7/1/12 Alpine Valley #2
Another rarity loaded show with an awesome looking 2nd set. Let's hope its as good as it looks!
Set 1
Soul Shakedown Party - Usually I could care less when Phish does
reggae, but this tune I always enjoy and the crowd eats it up. Great
opening choice to get the good vibes started!
Lonesome Cowboy Bill - And the Loaded replay continues one song at a time 
Another "who saw this coming?!" Absolutely fantastic - really. It rocks
and the energy is HIGH. I would welcome this to be a semi-regular cover
for the guys. So freaking good....THIS WAS FREAKING MOHER EFFING AWESOME!!!!
Vultures - Holy crap they are nailing the hell out of this. This
is loaded with energy and feels extra powerful tonight. Absolutely
OUTSTANDING Vultures!!! A+++. Definitely one of the best Vultures I've
had the pleasure of hearing! 
Gotta Jibboo - Love the extra laid-back vibe on this particular
version. We get some whale call action that the crowd loves and Fishman
is killing it on the kit. They take their time with this one and give us
a solid ten minutes of goodness. Trey just builds and builds, slowly
peaking a little bit by the end. A wonderful Type I excursion!
>Dirt - Forever a highlight for me. Just achingly beautiful as
always. The guys are really on point with the backing vocals tonight.
Points to the guys for set pacing tonight as well!! A perfect cool down
after the fire preceeding it.
>A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing - Gotta love a nailed segue.
Also, they rarely launch into this song very strongly for some reason.
They get it here! Freaking awesome and great choice out of Dirt! Dark
and dirty to keep the mood down. Things get pretty hot and
Zeppelin-esque. No Quarter, anyone?! Trey is absolute in the ZONE
ripping it up while Page is letting those pianos and organ sounds fill
out the sound. Totally Zeppelin tonight! Fantastic!!!!! I'm often
disappointed by the live versions I've heard of this song - I always
expect an epic and am constantly let down I feel. For 6.5 minutes
though, this one is that epic. Must hear!!!
Access Me - And the highlights continue! Final version for SEVEN
years!! I freaking love this little ditty and wish it was in
semi-regular rotation. C'mon, it deserves a few plays a year, no?
Meat - 2 Gordo vocals in a row? Sick. 
FREAKING SICK. Everyone is playing with their effects and getting funky as hell. The crowd is lapping it up and its a PARTY!!!
>Frankenstein - Ah hell yes!!! Get it!! LETS FREAKING GO!!!
The totally unexpected set placement just adds to the fun. The guys kill
it and the party is raging!
Fee - MUST HEAR!!!! They jam
this sucker out!!! It's just beautiful, approaching Lizards territory.
Wow, who woulda thought Fee would be the friggin' musical highlight of
the set?! Kinda ambient but not really, the guys just ride this wave of
bliss and create a totally unique little beast outta it. For 5 or 6
minutes we get full on Type II outta this sucker, what the hell!!! I'm
bad with words. Go listen instead.
Maze - Inspired playing from all. It's Maze. It kicks @$$. You know what you are getting.
The Squirming Coil - Is TSC. Is beautiful.
All in all, talk about an absolutely
fantastic first set (for this tour, anyways!). Holy crap, especially
from, say, Meat onwards it's like they kicked things up 5 notches. But
that opening trio of SSP, Lonesome Cowboy Bill and Vultures are must
hear as well as ASIHTOS. Really, do not skip on this set at all. It's
one of the strongest sets of the year so far for sure!!!! A+ first
set!!!
God, this is the most protracted listening I've done in years - I can't
even make it through full shows anymore due to time/tiredness
So no better time than the present to get my lazy self on down to set 2 of 7/1/2 Alpine Valley
If you recall, set 1 was awesome. Set two looks amazing (for 2012) and
then looks like it falls off a cliff at the end, lol. Let's see....
7/1/12 Alpine Valley
Set 2
Crosseyed and Painless - Heck yes! Perfect set opener! Trey is
using some cool sorta grindy delay/stutter effect on his soloing that I
can't recall hearing before. As the jam goes on, of course Trey wastes
no time going into Guitar Hero mode. Very, very nice organ backing from
Page help to elevate it all and you can hear it slowly building to some
kind of peak. By 9 minutes it's still solid Type I raging of the kind
you've heard a million times before, but c'mon it's still friggin'
awesome, aint it?
By 9:30 or so they quickly bring the volume WAY down for a quiet "still
waiting" refrain. Love Page's keyboard swirls during this! Fishman
practically singing us a lullaby of the song, haha. You half expect the
band to go "1, 2, 3....BAM" back into the song full force, but instead
we get a few minutes of dreamily ambient Crosseyed!!! Slowly Page creeps
in with the keys and the whole thing sloowwwlllyyy winds down in a
beautiful manner.....
>No Quarter - PERFECT! Doncha love a GENUINE segue!? Talk
about an incredible transition. The crowd goes bonkers and rightly so!
Hell, I remember when I got No Quarter in Charleston 2019...I couldn't
believe it. It was definitely a "I can't believe this is happenning"
moment. So yes, No Quarter is always welcome by me!!!
