2017-08-06 Baker's Dozen XIII (Glazed)

The Verdict:
It's the end! Rather than reinventing the wheel, Phish plays to their strengths in this final BD show, and wraps things up on a high note, including an encore that packed a surprising emotional punch even for me, who's only listened to the recordings of the shows, months after the fact, separated out over a few weeks.

Like 8/5, the first set is another assortment of random short songs: some rarities, some typical first-setty tunes. Collectively, they slot together into something approaching coherence and sent me into setbreak feeling good about the show so far. It's possible that the rough take on "Rift" precipitated the following "Ha Ha Ha," but either way, it's always good to hear the Fishman tune. "Camel Walk" is a nice setlist surprise as well.

"Crazy Sometimes" is quickly becoming one of my favorite non-jammed Phish songs, but it's certainly begging to extended, too. That does not happen here. It does kick of a trilogy of "crazy" songs, though, segueing nicely into "Saw It Again," which in turn leads to "Sanity." Page's "Most Events Aren't Planned" is definitely the highlight (read: "only") jam of the set, but it fits Phish as well, and "Bug" serves as a nice cooldown after. The exclamation mark of the set, though, is of course the "Izabella" bustout. Not only do they play the tune, though, but Trey lays into it like it's twenty years ago. A run highlight indeed.

The second set opens with a massive "Simple," the last of the many, many twentysomethingminute jams from this run. It's definitely not the most creative, the most interesting, or the most complex, but as it plows through a few minutes of filthy groove to reach a patient, extended build into a series of massive rock peaks, it captures the fundamental essence of so much of this summer's Light Side jamming an sends us on that particular magic carpet ride one last time.

The jam fades into recent Trey favorite and excellent jam landing pad "Rise/Come Together," then there's the surprise "Starman" cover, and, of course, "YEM." This "YEM" is a doozy and is delivered with all the energy and intensity that the Baker's Dozen version deserves.

The rest of the set and encore is a great Phishy victory lap. "Loving Cup" closes the set proper, before the encore sees a surprisingly emotional take on "On The Road Again," then revisits "Lawn Boy" via a "Tweeprise"-like riff, gives Mike a chance to play his previously aborted "Weekapaug Groove" intro riff, and then explodes into "Tweeprise," referencing the first-night "Tweezer" and bringing the whole shebang to a close.

I'll likely say more about the run as a whole in my summer wrap-up post later, but a thought, prefaced by the acknowledgment that the Baker's Dozen run is, frankly, unparalleled in terms of audacity (and, arguably, musicality) by anything else Phish has done in its career.

That said, I've heard a lot of people say that you can't analyze these shows individually and must only consider the run as a whole. Over the course of reviewing each show of the run, I've thought about this a lot and ultimately understand it in two ways.

Positively speaking, this statement implies to me that there's something special about this entire event (there is) and that to analyze its constituent parts too deeply distracts from the overall effect. I agree, all things considered. Every time I've written one of these thirteen reviews and found myself being negative about this or that aspect of this or that show, I've internally chastised myself for being whiny in the midst of what is perhaps the band's greatest achievement, perhaps the band's most consistent tour. On the other hand...

...taking each of these shows as they are, individually, reveals the weaknesses in the run's approach as well. There are lots of first sets with little to no flow, setlists that are, at first glance, collections or rarities in keeping with the no repeats gimmick, but are often, on balance, piles of weird songs thrown together just for the sake of playing a lot of different songs. First sets are just flat-out better when Phish plays with a smaller pool of songs. Do I want to hear "Ocelot" three times during an eight-show Phish run down the west coast? Of course not. But these sets feel less deliberate than usual. When the band is experimenting and taking chances musically in the first sets (as in the first five shows of the BD) this is offset a bit. But later on in the run, I found myself plodding through a lot of these first sets, happy to hear bustout after bustout but wishing for a common feel or groove to latch onto as well.

Similarly, lots of the rare songs, debut songs, and one-off songs just aren't played that well. Obviously, these guys are throwing out an unbelievable variety of songs over thirteen nights, and I don't expect them all to be played pitch-perfectly. But there really were times when I wished there were repeats, just so I could hear a full set of Phish playing songs they clearly know pretty well.

