short, there's not a note wasted in this second set, unless you have absolutely no soul and hate "Leaves." It's really good, and the improvisation is notably unique in the three songs post-"Leaves."

My gripes about the first set's arrangement aside, this second set really deserves a full listen.

The Live Review:
8/1/17: O Canada a capella opener.  
8/1/17: Nevermind. Not a capella. Played solo(ish) by Trey a la Jimi's Star Spangled Banner.  
8/1/17: Into Crowd Control.  
8/1/17: Nice little Type I jam coming out Crowd Control here.  
8/1/17: Hopefully that Crowd Control solo got Trey warmed up for Sugar Shack!  
8/1/17: When the Circus Comes next.  
8/1/17: Daniel Saw the Stone!  
8/1/17: Army of One! Man, this set is a bit disjointed, but I'm loving the rarities that they're pulling out.  
8/1/17: The Wedge.  
8/1/17: Starting to feel as if the BD is separating into two halves (or thirds?)...  
8/1/17: ...the first five shows were really well-constructed, quality shows back-to-front, while the following four shows at least...  
8/1/17: ...have been more in the vein of the 'typical' great 3.0 show: mix of short tunes in S1, big jams in the 3rd qt, jukebox ending.  
8/1/17: I still really appreciate the commitment to the no repeats gimmick, and the jamming when it happens is absolutely top-shelf...  
8/1/17: ...it's just that everything post 7/26 has felt a lot less well-constructed and 'special' for lack of a better word.  
8/1/17: Maybe I've just been spoiled. This is still my favorite tour since ever.  
8/1/17: Guelah Papyrus.  
8/1/17: Page sandwiching some Maple Leaf Rag in the middle of Guelah.  
8/1/17: They go back and finish Guelah after the Maple Leaf Rag break. Now, McGrupp.  
8/1/17: It seems like they've been playing McGrupp more often lately...maybe? I wouldn't mind that at all :)  
8/1/17: Trey throwing some echo chording in behind Page's jazz solo in McGrupp. That's interesting.  
8/1/17: Fun take on McGrupp. LxL next.  
8/1/17: Great build in that Type I LxL jam.  
8/1/17: Walk Away!  
8/1/17: Trey is taking Walk Away to town.  
8/1/17: End set.  
8/1/17: Set two starts with Golden Age. That's gotta be good, right?  
8/1/17: I'm gonna go on record as saying hearing Trey try to get through Golden Age is worse, every time, than him playing Sugar Shack.  
8/1/17: Page on clav almost right away going into the jam. Early almost-plinko feel.  
8/1/17: Band doing a great job of staying in this toned-down space, exploring thoroughly.  
8/1/17: Got a 2.0 feeling going here, similar to 7/30's Drowned.  
8/1/17: Great additions on the synth from Page.  
8/1/17: Trey building in intensity, working toward one of those loop-based sort-of peaks.  
8/1/17: Shuffling little wind-down from Fish at the end of that peak. Now some ambient growling in addition.  
8/1/17: Lands in Leaves. I've been really digging this song lately.  
8/1/17: Love the back-and-forth vocals between Trey and Page.  
8/1/17: Leaves outro jam getting extended a bit here.  
8/1/17: Second time around for the 'Breathe' refrain.  
8/1/17: Swept Away > Steep.
8/1/17: Mike leading a spacey extension on the Steep jam.  
8/1/17: An almost reggae-style jam coming out of the drone.  
8/1/17: Steep now developing into a great blues jam.  
8/1/17: Trey turning this into a 46 Days jam, now.  
8/1/17: Huh. > 46 Days. Great minds, I guess.  
8/1/17: Type II Steep ftw, btw.  
8/1/17: Rather than continuing the same jam direction, 46 Days almost immediately goes quiet after the lyrics.  
8/1/17: Instrument switching! First time for the BD, I think?  
8/1/17: Neat jam. Trey on marimba I think, and some extra percussion happening.  
8/1/17: After everyone returns to their standard instruments, they continue the flow of the percussion jam. Really cool.  
8/1/17: > Piper
8/1/17: Really propulsive beginning to the Piper jam.  
8/1/17: Things getting murky and chunky now. Page laying down some creepy runs on the organ.  
8/1/17: Really eerie tones from Mike's bass now.  
8/1/17: Trey singing the 46 Days chorus over the Piper jam.  
8/1/17: I've really enjoyed what they've been doing with Possum lately. This version and the Dick's version are both full of crazy tension.  
8/1/17: S2 ends with that raucous Possum.  
8/1/17: Great set two. Weirdly at odds with S1.  
8/1/17: Oddly enough, the least interesting jam in that set was the twenty minute one :)  
8/1/17: Encore is Rock and Roll Suicide    

