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.
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