I like the BD's focus on jamming just like every other Phish fan on earth, but listening to these shows also made me reconsider the wisdom of wishing Phish would just JAM EVERY SONG. By the end of the thirteen nights, it was clear that pushing themselves to jam every night had led them to some really phenomenally interesting places that they likely wouldn't have reached otherwise. At the same time, the jams that didn't push boundaries ended up sounding so much the same that it was difficult for me to focus in on the details of, say, the "Simple" at all because it felt like I'd heard it all before. Maybe it goes without saying, but I don't think it's an accident that most of the highest-tier jamming in the BD came in the first few nights. From then on, it seemed like ideas where revisited and then repeated more and more often. Can Phish jam big every night? Yeah, obviously they can. Can Phish innovate every night? Not really, and it's unlikely any band can. So...should Phish jam big every night? It's something to think about.

Anyway, it's been really fun listening to this whole run. And I'm even more excited to relisten to Dick's now, the only shows I saw live this year. 9/1 was my 39th show and easily my favorite, and I can't wait to hear it again. DICKS IN MY EARS Y'ALL

The Live Review:
8/6/17: Here we go. BD Night 13.          
8/6/17: Dogs Stole Things opener.          
8/6/17: Rift next.          
8/6/17: Trey struggling with Rift a bit more than usual, but Page killing his piano solo.          
8/6/17: Ha Ha Ha next. Reference to Rift flubs, perhaps?          
8/6/17: If so, Trey is getting meta by flubbing Ha Ha Ha riff, too.          
8/6/17: > Camel Walk      
8/6/17: I've really liked the most recent few versions of this tune. It's got a new energy lately.          
8/6/17: Crazy Sometimes! Loving Phish's take on this song lately.          
8/6/17: Page is either making good use of the synth during this song or he's playing the keytar.          
8/6/17: Fun little piano-driven jam forming out of Crazy Sometimes.          
8/6/17: This song seems to have crazy jam potential. Each time they've played it, they've hinted at a big jam then pulled back.          
8/6/17: This time, it's for a segue into Saw It Again.          
8/6/17: Raucous take on Saw It Again leads into Sanity.          
8/6/17: Those two seem like a perfect pair. Wonder if they've ever been paired up before.          
8/6/17: Page with a clever use of the Very Long Fuse samples during Sanity.        
8/6/17: > Bouncing      
8/6/17: Most Events Aren't Planned. Really enjoyed this at Dick's. Hope it stays in Heavy Rotation (heh).           
8/6/17: First set Bug following that expansive Most Events Aren't Planned.            8/6/17: Extra-solid solo from Trey on the back end of that Bug. Now, I Been Around!          
8/6/17: This song should probably end most first sets.          
8/6/17: Okay, I *guess* it's fine that Izabella ends this set instead.          
8/6/17: Ha ha ha.          
8/6/17: Nothing else sounds like a Hendrix song. I could have told you this was a Hendrix cover even if I'd never heard it before.          
8/6/17: Izabella has temporarily revived 90s shredding Trey. Wow.          
8/6/17: End set.          
8/6/17: Simple kicking off the second set!          
8/6/17: Band breaking away from the usual Simple jam structure almost immediately in favor of something more chordy.          
8/6/17: Funk chording from Trey but Fish drumming something a bit more complex than usual at this juncture.          
8/6/17: Really great use of synths and loops now to build up a really complex jam.          
8/6/17: Nice move out of the fuzziness into something a bit more jaunty.          
8/6/17: Fish has an almost Golden Age style beat going. Feels like he's driving the jam here.          
8/6/17: Patient development of this second movement. Fish continues stringing together some impressive beats.          
8/6/17: This is developing into pure 3.0 bliss jamming. Nothing new here, but seems appropriate for the last 20+ minute jam of the run.          
8/6/17: Going out on a triumphant note.          
8/6/17: Trey noodling softly over the synth drone as an outro.          
8/6/17: Drone fades nicely into Rise/Come Together.          
8/6/17: Band has been excellent at placing this song thus far.          
8/6/17: Starman!!          
8/6/17: Nice extended outro to Starman with some vocal stylings from Mike.       
8/6/17: Ah, and now the long-anticipated YEM.          
8/6/17: Slow build during the YEM jam, but Trey is on FIRE now.          
8/6/17: > Loving Cup      
8/6/17: End set two.          
8/6/17: Encore starts with On the Road Again. Band trading verses.          
8/6/17: On the Road Again segues into a weird Trey riff.          
8/6/17: Page says this is still Lawn Boy.          
8/6/17: Band reprising Lawn Boy lyrics over a mellow version of what sounds like Tweezer Reprise.          
8/6/17: That weird little bit segues into a brief rehash of the intro to Groove. Huh.          
8/6/17: Then Trey blasts into Tweeprise, of course referencing the first night's Tweezer.          
8/6/17: And that, my friends, is that.          
8/6/17: For my money, the last 8 shows of the run never really reached the heights of the first five, but in the context of...          
8/6/17: ...3.0, and really Phish overall, there hasn't been anything else like that.          
8/6/17: Almost every show since Northerly could stand up to any other Great Show of 3.0, and a few are easily all-timers.          
8/6/17: I was at Dick's and that's true of at least night one and maybe night three as well.          
8/6/17: When was the last time, if ever, the band did an entire summer tour (albeit a short one) without any real clunkers?            