2017-07-30 Baker's Dozen VIII (Jimmies)

The Verdict:
The eighth Baker's Dozen show hews to the pattern laid out by shows six and seven: namely, a first set marked by some fun rarities and not much else, a huge, improv-heavy third quarter, and a "victory lap"-style closing segment.

My basic complaint about the last few shows' first sets still applies here, but the song selection is such that I'm willing to be a little less harsh here. If the new normal after the first five BD shows is to give us rote (albeit rarity-filled) first sets, then you can certainly do worse than one with "The Curtain With," "Runaway Jim," "Esther," "Brian and Robert," "Forbin's," and "Fly Famous Mockingbird."

That said, the only real notable outside-the-box moments are a brief Type II jam in "Home," and the 3.0-style spin the whole band puts in the middle jam in "Jim."

The S2-opening pair of "Drowned" > "ASIHTOS" presents some of the most cerebral jamming the band has put down so far in this run. "Drowned" transitions smoothly into a momentum-filled space funk zone that's just awesome before moving into a 2.0-style haze and then an ambient drone. This one's a monster.

The "ASIHTOS" that follows is equally great, though it's a bit weirder and harder to parse. The highlight is definitely the atonal (arrhythmic?) jam that forms midway through, showcasing the band's ability to deconstruct a jam down to its most basic elements...and then scatter those elements all over the place until they aren't even recognizable. Then, of course, they bring it all back together for a big finish. More required listening!

The other set highlight isn't jamming, per se, but the band's scripted take on "Harpua," which sees them arguing theoretical physics before concluding that yes, indeed, the universe is a donut. Classic Phish humor.

Things wrap up in somewhat rote fashion, but after a two-song, forty minute jam as a set opener, and the "Harpua" gag, it's hard to begrudge the band a little pop indulgence this time around.

I wouldn't put this show in the company of the first five BD shows, but it stands above the rest of the third-quarter-heavy shows, at least.

The Live Review:
7/30/17: The Curtain opener.  
7/30/17: With  
7/30/17: Page more upfront in the outro jam than usual.  
7/30/17: > Jim
7/30/17: Trey goes for echo-chording right away. Page moving over to the synth for a minute to add some microwave-sounding noises.  
7/30/17: Slow but powerful Type I build to a peak to end the song.  
7/30/17: Waking Up Dead  
7/30/17: This song is 100% pure Phish, and I love it.  
7/30/17: Great version, too.  
7/30/17: Esther! That's neat.  
7/30/17: Home next. Sort of weird setlist flow, but liking the really new tunes bumping up against the really old ones.  
7/30/17: Trey leading an interesting little jam out of Home proper.  
7/30/17: This is gonna be a short-but-sweet rock-out build-up, but technically speaking at least, Home just went Type II for the first time.  
7/30/17: Brian and Robert as a nice cool-down rarity next.  
7/30/17: Nellie Kane  
7/30/17: Brian and Robert is one of my all-time favorite Phish slow songs, but the beat Fish plays for it lately is too bouncy for me.  
7/30/17: Seems at odds with the point of the song.  
7/30/17: Colonel Forbin's Ascent!  
7/30/17: > Fly Famous Mockingbird
7/30/17: Trey's brief narration quotes from The Squirming Coil before he reveals that 'the monarch was Wilson' and 'the walrus was Jimmy!'  
7/30/17: Seems to indicate Harpua incoming shortly?  
7/30/17: Oldies streak continues with David Bowie.  
7/30/17: Pretty standard slow-build version of Bowie, but a solid take by 3.0 standards.  
7/30/17: That said, Trey just DESTROYED the peak.  
7/30/17: Some unholy guitar fire, there.  
7/30/17: Set two opens with DROWNED. That's neat.  
7/30/17: Drowned getting extended with a Type I jam.  

