7/14/19 Alpine #3 - "The Big One" 
Preface - you guys know I'm gonna go bonkers on this and probably label
it the greatest show ever played or something, so just bear with me and
get your "Idiot Review" goggles on, ok? 
Set 1
The Landlady - Starting totally unexpectedly with the first
Landlady since 2016 and only the 5th one ever in 3.0 Trey has a hard
time on this one, fumbling through it, but his soloing is on key and we
get major Rarity Points for this, so I'll allow it. Funny banter
afterwards about the failed dance routine.
Olivia's Pool - Another shock bustout, this one for the first time since NOVEMBER 1997!!!!!! Jeez!!! And it ROCKS too so why the heck did they wait so long to bust this out!! Keep this in rotation guys - ITS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! Leo shreds it up on the keys and then Trey Takes over to melt our faces. God I love this band. You NEVER know what you are gonna get!!!! This is seriously terrific - yea its a simple song, hardy har har, but it sounds like theyve been playing it all summer. NAILED!!
The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday Suite - First performance of the trio since 2015. FOURTH ever performance in 3.0! Jeez, just rackin' up them Rarity Points big time!! Very cool and funky. Great effects from Cactus on this one. Pretty tight versions considering the rarity. Sounded great!!!
Meatstick - Is Meatstick. Is great fun.
Great hearing it early in a set instead of as a late-show "pumper upper". Kinda deflates the specialty of it in a good way.Vultures - Great version. Gets slightly dark and demented in the jam/solo portion. Trey going all Zappa with his soloing on this one!! Big meltdown on this sucker before they yank up to the sky! Extremely wacky! Must-hear Vultures! Dissonant and screwed up in the best way!!!!!! INCREDIBLE!!!!
Spock's Brain - Just as with Olivia's Pool, WHO THE EFF SAW THIS ONE COMING?! NOBODY! THATS WHO!!! First one since the Mexico run of 2019, but other than that, its only the 10th version ever played. Another A+ for rarity.
Pebbles and Marbles - One of my all time favorites that is also a mega rarity. I love Walls Of The Cave but wish they would swap it with P/M sometimes.
Great version overall.Glide - Oh no get your blinders on, will this be good or bad
Yea they butcher it. But rarity points again save the day. I can't put
this on the list. Just not good enough. Great to hear though!!!About to Run - Damn Trey, GET IT BOY!!! Good golly....
Strange Design - First since 2016, I believe?? Love this song and still can't believe it didn't make it onto Billy Breathes. Wonderfully beautiful version that was perfect coming out of that ripping About to Run. A+ set placement, yo.
>Timber - Unexpected segue that worked great. Absolutely terrific version. X Factor energy in this one. It's just that good.
I Didn't Know - Nailed those vocals. Vacuum solo. Perfect set closer.
Good Times Bad Times - Classic ripper to close the set!
Ok, this was an awesome set. It's not the set you would want at
every show and felt a little long in the tooth at times - trying to
sequence that many rarities is bound to be a challenge! But when the
songs played are that rare and the playing is generally that good, it
all works out. Very strong set, but perhaps more "memorable" than
"listenable" at times??
Great stuff! Set 2 to come tonight
-------------------------------------------------------
Set 2 -
Oh boy here we go.
Mercury - Not the tightest version of the song I've heard. The
jam is ok but nothing special. A fine rendition but overall probably
only about as good as the one I got later in Charleston. BUT, that segue
into Ruby Waves...
Ruby Waves - Just going ahead and posting my original thoughts from 2 days after it happenned. Here we go:
7/14/19
Ruby Waves
Ok, pretty quickly we got dark and nasty until about 8 minutes. Then we
went a lot lighter, more of a classic rock vibe for a bit.
Around 12 minutes we hit an awesome, bluesy, "1968 rock" kind of vibe that kicks all kinds of tail.
Around 15 minutes this subsides and some 2000-esque ambience begins to
creep in. The boys are in total control of their dynamics and fade
things down quite a bit.
Lots of organ sounds and "bliss".
Eventually it slowly gains steam again and the jam reaches a point where it screams Light (imo, anyways).
Then at 20 minutes exactly - OUT OF FRIGGIN NOWHERE - we are into funky reggae land.
The changeover happenned in like 5 seconds flat. What. There was almost
no transition. It's like they flipped a lightswitch or something.