2017-08-05 Baker's Dozen XII (Boston Creme)

The Verdict:
The Boston Creme show continues to follow the latter-run template of the most recent BD shows, resulting in some amazing music without scaling the heights of the shows from the early legs of the run.

The first set is one of the better mixes of first-setty tunes from the back half of the BD's very first-setty sets, and the frankly amazing "Sunshine of Your Feeling" medley elevates things, for sure. You might dig rarities like "Soul Shakedown," "Uncle Pen," "The Sloth," "FYF," and "Fire." You might want to hear the jazz-to-rock transition in an extended Type I "Jibboo." And you might, like me, really like the synthed-out take on "Mule" and the funkified "Plasma" jam. You might also enjoy these things very little, and find this to be a surprisingly normal set for the second-to-last BD night, all things considered.

Regardless of all that, though, you need to listen to "Sunshine of Your Feeling." Afterward, Fish says the band has been waiting twenty years to play it, and I believe him. It's fantastic in the Phishiest way.

A monster "Ghost" kicks off the second set, and contains most of the show's improv. But that's okay because it's a great take. We travel through funk and then a head-fake toward bliss jamming before departing on a more cerebral loops-and-synth-based exploration. Eventually, this transitions into a space that recalls the "circus jam" from 8/4's "Scents" and then peaks in a predictable but fun way in the end anyway because why the hell not?

"Petrichor" follows, beautiful as always, and then there's "Light." As "Light" is arguably the flagship jam vehicle for 3.0, it seems odd that it doesn't get much of a treatment here, but it doesn't. It noodles around in its usual pretty-much-Type I zone for a few minutes, then fades into an ambient jam that's interesting but is cut way too short for "The Lizards." And I really like "The Lizards."

The rest of the set is an energetic, joyous victory lap of predictable tunes, and "Joy" sends us home on an emotional high note if not necessarily a musical one.

Bring on the final night!

