So, reading through others' reviews of this initial 3.0 run, the final three shows (starting with Deer Creek) were often touted as a breakthrough of sorts for the band, the point at which the quality of their playing skyrocketed and set the tone for the rest of the year. Well, I've listened to the Deer Creek show and while it certainly isn't a wall-to-wall powerhouse like Camden and it's missing a singular "deep" jam worth mentioned like Hampton III and a few of the other, earlier shows featured, it's still one of the better shows of the run thanks to its Camden-lite overall appeal.
To start, the first set just crackles with energy. It's one of those sets that just sounds like the band is having fun, and while there's no space-funk hook to hang your jam hat on, I sat through the whole thing with a huge smile on my face. "Number Line" is a great opener when played with energy, and it's a scorcher here. In fact, everything up until "Melt" pretty much crackles. Even "Water in the Sky" is a fast-tempo version that rides Page's arpeggios into foot-tapping territory. I've talked about "Melt" before, but I'll say it again: I've never heard a "Melt" jam that I like. I'm pretty sure this is on me, that it's really a good song, and the type of jamming the band goes in for on "Melt" is just a type I don't get, but on any given night I'd rather hear almost any Phish song than "Melt." The jam on this version is murky as all hell, with Trey distorting the shit out of his guitar and stretching his notes like strands of half-dried glue...it's probably badass, I'd just never know because I'm racist against "Melt" innately.
There's a little extra shredding on "The Wedge," we get a bouncy version of "The Connection" (I love me some Undermind), and the set closes with "Fluffhead," which in my mind is one of the better first set closers in the band's catalog. In a run packed with surprisingly decent first sets, this one's still a keeper, for the song choice and for the energy. I wrote this in my notes near the end of the set: "this is even a good ocelot, which is when you should start worrying that you might be losing objectivity."
The second set kicks off with "ASIHTOS," which is likely one of my top five Phish songs, so I had high hopes for the jam potential. Trey completely botches the lyrics right off the bat and never seems to satisfactorily rememeber them; however, the jam is pretty satisfying. There's some basic guitar-solo-led action up until the 8:00 mark, when suddenly Pink Floyd makes an appearance and things get much spacier. The band only stays in this space for a minute or so before Trey moves back into some high-register noodling, but the rest of the band stays in a sinister-sounding space beneath him, which makes for an interesting effect. Eventually there's a perfect Page-led segue into "Drowned," which is one of my favorite Phish covers and a perfect thematic complement to "ASIHTOS." For those reasons alone, this pair-up would be one of my favorite of the run; however, the jam out of "Drowned" is satisfyingly weird. The band starts with a little of the typical space-funk they've been playing with all summer, but then Page bridges the gap between the funk and a section that features Trey soloing over the keys with an extremely fat, oddball guitar tone while Mike brings up the back end with some sticky-sounding syrup-bass. The whole thing is just really weird and maybe doesn't "work" in a cohesive sense, but I really enjoyed it.
Right when things seems about to go off the deep end (either in a good or bad way), Trey launches into "Twist" out of nowhere (I wrote in my notes "proto-ripcord?!"). It's a decent "Twist," (ha!) with the jam leading basically right back to where the "Drowned" jam took off from. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as interesting the second time around: Trey hooks on to an interesting riff early on but doesn't stick with it, and then everyone seems to flounder for a few minutes before Trey suddenly pulls the train back into the station. It's as if things didn't quite cohere in "Drowned," so they wanted to try again, but they had less luck getting their footing on the second attempt.
It's neat to hear "Let Me Lie," in an early, Phish-y arrangement here, but it's nothing exciting.
Then there's a late-set "Tweezer"! Whoo! Page hits on a catchy piano riff right away here and everyone else adds some flourishes to it for a bit, then the final few minutes fades out into a semi-ambient space anchored by Mike's bass...then there's a great segue into "2001." The "2001" is standard for 2009 (read: it doesn't go off the deep end, but it's still way fuller and funkier than most 2011 and 2012 versions).
The second set keeps on going with an energetic segue into a "Suzy" that's like the minecart chase in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and then a "Possum" that features another one of those "quiet" jam sections. I love me some "Possum" (yes, even after all of 3.0 thus far), but I hate it in the second-set-closing spot. Whose idea was this?! Shoot them!
The show's "Sleeping Monkey" > "Tweeprise" finish is just as awesome as it looks.
I wrote a shit of a lot about this show, it appears. But that's because it's pretty damn good. Solid, energetic first set, second set with a lot of good song choices, smooth segues, and interesting little jam bits...if you're into that sort of Phish (which I am), then you'll like it a lot, I think, compared to most of this run. If you need 20 minute orbital jams to get off, this show's gonna leave you with blue balls. It actually reminds me quite a bit of an inferior version of Tahoe II from 2011, a show I loved but was apparently a huge disappointment to most "serious" Phish fans. Eh, on to Alpine!
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