7/30/17: Shifting things up a bit. Page to electric piano, which always makes me happy.  
7/30/17: Neat, minimalist funk space developing. Fish keeping a high tempo.  

7/30/17: Buttery-smooth synth-funk. This is awesome.  
7/30/17: Did I say that this was good yet? Because hot damn, this is good.  
7/30/17: Pitch-shifter drove the jam into space for a bit, now taking a somewhat dark turn.  
7/30/17: Felt like Trey almost teased WTU? there. Could be perfect -> at the moment.
7/30/17: Trey doing some seriously 2.0-style noodling now.  
7/30/17: Page leading a really pretty fade-out.  
7/30/17: Ambient roar playing with Page's piano during this outro. Really cool.  
7/30/17: Haze > ASIHTOS. Jam picks up where it left off almost right away.
7/30/17: Amazingly weird jam forming now. No cohesive rhythm across all four band members.  
7/30/17:'Rhythm established again, but the jam continues to be pleasantly disjointed and lurching.  
7/30/17: Another weird jam ends with a > Harpua.
7/30/17: Clearly scripted conversation among the band members having to do with 'lumps in the cosmic gravy.'  
7/30/17: This is both weird and hilarious.  
7/30/17: Hilariously transition out of the 'Universe is a donut' conversation into Jimmy's story.  
7/30/17: 2001.  
7/30/17: Little No Men's teasing from Trey in the intro to 2001.  
7/30/17: Solid, extended(ish) take on 2001 segues into Golgi.  
7/30/17: End set.  
7/30/17: Encore starts with the second appearance of the a capella In the Good Old Summertime.  
7/30/17: Wind Cries Mary! And they're doing a great job of it. One of my favorite Hendrix songs.  
7/30/17: Is weird that Trey didn't lay down an insane outro solo, but there it is. End show.

Chris Robinson Brotherhood 07-07-17, Oregon Country Fair (Early Show)

The Live Review:
7/7/17: Lazy Days opener. I swear every CRB show I've seen either opens with Lazy Days or Let's Go.  
7/7/17: That's not a complaint.  
7/7/17: I'm happy to have the SBD recording of this show because in person the sound was absolutely terrible.  
7/7/17: Adam being a bit more experimental with his tones than usual on this early solo.  
7/7/17: Roan County Banjo second.  
7/7/17: Friday afternoon, no students around, switching to the noise-cancelling headphones. Jeff sounds great.  
7/7/17: I love the set up for Neal's solo in this tune. One of my favorite studio solos in the recorded version.  
7/7/17: Sort-of-surprise-call Tornado in the three spot.  
7/7/17: Neal giving the tune a bit of a workout.  
7/7/17: Not a big fan of that tune at first, but it's been growing on me lately.  
7/7/17: High Is Not the Top. One of my favorite tunes from the new album.  
7/7/17: Not a huge fan of some of that record's stripped-back vibe, though, so I especially love these live versions of the song.  
7/7/17: Extended intro with interplay between Neal and Adam.  
7/7/17: Loving the barroom-style piano from Adam during the breaks.  
7/7/17: Neal going to town with the slide guitar on the opening of Forever As the Moon.  
7/7/17: This is probably my favorite CRB song lyrics-wise.  
7/7/17: It's got more than a bit of the Dylan/The Band thing going on, I bet that's why.  
7/7/17: Little Lizzie Mae is next.  
7/7/17: Setlist is pretty relentless in terms of energy so far.  
7/7/17: Damn, Tony's drumming on the end of the verse is so great.  
7/7/17: Chris improvising some outro vocals and then Adam takes the lead with a pretty bizarre keyboard tone and scale.  
7/7/17: Huge energy out of the end of the tune.  
7/7/17: Nice wind-down to the first solid jam of the night until Tony switches up the beat -> Can You Hear Me?
7/7/17: Nice song pairing. Clear Blue Sky is next.  
7/7/17: Really high-tempo version of the song.  
7/7/17: High-speed jam out of Clear Blue Sky.  
7/7/17: Nice extended outro jam there, with a on-a-dime > Boppin' the Blues.  
7/7/17: Star Or Stone.  
7/7/17: I could hear this song at every show and be happy.  
7/7/17: Great take on Star Or Stone, there. Next is an intro that sounds like Narcissus Soaking Wet, but actually leads into Tulsa Yesterday  
7/7/17: Shortened version of Tulsa transitions perfectly into California Hymn.  
7/7/17: Hymn drops off into a jazzy, piano-led jam.  
7/7/17: Both guitars and piano mixing nicely in this jam now.  
7/7/17: > Second That Emotion.
7/7/17: Like most of CRB's covers, this one suits Chris's vocals eerily well.  
7/7/17: Neal and Adam trading solos, as per usual.  
7/7/17: Looks like Rosalee to close.  
7/7/17: Overall, that was a pretty complete show from a one-setter. Fourteen songs!  
7/7/17: These guys are great at building setlists, of course, but this one was particularly high-energy.  
7/7/17: Highlights were the early take on High Is Not the Top, Lizzie > Can You Hear Me, jam on Clear Blue Sky, and Tulsa > Hymn -> Jam.    

