It's a very dark, rainy and miserable day, so let's move on to a perfect musical choice for the weather!
Onwards to Live Phish Vol. 11!!!!
11/17/97 Denver, CO
Set 1 -
Tweezer - You know some schitt is about to go down when the boys open the show with a Tweezer. 
Tweezer is Tweezer until 5:20 when the proper jam begins. Things
immediately go into a jazzy style with Page on the piano, Mike all over
his bass effects honking it up, and Trey doing his late-night porno-wah
thing.
The guys enjoy the hell out of this and really take their time building
it for the next 4 or 5 minutes. Slowly, the guys alternate introducing
different sounds or motifs to switch things up subtly, but on the whole
they stay in the "late night porno groove" for a good long while. And it's friggin' GLORIOUS! Then
around 9:45 Trey turns on his whale siren looper and things start
getting darker slightly. Page is "pecking" at his keys, Mike is funking
it up, Fishman is riding the cymbals.....Trey starts some melodic
soloing around 10:45. Page sprinkles in a few "Metroid"-sounding
keyboard effects from time to time. As with the previous "chapter" of
the jam, the boys keep this going for several excellent minutes. Around
12:30 we seem to turn another corner - Page returns to the piano and
starts doing some great lead work, while at the same time Trey is
patiently delivering excellent lead lines. He and Page are really
"weaving" in and out of each other and it's awesome!!!! By 14 minutes
the funk is slowly receding in favor of a more straight-up
"melt-your-face" classic rock mentality!!!! Page is still hitting those
ivories, but Trey is damn near approaching Machine Gun status with his
leads! All ripping, wah-infused runs, just pouring lava into the listener's ears non-stop. Jesus christ, man!!!! At
16 minutes they reach the inevitable peak, which leads to them
immediately chilling the F out! But Fishman is keeping the cymbal-riding
a-comin', allowing Page to lay down some textural synths on top of the
newly funky groove. Trey turns his looper siren back and Fishman
introduces some awesome stop-start jamming. The guys come in and out
like clockwork. After one last round of stop-start, the guys end it for
real. And the crowd goes bananas. Holy friggin' crap, that was one
of the best Tweezer's ever! Let alone the fact that it opened the damn
show!! HOLY CRAP!!!
Reba - Talk about yer one-two punches!!! The guys took us deep with Tweezer and then yank us back to reality with Reba.
Compositionally for Trey, it's not the tightest Reba, but neither is it
the horror show of Darien 2000. It's about 90% there for him, so I'll
accept it. I give lee-way to the composition-heavy songs in the late
90s, haha. The jam is beautiful as always. Trey is taking his damn time,
playing as "slowly" as I think I've ever heard him!!! The guys are just
building this aquatic soundscape that is beautiful and majestic. It's
wonderful. Reba proceeds as usual, building to it's expected amazing
peak. In reality, I don't think this Reba is anything special, but
it is exceptionally glorious!!! It sounds like every other great Reba
pretty much, but that's a great thing!
Train Song - Is Train Song. Is great. Love Page's piano and the vocal
harmonies. It does work as a nice breather following the opening heat
fest, but at the same time I don't like the set placement. I just don't
think it fits very well, song choice-wise. But that's just me! Not a
knock, just a preference for something else instead. Place this later in
the show.
Ghost - Four songs into the show. Three of those four are Tweezer, Reba and Ghost. Yup, this could only be 1997!!! Jesus christ..... Funky
etc as normal until about 6 minutes when Trey jumps on the wah and Page
starts using his "THX Synth Intro" stuff. Lots of spacey and angular
keyboard stabbing us in the ears, lol. Then at 6:45 Trey turns on the
looper and the porno wah scratching makes a return. But not for long!
Trey opts instead to change gears and starts soloing with, what, an
octaver going? Page jumps on the piano. Around 8 minutes there is a
great part where the band suddenly builds intensity very quickly like a
rising wave, only for it to "crash" about 10 seconds later like it never
happenned. Very odd but cool! So by 9 minutes Page is doing some very
nice piano work, Trey has returned to vamping, and Mike is being Mike
(sorry, can't hear him that great). Around 10 minutes, the darkness
dissipates slightly for a more upbeat and blissful sound! The guys are
heading back towards a more straight-rock-based vibe. Page is pounding
out that piano and Fishman is keeping things "straight and simple". Trey
is picking his spots to insert fills. By 11:30 things start slightly
getting "out of the box" once more, with Page and Trey both syncing up
on a repeating, melodic trill-based motif (you will know what I'm
talking about when you hear it!!!!). By 12 minutes the train has arrived in Blissville!!! The intensity is amping up big time!!! Things aren't dark anymore, but they are absolutely suspenseful and HOT!!! This is extreme tension building!!!! By 13 minutes Trey is just going BONKERS BANANA SANDWICH on
us!!!!! The guys are rocking the F out!!! Things finally cool off a tad
around 14 minutes. The boys start funking again. Page goes to his
Clavinet and Trey is doing some rhythmic vamping like the middle riff in
Rush's "La Villa Strangiato" (the one immediately following Lifeson's
guitar solo). But then by 16:30 the guys amp it back up and start
rocking down the house, everyone once again "syncing up" on a motif and
just riding it til the cows come home. But then after another "wave
crash", Trey jumps onto his wah again and the guys proceed to deliver Dance Party Deluxe for a few glorious minutes. At 18 minutes Fish introduces the cowbell and you know IT'S ON!!! But
not for long - things very quickly die down and get quiet. Mike is
doing a nice repeating bass rhythm while Trey turns on his "octave up"
whammy pedal feature to give us some high pitched noodling. Page is
laying back throughout this. With Page playing around with his own wah
pedal/tremolo effects and Trey doing his noodles, the guys are funking
it up once more. Slowly we begin to approach ambience and within a
minute this epic jam reaches a conclusion.
