The Verdict:
So, as you might have noticed, I forgot to review 8/8 in-between 8/6 and 8/9. Not on purpose, of course...yet I do wonder if its reputation as an underwhelming show bracketed by two strong runs helped me a bit in temporarily forgetting that it existed.
I'm glad I remembered, though. I knew the show only by reputation, and, as it turns out, it deserves a better rap than it gets. 8/8 and 8/12 are somewhat similar in that they're relatively by-the-book shows, and for that they catch a lot of flak. Which is funny to me because they're pretty much identical to almost all of the pre-August 2011 shows in this regard. There are a few ways in which each show breaks out of this mode, though, and that's what I want to focus on in each of these reviews.
First, 8/8.
The first set of this show is, as I said in my review below, like a warmup to 8/12's festival set. It's a jukebox set on steroids. "Possum," "BOTT," and "Number Line" all feature crazy Trey solos, and of course it's all satisfyingly fun stuff, but the only moment of interest comes in "Split," which goes full Storage Jam for a (unfortunately) brief moment before returning to the usual form.
The second set ends up being way more fun than the show's phish.net rating might lead you to believe. Sure, "Crosseyed" doesn't necessarily go deep, but its brief ambient-texture space comes after a solid Type I jam/solo thing and leads naturally into an excellent "Twist." Now, this is a weird "excellent 'Twist'" in the sense that it's about seven minutes long and never goes Type II, but it's still complicated, all four members are contributing, and you can almost feel the mind-meld working throughout. It segues nicely into a hyper-fast space-plinko "Piper," and that ain't bad to start a second set in 2011.
That's about all the legit jamming we'll get for the show, but the momentum continues as Trey dominates "Mike's Song" and the plinko returns for a short-but-satisfying "Groove." Then there are some Fishman shenanigans in "50 Ways" > "HYHU" before the band segues back into a "Groove" reprise of sorts.
All in all, it's a fun second set. There's no big jam and it doesn't stack up to the year's heavy hitters, but considering how few heavy hitters there are at this point, it seems unfair to count a show like this one out.
The Live Review:
8/8/11: Little Page organ noodling (that sounds gross) before Mike opens the show with DwD.
8/8/11: Type I DwD gets butt-slammed into Cavern.
8/8/11: Possum keeps a straightforward opening set going, but with a particularly ripping solo from Trey.
8/8/11: Cities!
8/8/11: Short, standard version of Cities. But that's okay, because Peaches is next!
8/8/11: The only thing more grating than the usual beginning of KDF is when Trey starts it in the wrong key :)
8/8/11: Lawn Boy. Page gives a shout-out to the audience.
8/8/11: TUUUUUBE
8/8/11: Tube sounding a little more plinko than usual.
8/8/11: Crowd loving the LA line.
8/8/11: BOTT next. Minus Cities > Peaches, we got a bona fide festival set here.
8/8/11: Trey's guitar heroics made that a great, if rote BOTT. Wilson next.
8/8/11: Now Axila I. Really feeling the festy set. Maybe a warm-up for 8/12? Maybe they think it *is* 8/12?
8/8/11: Err...not 'really feeling,' but 'really feeling like.' Definitely *not* 'feeling it.'
8/8/11: SOAM! This almost forces them to be interesting, right?
8/8/11: Sho' nuff, the tension part of the jam is taking on a Storage Jam kind of sound, if only for a minute or two.
8/8/11: Trey laying down a pretty excellent Number Line solo now.
8/8/11: End set.
8/8/11: 2-3 minutes of Storage Jam in SOAM was the only S1 highlight.
8/8/11: If you like Trey Type I solos and aren't sick of them in 2011 yet, though, check out Possum, BOTT and Number Line.
8/8/11: S2 starts w/ Carini.
8/8/11: Straighforward Carini. Right as it fades into space, > Crosseyed.
8/8/11: Big, Type I rock jam in Crosseyed. Drop at about 10:00. Now they're circling some space funk, but not really committing to it.
8/8/11: A little form in the murkiness, now. Sounds like a slice of Gorge RnR.
8/8/11: Twist sort of ruins the jam potential there, but it also sort of worked with where the jam was going.
8/8/11: It was a conscientious ripcord, is what I'm saying.
8/8/11: Twist jam staying Type I, but some really nice interplay nonetheless.
8/8/11: Great full-band Type I going on here. Love it.
8/8/11: Piper is next and moves really quickly into fast-paced space funk.
8/8/11: High-octave plinko-space thing going on now. All of Piper has been weird. It's great.
8/8/11: Weird, weird break in the middle of a really spacey jam there to force a > Mike's.
8/8/11: Machine-gun/note-bending Trey just went to town on that Mike's.
8/8/11: > Joy.
8/8/11: Joy was Joy. > slow-tempo, funky-plinko Groove.
8/8/11: Diggin' this little jam a lot.
8/8/11: Jam suddenly stops. Fish mumbling to the crowd.
8/8/11: Fish singing 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover. Trey's tone matches the original's eerily w
8/8/11: Inevitably, 50 Ways > HYHU :)
8/8/11: Back into Groove.
8/8/11:> Zero.
8/8/11: Zero > Quinn.
8/8/11: Stealing Time encore.
8/8/11: Party foul: colleague walked into office while I was busting out a full-on air-guitar back-bend. Gee thanks, @phish.
8/8/11: Stealing Time > Julius.
8/8/11: Weird show, but not deserving of the shade that gets thrown at it.
8/8/11: S1 is full-on festy action, yeah, except for 2-3 minutes of SOAM that get weird.
8/8/11: Q4 is also pretty uninteresting and drawn-out.
8/8/11: But I love most of Q3. Neat little jam in Crosseyed, beautiful Twist, weird Piper, hot Mike's...
8/8/11: ...then a great Groove jam plus Groove > 50 Ways > HYHU > Groove sandwich. Probably just end the set there, though :)
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