Kinda jarring but pretty dang sick that they just changed on a dime like
that. And Trey is making love to his volume pedal, so there's that
Quickly though, around 21:30, some dark and nasty Carini-type riffing comes into play. It's Octave-Fuzz pedal time!!!
Yea, now it sounds like a Carini jam.
By 23:00 we have reached the dark side of the moon. The crowd roars their massive - and totally justified - approval.
THIS JAMMING IS THE T!T$!!!!
By 24 minutes the Carini riffing mutates into a more mellow and
spacey sound while still remaining very funky and dark. This is
Moon-Rock.
24:44 - The Feedback Squalls Of Hell!
We are in dark-ambience mode now. Trey is letting it absolutely FREAKING RIP!
Fishman and Gordo are keeping that dang funky beat going like it's Fall '97 or something. This is magical. Pure magic.
Then at 27:00 on the dot, the jamming screeches to another transition point.
The beat stops and we enter full on into 2000 Ambience Turbo Deluxe
mode. Trey and Page leaking noise - both archaic and and beautiful -
into our ears like the sounds of a thousand dying angels crying.
Or something like that. Woah.
This is HEAVY.
But then just as we've ascended beyond the astral plane of the 96th dimension, we are grounded by a new jazzy groove.
The boys are just urinating magic at this point but it's like they can't
decide what style they want to jam in - we are getting The Grand
Smorgasbord
So by this point we are 32 minutes in and Ruby Waves is far gone. It's
in the trash by now. We are in charted, yet rarely traveled territory.
By this point (roughly 34 minutes in) the guys have kept the latest
groove going and are just letting Trey (and later Page) rip it all kinds
of up. Someone needs to call the cops on Trey because this is
felony-level instrument abuse right here.
Good lord.
And basically, they just keep ripping it up all the way to the finish line.
I'm too inexperienced to say if this was the greatest jam of all time,
but I'm sure it was easily in the top 5 or 10 of 3.0 and probably in the
top 30 of all of Phish.
By 2019 I'd call that an accomplishment.
We now resume your regularly scheduled program....
Twist - That's it, the show's over, right?
Truly wonderful Twist though!!! Short and sweet - any other show would
kill for one this well played. Smooth in the extreme, Trey just pours
golden nectar in our auditory canals for 6 minutes. Thoughtful heat,
excellent phrasing and playing...Takanaka would be proud!! >Swept Away/Steep - Oh my sweet goodness, I'm not crying, are you crying? Holy hell talk about tugging at the heartstrings. Absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and perfect in every way. Jeezus Krist.....
>Death Don't Hurt Very Long - From the quiet beauty of the SA/Steep to the absolute fury and hellstorm that is this HEAVY DDHVL!!!! Funky wah pedal and clavinet abuse!!!! Guitar murder!! INSANELY AWESOME!!!! THIS IS A FREAKING MELTDOWN OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!!!!!!!
>ICCULUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - The ultimate rarity, maybe rarer than Harpua? Gosh dang, son!!! READ THE BOOK!
Buffalo Bill - Is Buffalo Bill, but mega rarity points and it was performed excellently.
Icculus reprise, lol. Just read the book, ok??You Enjoy Myself/Catapult/Marriage proposal banter - This is very fun. YEM itself is rusty from Trey, but the energy is there and the fun the guys are having is palpable. They seamlessly bust into a flawless Catapult, and then Trey tells how he met a couple in the lobby who said they would get married if they did Contact. Very cool.
>Contact - Oh yes Leo, fill me with the sonic glory that is your piano playing. BEAUTIFUL STUFF!!!
>YEM Conclusion - The sandwich finishes pretty awesomely with the guys jumping right back into the funk groove of YEM and then finishing with the vocal jam. A+!!
>More - Is More. Nothing special, but obligatory.
>Tweeprise - Spectacular. Capping off not just one of the greatest shows Phish ever played but a terrific summer tour as well. Listen to Cactus dropping bombs that Phil would be proud of!! Incredible peak and raging. Just what the doctor ordered and the absolute perfect choice for closer.
In conclusion, Alpine #3 was, well, incredible and the 4.6 rating on .NET isn't high enough!!! What can be said that hasn't already been said? This show is the definition of MUST-HEAR.
It felt very special and not like any other "Joe Regular Summer Show". Felt like a special Festival gig or something.
Spectacular.
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