The Live Review:
8/5/17: Heading into the last two BD shows. Today, it's Boston Creme time.          
8/5/17: Or, I guess 'Boston, Cream' would be more appropriate in this case.       
8/5/17: Soul Shakedown Party opener.          
8/5/17: Uncle Pen!!!!          
8/5/17: The Sloth! Seems weird that there hasn't been a gimmick song yet, but I'm loving these setlist calls.          
8/5/17: Extra mellow jazzy Type I jam here in Jibboo. Page on electric piano.       
8/5/17: Extended Type I take on Jibboo that reaches a huge peak before subsiding into FYF.          
8/5/17: Sunshine of Your Love          
8/5/17: -> Hooked On a Feeling      
8/5/17: -> Sunshine      
8/5/17: -> Long Time -> White Room -> Long Time/White Room mashup
8/5/17: This is fucking ridiculous.          
8/5/17: -> Sunshine -> Hooked On a Feeling.  
8/5/17: Fish says they've been saving that joke for 20 years. Trey: 'This whole thing was just so we could do that.'          
8/5/17: After a brief pause, Frost.          
8/5/17: I love me some Frost. It's more a TAB song than a Phish song, i think, but it's still a great song. Mule next.          
8/5/17: Neat synth bit from Page. Now echoplex from Trey. Adding a new dimension to the Mule duel, for sure.          
8/5/17: Some marimba now.          
8/5/17: > Fire!      
8/5/17: Alaska. Or, as I like to think of it, Ocelot II.          
8/5/17: Plasma!          
8/5/17: I've loved Phish's take on this tune since the 10/17/14 Carini -> Plasma.  
8/5/17: Like Jibboo, Plasma gets extended and rocked-out, but never really gets out of the box. Set ends w/ Sunshine tease.          
8/5/17: S2 opens with GHOST. I've been waiting for this for 11.5 shows.          
8/5/17: Temporarily shutting door during office hours so I can crank it.          
8/5/17: On whiteboard: 'Be back in 21 minutes.'          
8/5/17: After a few minutes of funk jamming, the band modulates into a brighter sounding space.          
8/5/17: At this point, the rest of the band is pretty clearly just waiting for Trey to come up with a bliss jam riff.          
8/5/17: A more loop-based direction segues into a funk-chord jam with Page on synth.          
8/5/17: Heading into something that sounds like the 'circus jam' bit of Scents from 8/4. Crowd cheers.          
8/5/17: Band finds a much more organic way around to launching and all-out bliss assault on this Ghost jam.          
8/5/17: Big ol' happy Phish throwdown happening now.          
8/5/17: Whoever decided to follow that joyful Ghost jam with Petrichor is a genius.          
8/5/17: Been playing that SBD orchestra Petrichor from Trey on loop lately. So good.          
8/5/17: Another great take on Petrichor. That song has been super-solid lately. Light next.          
8/5/17: Reverb-y jazz jam happening now. Pretty standard territory for Light jams so far.          
8/5/17: Light definitely goes Type II, but stays in a pretty standard Light-jam place for most of its running time.          
8/5/17: Page goes to the organ for the last little bit, which is interesting.          
8/5/17: Ambient fade-out after that.          
8/5/17: > The Lizards      
8/5/17: After a spirited take on The Lizards, The Horse > Silent.          
8/5/17: Quinn next. Trey throws in a Sunshine tease, to boot.          
8/5/17: Rocky Top is gonna round out a high-energy fourth quarter.          
8/5/17: Encore, fittingly after that rock-fest, is Joy.          
8/5/17: All in all, another great BD show. No jamming in the first set, but a strong set anyway, anchored by 'Sunshine of Your Feeling.'          
8/5/17: Aside from the monster bliss-Ghost, the second set actually also had a relative shortage of jamming, but was high-energy and fun.          
8/5/17: I'd love for the run to close out with another show like those first five batshit crazy shows...            

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.    

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.

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.        

2017-07-26 Baker's Dozen V (Powdered)

The Verdict
My reservations about the Jam-Filled night aside, 7/26 stands in a pretty tall shadow. Fortunately, this is a really interesting show with a lot to like, and though I won't necessarily argue that it's better than 7/25, it would be possible to make that case if you wanted to.

There are no 30+ minute jams in this first set, but it's a well put-together set in the vein of a lot of the better '16 first sets: strong organization, solid playing, and a jam or two to whet your appetite for the second frame.

"White Winter Hymnal" is the opening a capella number, nodding at the night's flavor in satisfactory fashion before the band picks up their instruments to start in on "Cars Trucks Buses." Though it doesn't do anything special, the one-two punch of "CTB" and "My Soul" lands well. "Roses" is a great follow-up.

Things start to get a little weird when the band stretches out "The Very Long Fuse" into a jazzy space, and then takes "Gumbo" on a synth-and-blues journey before bringing it back to the main theme in lockstep. The "Yarmouth Road," "Pebbles," "Farmhouse" section of the set is a little bit of a head-scratcher, but the band ends the set in dazzling style with "Tube," which builds into one of my favorite jams of the run so far before dropping with pinpoint accuracy back into the song proper.

