2019-12-08 Charleston, SC

 12/8/19 Charleston, SC

I know this is among the lowest rated shows of 2019, and I'm gonna guess this is due to lack of jams and excess of songs. That being said, purely from a jukebox standpoint, this setlist is incredible!!! Seriously, this is the ultimate "check that one off the list" show!! Dang!

Look, Superball had almost no real jamming to speak of and was some of the best music of 2011, so let's give this one a fair shot now, eh?


Sigma Oasis - A new song! For real! I remember being shocked to see that they opened with a new one and it's a pretty good dad-rocker, ala More. It appears to be growing a good bit in 2021 ala More a few years ago. Good stuff. Bet this threw everyone for a loop - maybe not the best idea for opener, but gotta admit it's ballsy and I respect that. It's very well played and sounds great to me! Awesome!

Buried Alive - The "true" opener everyone was waiting for! SO was great but this would've got the party starting from the get-go. I was worried about this one but Trey freaking kills it!!!! He even gets a proper Little Drummer Boy tease in there! THIS THING IS RED HOT AND RAGES LIKE HELL! AWESOME!!!! If you have a problem with this, you can't be helped. Fantastic.

Guelah Papyrus - Awesome to hear, one of my all-time favorites. And they nail it! Excellent!

My Sweet One - Is My Sweet One, but points for the insane tempo and energy. Not list-worthy (It's just MSO) but hot dang it was still hot.

Everything Is Hollow - Of course night 3 (the show I wasn't at) gets the KV song I wanted! Don't you guys just love that riff?! This sucker is funky as heck as expected. I know I would've been dancing my tail off. This version is executed pretty well for the most part, BUT, it doesn't do anything to really make it list-worthy. It's just "pretty good". And sometimes that's ok.

The Curtain (WITHOUT) - Pretty rare to get a The Curtain (first since, 2012, I think?). Didn't really impress me that much to be honest, but again, points for rarity factor. C'mon, who wouldn't love to get Curtain'd?!

>Mound - Gotta love that seamless segue! Also, again, who doesn't love a Mound?! Rarity points again!! BASS SOLO!!! The guys nail this and it sounds like they were really having a lot of fun playing it. Sounds great to this listener!!!

Brian and Robert - BRIAN AND ROBERT! BRIAN AND ROBERT! YES! BRIAN AND FRIGGIN ROBERT! Sorry guys, I adore this song and getting to hear it is always wonderful. Great set placement and points for song choice. This sucker will always go on the list for me. As he says, "this one is for you".

Crazy Sometimes - Am I the only person that absolutely loves this song? This is like the prequel to Kasvot Vaxt or something. I'd absolutely love to catch this at a show. Check out that absolutely FILTHY playing from Gordo on this sucker. Also, Trey's soloing is very choice - perfectly on point. This one isn't some kind of all-timer, but it's definitely worth at least one listen.

Frost - One of Trey's best latter-day ballads, imo, and absolutely worthy of Phish air time. Man, this setlist is just rarity/unexpected song after rarity/unexpected song!!! Love the vocal harmonies on this. Absolutely wonderful and dynamic solo from Trey. Jerry would be proud. This sucker is just gorgeous as all hell! Frost - it sounds the melancholy vibe you get staring out the window on a cold, dark winter's day, watching the snow slowly drift around in the air...absolutely spectacular. Really. Please give this performance another go if you've looked over it.

Breath and Burning - Great song choice out of Frost! Really, that worked excellently, slowly building into the song. Gets us feeling good again. If you don't like the song, ok, but that was a great move as far as set flow goes. Pretty dang hot and rocking (as much as B/B can be). Grateful Dead vibes on this one to my ears. That is good stuff. Lots of energy and it really picks us up after Frost (as insane as that was!) Great version! Trey absolutely SOARS!!!!

Alumni Blues Suite - Who the hell saw this out of B/B? I knew the setlist and even I forgot it was coming, lol. Nailing it with that set placement, guys. FREAKING GET IT, PAGE!!!!!!!!!! As a whole this RAGES and the guys actually NAIL it, sounding tight as hell throughout!!!

It's Ice - The first big letdown in a long while this set. The composed part is on the nice side of rough and sounds unpracticed. I will absolutely always welcome It's Ice, but please practice it (or at least refresh yourselves!). The song bumbles along, sounding like it could fall at apart at any moment. And I don't just mean Trey - the whole band just sound unconfident in their ability to play it tonight. Trey completely misses some leads and fumbles through others, muscle memory occasionally saving him for a few seconds at a time. Bummer! Fantastic jam in the breakdown section but c'mon, you can't just butcher the song and pretend everything's ok afterwards. Nope. No list for you, Ice! This is absolutely the WORST version of It's Ice (the song) I have ever heard. Just awful!

Walls of the Cave - Not quite list worthy as all WotC's sound identical ( lol ) but a great close to an unfairly ignored first set.



If this was 2011 everyone would say this was the first set of the year. It's Ice was horrifically bad, but other than that this was a very FUN first set that has you grooving from the start, loaded with energy and optimism. In hindsight, this very much feels like a "It's the last night and we just want to have a blast" kind of set. If you are down with that you will dig this sucker (unless you just hate all the songs played!). Now, I'm expecting a lot worse from set 2, but nobody has really talked much about this first set - it's great! Really! It's a right party!!! Don't miss it!