2017-07-29 Baker's Dozen VII (Cinnamon)

The Verdict:
The Cinnamon show continues 7/28's third-quarter focus, resulting in a show that I feel bad complaining about, but that also doesn't stack up to the shows the band has been playing for most of the summer.

We start with the same issue I mentioned in my review of 7/28: this is a surprisingly weak opening set for a Baker's Dozen show. It's nice to hear "Llama," and it's a surprise when "Wilson" jams, but like the "Sample" jam before it, it's more gimmick than substance. Not that that's bad, but it's certainly not as good.

Trey brings the echoplex to "Ya Mar" and Page brings the synth to "Water in the Sky," there are a few other nice rarities ("Tela," "Vultures," "Train Song") and "I Am the Walrus" gets a noise-rock, tease-fest ending as Page lays down a string of samples to end all strings of samples...but aside from "Walrus," there's nothing here that I was excited about beyond "Oh, it's neat that they're playing that." Again, not bad, and definitely a bit more interesting than last night, but there are many better first sets from this tour.

Here again, the third quarter is where the money is. "Blaze On" blasts out of the gates with a 23-minute jamfest that explores some really compelling Allman Brothers-style territory before transitioning into something that sounds like "Dark and Down" on steroids.

"Twenty Years Later" is a good call next, and it gets extended too, with the caveat that this jam sounds like it grew directly out of the previous jam's conclusion. In some cases, that can be a good thing: a further evolution. Here, it sounds more like a retread. It's cool to hear "Twenty Years" get jammed, but you'll feel like you just heard these licks...like ten minutes earlier.

"Meatstick" fades into a really sparse ambient space which sets up a pitch-perfect transition into "Dirt," but otherwise the middle of the set is pretty predictable.

As a huge "Hood" fan, I will say that the set-closing version recalls some of the best outside-the-box "Hood"s of 2014, taking a jaunt through bluesy spaces and a return to the "Dark and Down"-style jamming before flawlessly accelerating to the traditional peak.

YMMV on this show, but I found the first set to be pretty uninteresting aside from some of the rarity setlist calls, and though I really enjoyed the "Blaze On" and "Hood" jams and the ambient jam > "Dirt" transition, the middle of the set was a little deflating. Again, though, we're still in Embarrassment of Riches territory here in this tour, so I'm not complaining too loudly.