Also, is Page's Robert Plant impersonation on point or what?! No, it's
not Earls Court '75, but the boys do a damn good job on this one. Trey
really takes his time with his soloing, being all measured and whatnot
doing a good Jimmy Page....
>Light - From the darkest depths of the sea to the heavens
above....or something like that. This techincally is a segue but it's
more like an explosion out of a cannon as soon as NQ ends. I feel like I
haven't heard a Light in a while and this one feels very well played. I
absolutely love the studio version and, like say Heavy Things, the song
itself sometimes doesn't feel totally "right" every time they play it.
Small things elevate it, ya know what I mean? This one is really great.
Background vocals on point, no "ghosting" of the chords by Trey...the
thing is just awesome tonight. Very inspired performance of the song
itself, imo. BUT WAIT! THERE's MORE! Around 3:45 the song
is truckin' along but you can clearly hear signs of a budding jam.
Everything is still Type I but every now and then there is a note or a
phrase that leans a bit left or right of center, so to speak. You go "ah
yes, this is going somewhere!". Around 5 minutes Page gets heavy,
pounding on the piano and there is a glimpse of some kind of darker jam
wanting to creep out. He keeps pounding and pounding going "guys, follow
me!!!!" but Trey ignores him and keeps soloing away to his hearts
content, lol. By 6:10 it's very obvious and Page is just demanding a
change in mood! FINALLY the others hear and follow him, leading the jam
into quieter/moodier territory. Trey, Mike AND Page all hit upon a
repeating motif and jam that for a bit - that's pretty cool. They are
listening to each other! By 7:20 things are taking a turn for the more
blissful. Slowly things work their way sunnyside up. By 8:40 the guys
all hit upon some descending patterns in a major key that sound like a
less-wonky version of Frankie Says. Really, really great part of the
jam!!!! Very feel-good!!! By 10 minutes Trey has begun another motif
that the guys pick up on and we move into a more stop-start kind of jam
with a SIMPSONS TEASE clear as day that nobody picks up on, lol. But this morphs back into the bliss. This
Light is absolutely outstanding. Top shelf example of the guys
listening to/playing off each other as one unit. Must-hear!!!!
By 11:40 Trey starts playing with sustained notes and it feels like the
original energy is slowly rebuilding. But alas this is not to be and
instead the jam ends with another few gorgeous minutes of Type II
ambience. Fantastic!!!!!
>Ghost - Awesome segue!!!! A true slow-build like the good ol
days!!! A "short" Ghost at just under 10 minutes, but after the trio
that opened this set, I'll take this as a breather, lol. Terrific and
raging hot Type I. Super funky. It's Ghost. It's sweet. You need it in
your life. Really awesome around 5:30 when they bring the jam into
faster territories and they hint at a possible Crosseyed reprise (to my
ears!). By 7 minutes I'd say we are comfortably in Type II. Interesting
full-band improv continuing. Everyone listening to each other. Some
blissful pattern play for a while until Trey gets riffy and the tempo
slows back down. Gettin' heavy again! Back into No Quarter perhaps??!!
By 8:30 a latin flavor starts to take over and Treys riffs turn into (of
course) a proper, slow-tempo "still waiting" refrain. This continues
and builds...but instead of a peak we somehow get a segue into BOTT!
>Back On the Train - What. What in the heck. HOW DID WE GET HERE FROM THERE?!?!? I love BOTT and the segue turned out very good but...just....dude! Almost
surprisingly, this is a short, non-jammed-out Type I version not even
reaching 5 minutes. Great playing from all. Unfortunately it leads to my
favorite show-killer....
>Farmhouse - Ok, show killer is harsh and as much as I love
the song, I feel it's very hard to slot it into a set without sucking
all the momentum out of the room. But hey, after 48 minutes of PRIMO
P-fish, what more do you want? Gotta have a break! And of course it's
beautiful as always! The guys take their friggin' time with this one and turn in an absolutely terrific rendition. A+ Farmhouse!!!!
46 Days - Absolutely. Friggin'. Destroys. End of story. NEXT!
Heavy Things - Out of 46 Days I'm sure most people would be ticked off
about this but I love Heavy Things. This one is a tad fast for my
preference but I always welcome it. Love it. It's just HT though, so
nothing special.
Joy - Joy AND Farmhouse in the same set?! 
Doesn't matter - it's a passionate version that's strong as any. Gotta
love it. What a great sentiment too at the end of a set this strong (We
want you to be happy...). Absolutely loved this Joy.
Julius - Great as always. Lovely bluesy and chill vibe on this
compared to the face-melter versions of yesteryear. Almost swings, dare I
say! Absolutely wonderful soloing from Trey and the guys just knock it
out of the park.
Meatstick - what else to close such a show?!
All in all, an absolute beast of a gig (for the tour, anyways) and
most definitely in the top 3 or so shows played so far. The 2nd set is
MUST HEAR (at least through 46 Days) and the first set is a beast as
well. A+ show for this tour. It really does not get better than this at
this point!!!! FREAKING FANTASTIC GIG ALL AROUND HOLY HELL!!!
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