"Carini" opens the second set with an exploratory version that patiently explores a few different spaces without ever fully committing to any of them. This isn't a bad thing, as the band finds some interesting musical corners to dig into, but it certainly doesn't have the momentum of, say, the first set's "Tube" jam. Fish sets up a perfect segue to "Mr. Completely" near the end of the tune, but Trey badly botches the transition, making the first bit of the set's second jam a little rough. Once everyone gets back into place, the jam takes an interesting, carnival-sounding tone for a few minutes before moving to a more basic bliss space. It's not the most interesting jam they've played during this run, but it's not "Ocelot," either.

"1999" is next, and if the bustout factor isn't enough here, the band rides Page's synth riff straight into another blissy jam space at the end of the song and hangs out there for a few minutes before dumping us off in "Steam." And, yes, "Steam" also jams...

It's at this point that I'm realizing that there are so many jams per show this year that it's getting hard to describe them each in unique ways. I can't even imagine how the band plays them uniquely each time. Anyway...

"Steam" is perhaps the most interesting jam of the set, moving through some angry space funk before breaking down into good old distorted noise. After a few minutes in the muck, the band navigates, like some eight-limbed octopus, back into "Steam" proper to wrap things up and then use another spacey transition to start up "No Quarter." Admittedly, this set doesn't engage me the way some of the jamming earlier in the run has, but at this point the amount of creativity and improvisation poured into this set just becomes sort of embarrassing it's so much.

So, when the band throws a "Martian Monster"-style interlude into the middle of the set-closing "Zero," you just sort of have to laugh and say to yourself "These guys have been playing music together for 34 years and what the fuck?!"

That they close the show with a pitch-perfect, first-ever version of "Powderfinger" is another thing I should probably mention.