The Live Review:
7/29/17: Llama opener. Not slow Llama, but normal, fast Llama.      
7/29/17: Wilson next. That's a fun opening pair.      
7/29/17: Wilson jam?!      
7/29/17: Trey unleashed a hilarious extended 'Blat boom...' and then from the 'end' of the song we went into a bluesy jam.      
7/29/17: Neat little jam > Stealing Time.  
7/29/17: Stealing Time gets a slight variation on its typical outro jam while still staying Type I.      
7/29/17: Ya Mar next.      
7/29/17: Page laying down an organ solo while Trey echo-chords (a first for Ya Mar, I think?).      
7/29/17: Echoplex and clav coming out again during a space-grunge outro jam.     
7/29/17: Tela!      
7/29/17: I know that this is blasphemy, but I'm not a huge Tela fan; that said, I appreciate a good rarity.      
7/29/17: For me, Tela will always be the back end of Tweezer > Tela, I think, hanging out in that monster shadow.      
7/29/17: The Birds.      
7/29/17: Particularly fun and sample-heavy The Birds. Now: The Line. It had to happen sometime.      
7/29/17: Weird, sort of crashy jam out of The Line that picks up tempo as it goes.      
7/29/17: After a long pause, fast-paced Water in the Sky.      
7/29/17: To clarify, jam out of The Line was not an exploratory one. Like the normal coda but with an increasing tempo and lots of flubs.      
7/29/17: *outro, not coda.      
7/29/17: Page deploying synth on Water in the Sky. That's neat.      
7/29/17: Vultures!      
7/29/17: Like 7/28 this has been a first set with some interesting song choices, but no real huge surprises or improvisation. So far.      
7/29/17: Solid version of Vultures goes into Train Song.      
7/29/17: I AM THE WALRUS      
7/29/17: I love Phish's cover of this. This was my #1 wish for the 2016 west coast leg. Hopefully I'll catch it someday.      
7/29/17: Page is great on this.      
7/29/17: Page throwing in a mash of vocal samples at the end of the tune.      
7/29/17: Extended noise-rock coda now.      
7/29/17: End set with one final 'They attack!' quote.      
7/29/17: Welp, that set never really picked up, but a there were a few interesting tunes and probably the best Walrus Phish has played.      
7/29/17: Blaze On opens the second set.      
7/29/17: Big ol' raucous Type I jam coming out Blaze On.      
7/29/17: After vocal reprise, Page to electric piano and Trey strumming some funk chords with echo.      
7/29/17: Really neat, spacey jam forming now. Trey laying back a bit and Page driving.      
7/29/17: A few minutes of patient jamming leads Trey to a very Allman-sounding guitar riff. Band playing off it now.      
7/29/17: Fish shifts up the beat and things get even more Allman-sounding.      
7/29/17: Some great Mike/Page tag teaming going on now with Trey's guitar looping in the background.      
7/29/17: Synth ratcheting up the tension now.      
7/29/17: The chaos of the loops and Page's synth make a great combo here.      
7/29/17: Trey leading a surprisingly metal-sounding jam out of the tension-y section.      
7/29/17: After things settle down for a bit, Trey reprises the 'Blaze on!' vocal coda.      
7/29/17: Twenty Years Later is next, and during the outro the band re-enters the sort of dark-rock space they ended Blaze On in.      
7/29/17: If you like Dark and Down style Trey soloing, this pair of tunes is for you.      
7/29/17: > Alumni Blues was a really weird segue choice there.  
7/29/17: Trey calls on Mike for a solo after the second verse.      
7/29/17: > Letter To Jimmy Page > Alumni. Trey and Mike trading licks now. Everyone else quiet.
7/29/17: Meatstick!      
7/29/17: Some fantastic straight-up soloing from Trey here. Huh.      
7/29/17: Blaze On > Twenty Years must have gotten him limbered up :)  
7/29/17: Ambient now.      
7/29/17: Like, really sparse ambient noise.      
7/29/17: Ambient noise fades prettily into Dirt.      
7/29/17: Would have been AMAZING if Trey had started the whistling for Dirt OVER the ambient jam before the drums came back in.      
7/29/17: It didn't actually happen but is giving me creeped-out goosebumps imagining it.      
7/29/17: Gorgeous Dirt flows into Hood. Dirt teases in Hood intro.      
7/29/17: Excited to hear the BD version of Hood.      
7/29/17: Neat bluesy jam almost immediately emerging from Hood as the composed section ends.      
7/29/17: Spacier, pitch-shifted section now. Loving this departure from the normal Hood jam. Reminds me of '14 versions.      
7/29/17: Really smooth transition into a more traditional build now.      
7/29/17: I think if Trey ever did Hood with an orchestra I would probably just die. Happily, I suspect.      
7/29/17: This is gonna friggin' shock you, but the encore is Cinnamon Girl.      
7/29/17: Phish nailing the Neil covers during this run.      
7/29/17: End show.      
7/29/17: That was a weird one. Varied but jamless (and flowless?) first set. For all intents and purposes, second set was six songs, but...      
7/29/17: ...Blaze On was the only one that really got out there. Extended Hood was great, too.      
7/29/17: In all, this would normally be a decent-S1-crazy-good-S2, but in the context of '17, it's a middle-tier show. We're spoiled.        

