2012-08-22 Starlight Theatre

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The Live Review

8/22/12 #phish Live Review, Set One: CDT opener.

A fairly pedestrian CDT opener is followed by Skin It Back!

Set one continuing after Skin It Back in a fairly greatest-hits-like vein, but this Gin jam is injecting some life back into the proceedings.

Strange take on Gin there (less peaky, more tension than usual). Leads into Stash, which will hopefully benefit from the Gin's jamminess.

Normal Stash jam until about ten minutes, but now things are getting interesting. Piano-led build going in a blissy direction.

This is really abnormal for Stash, and really cool.

Brief but excellent diversion there. Back into Stash proper, now.

Always great to hear Curtis Loew, as well.

First set is maintaining its momentum for sure, but has slid back into predictability.

Looks like a short(ish) first set is going to end with Antelope.

8/22/12 #phish Live Review, Set Two: Set two opens with Tweezah.

While it's doing its thing, I'll say real quick that the first set was pretty different by '12 standards, and I liked it. A lot of predictable song choices, sure, but it as 

high-energy all the way through.

Nice to hear Skin It Back, Gin got a little weird in a unique way, and the Stash was longer and stranger than most 3.0 versions, by my count. We'll see if the willingness to explore that infused the BGCA run carries over into this second set. Tweezer opener is a good sign.

Spacey, languid beginning to the Tweezer jam. Liking this a lot.

Now a more ethereal space. Really solid interplay between Trey and Page.

Great additions from Mike now.

This is so good. Everybody locked in.

Awesome fadeout after a medium-size build. That was four-headed playing at its best. Listen to this Tweezer immediately.

Sort-of segue into Piper.

Piper getting spacey in a really good way here as well. Momentum carrying over from the Tweezer jam.

Great, echo-y bass from Mike here.

Winds down to Page on the electric piano, but Trey starts up Mike's before it has a chance to develop.

Nice, compact take on Mike's Song that ends with Page holding an organ note...seemingly for no particular reason because Bouncin' is next.

> Number Line. Man, I bet jaded vets were STOKED by this set.

Welp, I can't say that I was super jazzed to see Mike's > Bouncin' > Number Line > Heavy Things, If I Could > Groove take over that second set after an amazing Tweezer > Piper combo. But at least is was a well-played Mike's sandwich.

And that dropped into Hood afterward, so that's all good.

Plinko-style jam in Hood! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Wow. Short, but totally masterful Hood jam.

End-of-Hood noise drops into Suzy.

End set.

Well, Loving Cup > Tweeprise is a classic encore for a show that's been all about the classics.

Setlist and play-quality-wise, that's about as close to an elemental Phish 3.0 show as one can get. Since I've listened to approximately 4 million shows at this point, it didn't really do much for me on the whole. YMMV.

I did really dig the Gin and Stash from the opening set, and thought Tweezer was absolutely beautiful (seriously, not even a jam chart entry?!). Piper was great, too, before it got hooked, and the plinko > peak Hood is worth a listen.