The Live Review:
7/26/17: With school finally back in full swing, I'm in for two reviews a week again. Today, it's Powdered night from BD.  
7/26/17: Love the White Winter Hymnal opener. One of my favorite FF songs.  
7/26/17: Phish gave it a little barbershop feel (of course), but still great.  
7/26/17: Cars Trucks Buses!  
7/26/17: Trey taking a long solo here.  
7/26/17: Great version, despite missing a Page solo. My Soul is next and features an organ solo, so I guess that's okay.   
7/26/17: CTB > My Soul is a really nice pairing.
7/26/17: Trey taking over again here with a great blues solo.  
7/26/17: Roses! No huge surprises here since the opener, but loving the song selection.  
7/26/17: The Very Long Fuse! Setlist flow A++ here.  
7/26/17: Fuse getting a little funkier than it usually does. Nice chording from Trey.  
7/26/17: Great, jazzy, extended take on this tune. Loving Page's piano work.  
7/26/17: Whole band does a great job of bringing the tune back to a cohesive end. > Gumbo.
7/26/17: Gumbo is going a little bit afield now, too. Trey is going bluesy while Page lays down some synth. Interesting direction.  
7/26/17: Trey brings it back to Gumbo with a fiery guitar solo. Now Yarmouth Road.  
7/26/17: Yarmouth started out rough, but ended with a nice, mellow outro jam.  
7/26/17: Pebbles and Marbles!  
7/26/17: Outro jam of Pebbles is turning pretty serious.  
7/26/17: Farmhouse is a weird call after that, but okay.  
7/26/17: First set keeps rolling with Tube.  
7/26/17: Excited to hear the BD version of Tube. Tube jam was one of my favorite parts of 9/1/17.  
7/26/17: Jam going in the echo-chording direction early on.  
7/26/17: Page's synth propels the band out of funk mode.  
7/26/17: Oh man. I'm gonna like this.  
7/26/17: Gorgeous, galloping space jam just out of nowhere. Man.  
7/26/17: This is fantastic. Big build now, with Trey sliding around on the fretboard with heavy distortion.  
7/26/17: Right at the peak of the build, perfect landing back into the blues section of Tube. Wow.  
7/26/17: End set.  
7/26/17: That was an exceptionally well-arranged set that satisfyingly extended a few songs slightly but held no real surprises.  
7/26/17: Until that huge friggin' Tube, that is.  
7/26/17: Carini set two opener.  
7/26/17: Typical Carini outro jam so far. Band sounding locked in. Feels like a huge transition is just looming.  
7/26/17: Neat riff from Trey now. Band building on it.  
7/26/17: Neat, spacey, pitch-shifted jam now.  
7/26/17: Jam picking the pace up again on the back of a particularly weird Trey riff.  
7/26/17: Page playing ethereal electric piano while Trey bangs out angry, distorted chords.  
7/26/17: I should mention that Fish is playing the Mr. Completely beat.  
7/26/17: Oh, man. Fish set up that -> *perfectly* and Trey just completely failed the opening riff. That hurt me.  
7/26/17: WHAT THE HELL MAN  
7/26/17: Carini jam was great, botched transition aside.  
7/26/17: I love that Phish is playing Mr. Completely, but do they have to play it while sounding like they're all underwater?  
7/26/17: ROCK THAT SHIT  
7/26/17: Mr. Completely jam turning into a sort of carnival-sounding thing with Page on organ.  
7/26/17: They really smoothly built that carnival jam into a loop-based space jam and then into a full-on rock-bliss thing. In five minutes.  
7/26/17: > 1999
7/26/17: Synth progression from 1999 spinning off into a dark jam.  
7/26/17: This jam is heading in a blissy direction now as well.  
7/26/17: Really buoyant jam leads directly into Steam.  
7/26/17: Ultra-spacey tone from Trey as Steam, too, grows into a legit jam. Sort of like angry space funk.  
7/26/17: That was some profoundly unsettling noise.  
7/26/17: Brief return to Steam before fading back out into more ambient noise.  
7/26/17: Page electric piano outro transitions perfectly into No Quarter.   
7/26/17: Trey nails the No Quarter solo. Zero next.  
7/26/17: Zero is getting extended a bit. There's a section in the middle that sounds a bit like Martian Monster.  
7/26/17: Trey and Mike duel, now!  
7/26/17: End set 2.  
7/26/17: Single encore song: Powderfinger. For what it's worth, Trey does a good Neil Young vocal impression.  

2017-07-25 Baker's Dozen IV (Jam-Filled)

The Verdict:
A few times a year there's a Phish show that I don't attend, or couch tour, or stream, but nonetheless stay glued to my phone and Twitter throughout, watching the updates pour in. Whether it's the "FUCK YOUR FACE" show, the JEMP Truck show, or the Chilling, Thrilling... Halloween show, certain shows grab my attention so firmly that watching tweets roll in is almost as exciting as being there live. Almost.

7/25/17 was one of those shows. From the jammed-out "Sample" opener through to the "End of Session" bust-out, Phish Twitter was exploding and I was having a blast sitting there watching it even though I was missing the show proper. Thus, The Jam-Filled show was the one I was looking the most forward to reviewing. So I'm surprised to say that even with only four donuts under my belt, there are already Baker's Dozen shows I like better than this one (7/22 for sure and maybe 7/23).

Yeah, okay, so Phish laid down a show with two 30+ minute jams and one of them is "Lawn Boy." On one level that absolutely needs to be recognized. This is an incredibly unique show, an incredible show, and quite possibly the one show of the thirteen BD shows that best captures the spirit of the entire run in two sets.

On the other hand, this show reminds me of why it's best to let Phish jam when they're feeling it and encourage them to avoid artificially inflating songs when they're not clicking in the moment just for the sake of track length. 