2017-07-28 Baker's Dozen VI (Double Chocolate)

The Verdict:
As I noted in the original tweet review, this show is the first show (maybe the second, along with Northerly I) of this tour that didn't have that Baker's Dozen zest to it for me.

The big drag is the first set. It's not bad, per se, but as I and lots of other 3.0 commentators have pointed out ad nauseum, often what separates a good show from a great show these days is the lengths to which the band is willing to go to make a first set interesting. Is the first half of the show going to include moments that get you pumped for the second set to come, or is a show where you're literally just waiting through the first ninety minutes of music to get to the good part?

Since '15, the band has been moving in fits and starts toward first sets having their own noteworthy moments, and summer '17 has perhaps been the strongest tour so far in this regard. But tonight's opening frame falls flat for me. Save for the "Chocolate Rain" opener, which was fantastic and fun, the rest of the set is just a random jumble of tunes that could have come from any first set in any random show in any 3.0 summer tour. Even the few tunes that stretch out a bit do so in predictable ways: "Free" sounds like the other versions of the song played this year, "Undermind" sticks to its recently-adopted echo-funk script, and "Sand" goes straight-ahead rock after a brief glimpse at a legitimately interesting synth-led direction.

But hey, it's not all grumbling. The second set opens with a wandering, pretty take on "Have Mercy" before the band launches into an expansive "Chalkdust" that's one of the best jams of the tour so far. It recalls classics like the Tahoe "Tweezer" and the Miami "Disease" in its constant, unrelenting momentum and its ability to stick to straight-ahead rock jamming for minutes at a time without starting to feel stale. Highly recommended.

There's a sort-of segue into "You Sexy Thing," which the band struggles a bit with, but in hilarious (rather than wince-inducing) fashion before launching into an extended funk groove out of the tune proper. Eventually they land in a jam that's perhaps best described as "ambient jazz" before transitioning into "Mercury." The band then modulates the typical "Mercury" outro jam into a major key and explores a bit before wrapping things up with "You Sexy Thing" vocal quotes.

And that is a really awesome third quarter but that's about it. The show closes with some straightforward rock numbers and a "Fee," "Space Oddity" encore.

So, as I said above, in the end, it's not a bad show, but it's definitely a show that focuses all of its riches in the third 25%. As recent shows have set a precedent for being more...umm...cosmopolitan than that, it feels weird. But still, that third quarter is freaking fire and you should listen to it.


