2012-06-22 Cincinnati, OH

 6/22/12 Cincinnati

Another oddball-looking setlist! First Shaggy Dog since 1995!!! I really hope this show delivers because is that the most loaded second set you've ever seen?!

Set 1

Wolfman's Brother - Rare WB opener! A very fine version with some hot playing but nothing you haven't heard before or even all THAT hot. Good stuff though!

Peaches En Regalia - The whole band sound pretty rusty, pushing and pulling the tempos. Definitely not the best-played Peaches but they give it the 'ol college try!

Shaggy Dog - Now THIS sounds rehearsed! Obviously it gets rarity points (be honest, how many in attendance knew the song?). This sounded good enough that I'd gladly welcome it once in a while, perhaps in the bluegrass slot.

Runaway Jim - Great stuff! Plinko playing from Trey with a fun When The Saint Go Marching In tease that elicits a roar from the crowd. This slowly takes its time to build and by the end the band is firing on all cylinders with lots of great repeated patterns and held notes from Trey, haha. For 8 minutes, it feels more like 15!!! Fantastic!!!

Light Up and Leave Me Alone - Awesome!!! Could be coincidence but I swear I hear a Mr. Completely Trey from tease (that descending main guitar lick). Funky and hot, rocking as well. Fantastic as always. There's even a solid actual jam on it as well. Don't skip!!

>Wilson - Somehow the jam in Light Up reaches a natural conclusion and, right on the friggin' beat, Trey launches perfectly into the Wilson intro. Ripcording sucks, but if it's gotta be done, this was the way to do it! It's fine, but Wilson is just Wilson tonight.

>Alaska - At the end of Wilson Trey holds a long note and Page jumps in with the piano leading us into Alaska with a great little segue. This sucker is red hot. Let it rip, Trey! It definitely makes good use of it's 11 (!!) minute run time!

Stash - The song portion sounds rather tired and uninspired tonight. Skip right to 6 minutes for the jam to begin. But even then the jam is just a mess. This is truly one of the worst Stash's I've ever heard. It's not quite 2004, but good lord it's just horrendous. SKIP AT ALL COSTS.

After a brief, what is that, Nellie Kane (?) intro, the guys decide to head in a different direction....

Llama - I love Llama and it's always a thrill to get it on the setlist but this one doesn't really do much for me. It just sounds like an apology after that Stash, lol. Great to hear but nothing special tonight.

Buffalo Bill - One of my favorite weirdo oddities. Great stuff!

Saw It Again - See Llama. I don't know what to say - it's good but just doesn't sound overly inspired tonight.

David Bowie - Ending the set with "officially Chris Kuroda's favorite Phish song".... The song portion sounds awkward like they are playing it too slow or something. Thankfully the song coalesces into a pretty great version loaded with energy and sends this mixed-bag set down the road with a bang!


All in all, quite possibly the weakest overall set of 2012 so far!! Very, very mixed. There is nothing here that is a true, unadulterated must-hear performance and the highlights are still weaker than you expect them to be. Not a great set and I couldn't wait for it to end. Jeez, even Stash was horrible!

 

Set 2

Down With Disease - Rocks hard and gets a good jam going before dissolving into Type II ambience. Ends too quickly!

>Guelah Papyrus - Great segue and unexpected choice! Great version! Sounds great and rehearsed. Great stuff. Seeing a theme yet?

Kill Devil Falls - And the energy continues! THANK YOU! This KDF is absolutely fantastic!!!!! One of the hottest out there!!! A+ Ends with some Type II tomfoolery from Trey and his whacky array of pedals.

>Twist - That weird little space interlude from Trey perfectly tees up Twist for them to knock it out of the park. And knock it out they do! All 14 minutes of it!! The expected Type I thankfully takes its time and very slowly transforms into some dark Type II. Lots of seagull sirens from Trey - this would fit right into a Summer '99 show. Pretty incredible jamming they have going on this. They are in the mood and just riding the wave, not rushing to change it. NOW THIS IS MUST-HEAR! There's a great part about 9 minutes in where the guys all lock into a repeating groove that is downright menacing. Kinda middle-eastern and very dark. Page and Cactus keep the groove going while Trey then begins to solo on top of it. Extremely cool. Very slowly they work themselves back into the main Twist groove/theme. And I mean very slowly! In fact, they go so slow with it that they abandon it and launch instead into Halley's Comet!THIS WAS SOME X FACTOR STUFF!! ABSOLUTELY WILL BE REMEMBERED AS ONE OF THE JAMS OF 2012!!! THIS WAS FREAKING A+++++ STUFF!!!!

>Halley's Comet - Great Type I fun but nothing noteworthy.

>Sand - See Halley's. It's Sand. It's Awesome. You get exactly what you expect.

>Roggae - Good transition, Trey! Do more of that! He slowly introduced the Roggae theme during Sand and let everyone adjust instead of just ripcording it. Thank god. Wonderfully patient jamming/soloing on this. Absolutely SOARING Roggae!!!! Beautiful!!!

Carini - Ah yes. Trey just slams into it and gets the energy sky high again right out of the gate. Perfect. This thing is short but packs a freaking whollop!!!!! This Carini is like the cover of that Sparks album Whomp That Sucker - Carini being the victor and the the audience being the knockout. GNARLY AND NASTY TO THE CORE!! SHORT BUT SMASHING!!! DONT SKIP!!!!



>Chalkdust Torture - NO! BAD TREY! DONT YOU FRIGGIN' RIPCORD LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN!!!! GAH We are neck deep inside a black hole Carini and he YANKS us right out for Chalkdust. Ok, if you're gonna ripcord us out of Carini there are certainly far worse songs to choose, so I'll let it slide.... This CDT spits, snarls and RIPS!!!! KDF part 2!!! DESTROYS!!!! DONT SKIP!!! HOLY CRAP!!!

Golgi Apparatus - GREATEST GOLGI THIS SIDE OF THE 90s!!!! I haven't heard a Golgi that didn't make me go "is it over yet?" in a LONG time!! SO. MUCH. ENERGY! And they nail it!! THIS KICKS SO MUCH FREAKING TAIL! ALL HAIL GOLGI!!!!

Fluffhead - Yes.....Freakin' yes......Nothing like a Fluffhead encore (or opener!) Actually, it's the first Fluff encore since November 1990! Wow, seriously?! Dang. A few small tiny flubs but overall very strong and noone would notice for the most part. Fantastic close to a fantastic set.



Just for the sake of not highlighting everything, I left Sand and Halley off the list, but they were still great. This set was primo A+ from start to finish. How about that - the worst set of the tour so far followed by one of the top 2 or 3 sets of the tour so far. Bi-polar much? DO NOT SKIP ON THIS SET! IT IS PURE FIRE AND THAT TWIST IS AN ALL-TIMER!!!!! FANTASTIC!!!