The roar of the crowd when the band launches into the "Sample" jam and everyone realizes that we really are going to experience a jam-filled show is spine-tingling. The jam that follows, though? Not so much. It's the same with "Lawn Boy": the gimmick here is strong, but the jam doesn't follow through on the potential. It feels like one of those old 2.0 long jams, the band jumping out into space and seeing if they land on something. Back then, sometimes they did, and it was awesome...and sometimes they didn't and the result was a pretty intolerable 10-15 minutes of music. "Lawn Boy" is a bit of both of these. At times, there are musical moments to dig into, at other times, the jam's only real takeaway is "Hahaha, they're jamming 'Lawn Boy'!" The last twelve minutes or so are definitely mega-highlight 3.0 Phish, but it takes them a relatively uninteresting 18 minutes to get there. YMMV, I guess:

For my money, things really pick up after "Lawn Boy." The unexpected jam out of "MFMF" is legit, with all kinds of weird sounds that make it one of those jams that sounds like the band discovering new territory rather than just revisiting old haunts. "Stash" doesn't get really weird, but the loop-filled peak is a slight twist on a classic and keeps the momentum rolling into "Gin," which is yet another 2015/2016-style blissed-out take on the tune to end the set.

Obviously, there's a lot of improv here and it's a freaking five-song first set, but if you're looking for top-tier jamming like we heard already during the first three BD shows, there's really only the back half of "Lawn Boy" and the "MFMF" outro.

In the second set, "Fuego" goes the "Lawn Boy" route in the sense that the first fourteen minutes or so is pretty standard "Fuego"-outro-style jamming, but then Mike gets out his drill and it seems to rip a hole in spacetime, causing the entire band to start cranking out musical brilliance. This doesn't last nearly long enough, and the creaky take on "Thread" afterward puts us on weird footing again, but luckily "Crosseyed" is here to save the day.

This second 30+ minute jam is the real star of the show, as the band gel much more thoroughly here than during "Lawn Boy." There are a ton of great ideas thrown out from everyone during this jam, and the movement between them is smooth. There's a momentum here that's often lacking in longer jams and that makes me think of jams like the Tahoe Tweezer, the Miami Disease, and the Dick's Simple. It's really good, and you should check it out.

From here, oddly enough, we enter the dreaded "weak fourth quarter." Minus the "End of Session" bustout (admittedly a huge bustout) and a bit of spacey jamming after "Makisupa" to set up said bustout, the last bit of this show is surprisingly jukeboxy, including an absolutely ugly version of "Tuesday." "Lawn Boy Reprise" brings a smile during the encore, but for such a legendary show it ends on a pretty bum note.
 