The Live Review:
7/28/17: Ready to rock Double Chocolate today.      
7/28/17: Chocolate Rain opener.      
7/28/17: Sounds like a capella but with Page playing a keyboard.      
7/28/17: > Ass Handed, hilariously enough.      
7/28/17: Brief pause, then Free.      
7/28/17: For my money, Free has had a bit of a resurgence this year. The Dayton version was really interesting, and the Dick's version, too.      
7/28/17: Excited to see where this one goes.      
7/28/17: Same extended, spacey funk bridge in this version as in other '17 versions. Love it.      
7/28/17: Rough re-entry there on Trey's part. Threw off the whole band.      
7/28/17: After Free, surprisingly normal takes on Weigh and Undermind before Oh Kee Pa.      
7/28/17: > The Dogs, my dog's most (or least?) favorite Phish song.      
7/28/17: The Dogs gets slightly extended. Rarity Destiny Unbound is next.      
7/28/17: I should mention that Undermind was of the '15-'16 echo-funk-style versions. Cool little jam, but similar to most recent takes.      
7/28/17: Bluesy little jam coming out Destiny Unbound. That's interesting.      
7/28/17: Divided Sky next.      
7/28/17: Set continues, surprisingly. Bluegrass-style Things People Do is next.      
7/28/17: Sand.      
7/28/17: I'm not sure why, but this first set isn't doing much for me. There are some interesting songs, but it just doesn't hang together.      
7/28/17: I liked the extended Free, and the Undermind, even if the latter's becoming de rigeur these days.      
7/28/17: Everything else just sort of felt like random tunes pulled out of a hat.      
7/28/17: That said, Page just jumped on the synth for this Sand jam and things got real real fast.      
7/28/17: Sand modulates into a major-key rock out after some synthy exploration.      
7/28/17: End long, somewhat meandering set.      
7/28/17: I feel like maybe I'm saying this for the first time at while reviewing the BD, but you skip most of that set and miss nothing.      
7/28/17: Pretty much just Sand, and it didn't even really get out there that far.      
7/28/17: FWIW, it wasn't a bad set at all, just felt off in the middle of the embarrassment of riches that has been '17 tour.      
7/28/17: Have Mercy opener. That make-a me so happy.      
7/28/17: Nice, extended take on Have Mercy before the band launches into Chalkdust.      
7/28/17: Like Free in the first set, the band seems weirdly out of sync coming back to the end of Chalkdust.      
7/28/17: Trey keeps jamming instead of playing the ending riff, though.      
7/28/17: Great momentum in this jam. Started off quiet, and now building a bit. Great work from Fish.      
7/28/17: Trey driving a bit now with a peppy riff.      
7/28/17: This is great. Lots of momentum. Rock and roll without revisiting stale territory.      
7/28/17: Page putting the synth to good use while Trey echo-jams over it. Still a fast-paced beat from the rhythm section.      
7/28/17: Trey just Did That Thing where he busted out of the hazy jam with an absolutely perfect shredfest. Band going nuts now.      
7/28/17: Huge, brain-melting peak. Crowd roaring on the SBD. That was fantastic.      
7/28/17: Wind down after the peak. Maybe a Mike drill in there?      
7/28/17: > You Sexy Thing  
7/28/17: Great transition, and loving Mike singing (trying to sing?) this.      
7/28/17: Neat, almost plinko-style jam coming out of You Sexy Thing.      
7/28/17: Really spacey ambient jam now while Mike plays melody on the bass.     
7/28/17: This is some straight-up ambient jazz. Has Phish ever done this before?  
7/28/17: I want fifteen more minutes of this, please.      
7/28/17: > Mercury is cool, too.      
7/28/17: I love Mercury so much.      
7/28/17: A few of the times they've played it it's been a bit rough, but when they nail it, it's just as good as the old composed classics.      
7/28/17: And that's coming from a guy who's had MAJOR YEM, DSky, and Bowie phases over the years :)      
7/28/17: Quick move to a major key space out of a somewhat typical Mercury jam.      
7/28/17: Then Trey quotes You Sexy Thing and now they're singing the chorus over a Phishy bliss jam.      
7/28/17: Neat little jam but not really Sexy Thing -> Mercury -> Sexy Thing as advertised. Definitely just Mercury jam w/ vocal quotes.
7/28/17: Usually not a hardass about setlist things like that, but was expecting full-on return to Sexy Thing funk. Not happening.      
7/28/17: Number Line next.      
7/28/17: Anyone ever notice how Number Line just quietly gets better every single time they play it?      
7/28/17: I remember when this tune was a huge setlist downer. Now if they closed a second set with it, I'd freak the fuck out.      
7/28/17: Great landing in Rock and Roll.      
7/28/17: This is how you close out a rock and roll show, folks.      
7/28/17: End set. Encore starts off with Fee.      
7/28/17: Neat little jam building on the harmonics outro in Fee.      
7/28/17: Space Oddity to close.      
7/28/17: That was a weird show. Certainly not bad, but...      
7/28/17: ...it was the first show of the tour that didn't really seem special. The opener was neat, but otherwise S1 was standard.      
7/28/17: S2 was strong front-to-back, but really only featured improv in the Chalkdust > You Sexy Thing section.      
7/28/17: Which was FRIGGIN GREAT, but this felt more like a really good '15 or '16 show than a Baker's Dozen show, if that makes sense.