7/13/19 Alpine #2
Great setlist tonight.
AC/DC Bag - Feel like it's been a while since the last one. Very welcome opener 
Nice and hot but nothing special. Just a good opener!
>NICU - Fun but nothing special
Shade - Very nice but nothing special
Funky B - Hot as always. Great solo from Page. Great vocal wailing from Cactus! Absolute guitar murder from Trey.
Blaze On - The song portion is excellent. Simple song, yes, but
this one seemed to have extra oomph to it. Really great reading of the
song itself. Very cool "watery" Type II excursion. Great stuff!!
Ya Mar - Great playing from Trey.
Frost - Rare and beautiful. Just achingly gorgeous and tender.
The Sloth - Brings some rocking energy back to this slightly light-weight leaning set. Good version overall.
F Your Face - Totally unexpected and also unexpectedly awesome!!
Trey really rips it up big time just melting faces. And Cactus' vocals
are on point. This is close to flawless. Fantastic!!!
My Friend My Friend - Red hot and scorching as expected, but nothing special.
The Final Hurrah - Strong version with loads of vocals from everyone. Dance party, yo!
Character Zero - Is CZ
All in all, set 1 was fine. Everything was baseline excellent, but
the highs still felt lower than usual. Felt like an excessively
"average" set, just in that we've heard so much better. Great song
selection and energy throughout!
------------------------------------------------
Set 2
Halley's Comet - Fun start, but as with AC/DC Bag, nothing special. Always a favorite of mine to hear
>A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing - This song seems like it would be
a monster, but to this day I don't think I've ever heard a version that
actually proceeds to do anything special (can you guys point me in the
direction of one?). Again, a song I always love to hear on the setlist!
This one tries pretty hard and goes for the deep sea vibes real quick.
Trey takes the spotlight at first before Page eventually entering the
fray with his watery synths. Trey busts out some extended sustains and
we head for ambience. It sounds pretty good on paper and any other night
this would take off and be incredible, but tonight it sounds
disjointed. Not bad at all, just undercooked. What's here is very good
and highlights-list worthy, it's just totally does not reach maximum
potential. Good but disappointing in the end!
>Runaway Jim - The guys can tell the previous jam is fizzling
out and quickly launch smoothly into Jim to rekindle the energy. Almost
immediately (well, 5 min in) the jam dives straight into Type II Space
Funk. Things get pretty dark and weird. Fishman keeps the Jim beat
going, but Page and Trey are playing with delays and effects and all
kinds of weird sounds. This is totally outer space. Very cool and very
much worth your time. Trey returns to regular sounds but Page keeps
those dark synths going. Fishman is still killin' that Jim beat and this
whole thing is leaning to major key bliss now. Only a minute to go, but
this sucker was pretty great. Awesome micro-jam indeed!!! 
>Undermind - Jim melts away turning into a funky groove, but
Trey grabs it by the reigns, ups the tempo and leads us perfectly into
Undermind. Now that was a true segue.
Page absolutely tears it up on the keys. Trey lays back and just lets
Leo go to friggin' town. Fantastic. Trey then picks up the torch and
just unloads on us. Excellent and bluesy and funky. This is just a Type I
Party Beast of the highest order. A+
>Ghost - Another great segue into a perfect song choice! This
Ghost takes its time deciding on a direction, but they end up keeping it
chill and mellow for a bit. Things end up in a pretty
mysterious-yet-blissful kind of ambient space. Trey sounds unsure of
what to play, but the jam sounds great regardless. Directionless,
perhaps, but the actual playing is still great. Towards the end it all
congeals into a magical miasma of blissful, peaky, 1.0-type beauty. They
hit upon the goods and rode it out. AWESOME. You gotta hear it - I
can't describe it.
>Golden Age - As Ghost is fading out, Page starts some rhythmic
patterns on the keys which prompts Trey to start the GA theme. Not a
perfect segue, but a cool transition, let's say
. Keeping the microjams going, the guys bust out the funk again and let
it rip for a solid 5 or so minutes of Type II goodness. Dance party
awesomeness. At one point Fishman stops the beat and just plays with the
cymbals. The rest of the band stops and then they all kind of fade back
into the jam slowly. Pretty cool. Sounded like they were lost for a
split second, but they quickly caught on and launched back in with a
darker tone. As with Ghost though, they realise its coming to an end and
immediately segue into Back On the Train. Could not have seen that
coming!!!
>Back On the Train - Trey totally butchers the lyrics and the guys save his tail, lol. Pretty funny moment
Trey recovers with some tasteful and quiet (TOO QUIET!!!) soloing. He
drops in a delay here and there at times but decides to just lay it out
there kosher. Page picks up on the piano and Trey tries to play with
some sustain and ambient textures. The jam eventually builds a BIG head
of steam and the guys just absolutely tear the Type I roof off the
friggin' place. Awesome -but normal - BOTT.
Harry Hood - The crowd is into it but the band sounds tired and the
tempo is sluggish. But again I'm not really a Hood fan so take that for
what you will. Nice piano from Page and the whole thing is very nice,
but I tend to tune out during Hood so I'll let you guys decide how good
it was
Say It to Me SANTOS - Save me from Hood! Yes! Let's GO!! Closes the show in ripping fashion
All in all, set 2 was pretty dang sweet!! The guys had trouble at
times deciding where to go - things felt uneven quite a bit. But they
always steered the ship quickly back on course with never so much as a
hint of any trainwreck. Each song had excellent jamming, even if it all
was in the 5-7 minute range. Not my favorite show but not the worst
either. If 100 percent is peak Phish, it felt like they were at 90% or
something. They weren't tired sounding, but there was an indescribable
lack of "x factor" going on. Just a very well played show with a very
nice setlist in a very nice order with lots of very nice jamming.
Nothing more nothing less. Hard to explain!!
I'd give this show a 3.8 or so. Strong A for effort!
No comments:
Post a Comment