The Live Review:
7/25/17: Sample opener.  
7/25/17: I absolutely love the crowd roar when Sample starts to jam. THEY KNOW  
7/25/17: You know you're in a weird place when the audience blows up at the beginning of Lawn Boy.  
7/25/17: Page taking a keytar solo now.  
7/25/17: Page stays on keytar as we segue into a legit jam.  
7/25/17: Page is back at his rig (I think) playing synth now. Trey playing echo-chords.  
7/25/17: Some great soloing from Trey now as the jam starts to pick up the pace. Mike joining in, too.  
7/25/17: Serious momentum now. Trey deploying loops.  
7/25/17: Trey on pitch-shifter and Page on clav creates and interesting almost-plinko effect. Breaking things down now.  
7/25/17: Trey doing an admirable job of driving this jam melodically, but everyone else is listening in and making great contributions.  
7/25/17: Long, held note from Trey at the 19:00 mark. Everyone else in a holding pattern.  
7/25/17: Fast, bluesy riff from Trey and we're off again.  
7/25/17: Fade into a more abstract space now. Lots of synth and looping. Fish's beat keeps it from being ominous.  
7/25/17: Getting close to Blossom Number Line jamming here. My absolute favorite.  
7/25/17: Sinister build.  
7/25/17: Okay, so minutes 0-5: dicking around with Lawn Boy, minutes 5-15, sort of dicking around in general...  
7/25/17: They start finding their footing around minute 15 and from that held note on, they're all really dialed in.  
7/25/17: It'd be an exaggeration to say that this is a thoroughly engaging 30-minute jam, but:  
7/25/17: a) it's a 30 minute jam, and b) the last 12 minutes or so are fantastic.  
7/25/17: Some swaggery echo-chord jamming post-peak. We're still going.  
7/25/17: Really like this outro jam. Shame it's so short. They sound totally locked-in now.  
7/25/17: -> MFMF
7/25/17: Can I complain about Trey ripcording a thirty minute jam? Probably not, huh?  
7/25/17: DONUST  
7/25/17: MFMF proper is pretty rusty. Somewhere between 'Oops!' and 'Somewhat unlistenable.'  
7/25/17: Slinky jam coming out of the outro of MFMF.  
7/25/17: Really like what Mike is doing on this.  
7/25/17: Really interesting jam. Totally different than anything they played during Lawn Boy.  
7/25/17: 'Jam-filled' is a great gimmick, but the jam in Sample and the first half or so of Lawn Boy *did feel* like a gimmick.  
7/25/17: Everything since has been legitimately fascinating jamming.  
7/25/17: Great fadeout with Page on synth again. > Stash.
7/25/17: Loop-filled peak to Stash is pretty compelling. Making the jam way more frentic than usual.  
7/25/17: Drawing out the tension now.  
7/25/17: > Gin.
7/25/17: Gin jam moving in the same direction that most Gin jams do these days, but at a more languorous pace than usual.  
7/25/17: Fishman putting on a show as we head for another loop-inflected peak.  
7/25/17: End set.  
7/25/17: Fuego opens S2.   
7/25/17: Fuego jam building naturally out of Trey's usual 'riff-on-the-riff' outro soloing.  
7/25/17: Standard Fuego outro jam fading out at 14:00. Mike jamming the screwdriver.  
7/25/17: Great work from Page on piano and synth as the jam builds back up.  
7/25/17: -> Thread.
7/25/17: I think once I can wrap my brain around what Thread is doing, I'm going to like it a lot.  
7/25/17: Reminds me a bit of Mercury before they really ironed it out good.  
7/25/17: Definitely appreciate that they're still making complicated songs these days. Petrichor, Mercury, and (maybe) Thread are all great.  
7/25/17: The roar when they dropped into C+P was huge even on the soundboard.  
7/25/17: Crosseyed jam starts off pretty standard, though I'm liking Page moving early to the electric piano.  
7/25/17: Trey relaxing back into some funk chording. Mike stepping up.  
7/25/17: Trey to pitch-shifter, Mike still driving.  
7/25/17: Really great spacey soup happening now.  
7/25/17: Jam feels a lot more fluid than the Lawn Boy one so far.  
7/25/17: This jam is staying surprisingly low-key for a surprisingly long time. How is Trey holding himself back?!  
7/25/17: Ah, here we go. This build seems like it could bust into the Dick's '15 Disease at any moment.  
7/25/17: Big peak, and now a slowdown.  
7/25/17: Super-eerie, ambient synth happening now.  
7/25/17: This is about as minimal as you can go before you just hit 'no music.'  
7/25/17: Ambient section done. Trey strumming now. Everyone else coming back in.  
7/25/17: The Who-sounding rock section happening now.  
7/25/17: Pretty sure Mike just reprised the Crosseyed riff there briefly.  
7/25/17: Band playing a deconstructed version of the tune now. 'Still waiting' lyrics. Slowly morphing back into the song proper.  
7/25/17: Weird Trey loop makes the end of a huge version of Crosseyed. Loop continues into Makisupa Policeman.  
7/25/17: Makisupa gets a very brief, spacey jam before > End of Session. This is/was pretty much the best bustout ever.  
7/25/17: I often wonder if more than one hundred people in MSG even recognized this w/o looking at their phones first. I wouldn't have.  
7/25/17: > Tuesday was a bit jarring.
7/25/17: Wow, that was an ugly version of Tuesday, including a complete miscue at the end of the song.  
7/25/17: Trey is trying to redeem it with a huge solo, but he's playing in the wrong key.  
7/25/17: That was so ridiculously bad in the context of this great run that I actually laughed out loud.  
7/25/17: I'm not complaining, but just find it sort of funny that minus the End of Session bustout, the jam-filled show, with...  
7/25/17: ...two thirty-minute jams, is also definitely a 'weak fourth quarter' show.  
7/25/17: Makisupa > EoS > Tuesday, Cavern. E: Julius, Lawn Boy Reprise.  
7/25/17: The Lawn Boy reprise is a nice touch, though :)