    

Set 2

After Midnight - Massive bustout and only the 7th time EVER played! Fantastic way to kick open the set. The guys sound a little tentative and it's not as smashing-amazing as it should be (feels lukewarm rather than red hot) but the spirit and energy are there regardless. Great attempt.

Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan - A slighty wonky intro with Trey kinda flubbing the leads and the vocals. He sound un-confident. Trey sounds utterly lost, not knowing what to play. Page tries to keep it afloat but this is definitely a sinking ship. Wow, talk about a disappointment! Trey tries to fiddle with sustained notes and feedback, but it is just awful. You can hear the slight rumblings of a jam evolving out of this mess, but of course instead of doing the 1997 thing and riding it to higher ground, they kill it off and leave us with a terrible taste in our mouths. This was among the worst things I have ever heard Phish do. This SUCKED.

Energy - Thankfully Trey 86's that abomination and tries to at least bring the energy back around after that floundering excuse for music that Stealing Time was. This one is tentative at first, like Trey is sheepishly grinning "whoops!" for the STFTFP, lol. The song itself isn't anything to write home about tonight. It is positively lukewarm! Enjoyable but nothing more. Around 5 minutes they start a jam, and it has potential! But then 2 minutes later they just....kill it. Yea, let's not jam out the song called ENERGY. Ok. Whatever. I'm not the band....wtf, mate.

Soul Planet - That half-baked micro jam out of Energy gets ripcorded in favor of SP. At least a segue attempt was made and they launch right into it. Trey still sounds utterly low-energy. But then he flips some switch inside and the fire comes alive. Around 3 minutes they launch straight into jam land, opting for some darker vibes I wouldn't've expected right away. By 5:30 we are in full 1999 spastic-ambient-Type-II land. Now THIS is what we have been waiting for!! Extremely cool - very airy and chill, Fish still going nuts on the cymbals. Very ethereal. Shades of a certain Camden '99 Chalkdust I adore. Very very cool jam! DONT MISS THIS!!!

Wingsuit - Soul Planet had a terrific jam that naturally reached a low-key conclusion. Great! Wingsuit fits the spot left absolutely perfect. Just rising from the magical ashes in a wave of beauty. This sucker has that X Factor vibe to it, imo. It's just oozing with vibe. Absolutely gorgeous and magical Wingsuit here. This thing has legs, dang it! Well, wings rather. Listen to Trey absolutely melt faces and the beautiful playing behind him! DONT MISS THIS!!!!

I Always Wanted It This Way - Back to the unsuredness of Energy, I don't know if this was practiced or not, but everyone sounds rather hesitant on this, even Page! At the end of the day this does actually end up injecting some energy back into the set, but the jamming itself doesn't do anything noteworthy. It's very enjoyable and woulda been fun in person but nobody will ever refer to this as a classic version, ya know? I mean, it gets pretty hot, actually, at the end but this should be the norm, not the exception for a 2nd set number!

Petrichor - Oh no, the "mountain" of the set....I love Time Turns Elastic. I love long songs. I do not usually love Petrichor. Talk about the absolute worst song to put in the middle of such a dying set! Oi vey! All of that being said....give this one a chance! It actually has palpable energy that I wasn't expecting! All in all I hesitate to put this on the list (so I wont) but it's definitely a livelier-than-usual Petrichor that was performed very well and was surprisingly enjoyable! Not the disaster I expected!!!

Boogie On Reggae Woman - This feels like an apology to try to get the mood going again, lol. It's good and does get the energy going, but Reggae Woman is Reggae Woman, ie enjoyable but nothing noteworthy.

Rise/Come Together - Take it or leave it. I enjoy the song, though I know many do not. This thing does have good energy and feels like the band is saying "ok, c'mon guys, final night - lets everyone in the room rally together!". Ya know what? I think i'll list this one - Trey plays great and it really lifts the mood. Very powerful, imo. Excellent set closer, imo.

Pebbles and Marbles - Yay! How many shows have bot Walls Of the Cave AND Pebbles/Marbles?! This one is short but pretty strong - it definitely feels loaded with energy. Definitely a shot-in-the-arm moment in the set (well, encore at this point). This thing COOKS!

Beneath a Sea of Stars - Outstanding. Like Phish doing Terrapin Station or something. Trey is just cooking, well, simmering, in the best way. Just oh so delicate and delicious. Wonderful.

Izabella - First since Baker's Dozen, no? Red-hot and totally worth a listen.

Chalkdust Reprise - List-worthy for rarity


All in all, set 2 was an incredibly mixed bag. Izabella was as hot as it ever got and that wasn't until the encores! The guys REALLY struggled to get this set to catch fire and I feel like eventually they gave up and just tried to do the best with what they had. As with the abysmal It's Ice in set 1, Stealing Time was literally the worst version I've ever heard. Downright AWFUL. Aside from that there were several very nice-though-shortish jams in a few of the songs but overall this felt like a "this is the victory lap, we don't need to try to impress" set.

Quite possibly the worst show of the year, but considering how strong the first set was, any year that has this as the "worst" show is doing pretty dang good!!!! Get set 1, lightly sample set 2