Holy hell that Ghost. For the first 10 or so minutes I was
thinking "this is awesome but kinda less-than-I-expected", and then once
that bliss section entered, it's like the jam was elevated and they
were able to take it to the next level. Truly outstanding, if maybe
SLIGHTLY overhyped, but still A+ and incredible all around!!!! Let me
review this on a day where take some Adderall (took a "break day"
today!) and I guarantee you my review of the Ghost would be 12 pages
long 
>Fire - After some "one more song then we are gonna take a
break" remarks from Trey while Ghost is dying out, the boys proceed to
launch into Fire. And holy mother of god, fire it is!!! I still remember my first listen to this, driving 80mph down the interstate....yea, don't listen to this if you're worried about speeding tickets! There
isn't anything else really to say. It proceeds as expected, hotter than
the hottest Antelope this side of 1994, yo! Terrific.
All in all.....Dude, the F you want me to say?! Yea, this was one
of the best sets of the entire series so far. Just an absolute
behemoth!!!! I mean, Tweezer, Reba AND Ghost?!?!?!?! IN SET 1?!?!??!
Ok, let me put my brain back in my skull and get ready for set 2!
Set 2
Down With Disease - AND NOW A FRIGGIN DISEASE OPENER?! The crowd sure won that setlist lotto on this night!! The
song proceeds as expected (ala destroying worlds like the Big Cypress
Disease) until the 11 minute mark. Right around there, somehow the guys
start slowing things down. Trey is still annihilating harder than a
nuclear bomb, but the tempo has decreased and the guys are just
slow-headbanging us to oblivion. Absolutely glorious (word of the
night!). At 12 minutes the backing quiets down even more, though Trey is
still just absolutely exploding over anything and everything the other guys are playing. Then
at 13 minutes the tempo suddenly shoots back UP to the original Disease
speed!!! This is downright RIDICULOUS! THIS IS INSANE! THIS IS
LITERALLY THE NEW HOTTEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD!!!! 12/6/97 has been
defeated!!! What the good golly miss molly is even happening any more?!
This is like one continuous 17 minute orgasm.....I'm not even
exaggerating.....
At
15 minutes Trey returns to the Disease them but doesn't commit and
instead leads the band into a new section. Everyone synching up on a
rhythm, lightspeed tempo.....And outta nowhere he derails us to go into.....
>Olivia's Pool- Look, I don't hate Oblivious Fool, but c'mon man, that was a terrible set call imo 
That
being said, points for originality but that was definitely "deflating",
but that's ok because this is still hot as a mother and likely the
go-to version of OP (if such a thing even exists, lol). And thankfully
it's over as quickly as it began just for the guys to launch into....
>Johnny B. Goode -
OF COURSE THEY HAD TO DO THAT!!! Ok, it's amazing. Seriously. I
remember the first time listening to this losing my mind going "what in
the hell is going on?!?!??!?!?!" And yea, it basically picks up where
Disease "derailed" into Olivia's Pool. Just machine gun destruction.
Holy mother of god.
>Denver Jam - So JBG eventually turns a page into a Type II
jam. Huh. Who woulda thunk! Immediately, things get quiet-yet-funky
again. Trey has a weird "squiggly" sound going on his looper as he and
Mike both solo lead on top of it. Page is laying out. Eventually this
turns into a louder rock/funk jam that sees the guys doing the whole
"riffing on one idea for 5 minutes" thing to aplomb like in that opening
Tweezer. Just exploring every last nook and cranny of a motif/idea before moving to the next area. Around
6 minutes, Fishman starts really messing with his beats and patterns,
leading Page to insert wacky piano runs while Trey does wah pedal
"explosions". This is sick stuff, yo. Things get kinda latin-sounding
for a while and it's amazing. Fishman doing all kinds of weird
percussion fills, Page on the piano, and Trey just "blasting" away every
few seconds as if doing a manual loop! But then at 8 minutes things
finally chill out a little bit. Fishman gets SLIGHTLY less crazy and
Trey calms down, returning to selective lead lines. We are heading for that ambient cliff, yo. By
9 minutes things are reaching that aquatic sound again. Page toyfully
plonking out notes on his piano haphazardly, Trey doing watery leads,
Fishman riding those cymbals. Very nice! At 10:30 Trey turns on his
octave up effect and the drums drop out, leaving just Trey noodling,
Page still plonking his ivories and Fishman riding those cymbals. Mike
is doing some wacky bass effects in the background though which is cool.
On another night, this would've been the greatest setup for an I
Am Hydrogen segue ever, let's put it like that! And with that we segue
into....
Jesus Just Left Chicago - Dang it, not again.... sorry, just really am not a blues guy, no matter how good it is. Give me any other song, just about. Please. Ok,
that being said. Its JJLC. You get exactly what you expect and it's
excellent. There is nothing else to say! Great version!!! Love the crowd
clapping along!
When the Circus Comes to Town - Is Circus. Is good. Next!
You Enjoy Myself - After 20 minutes of hell (for me, anyways), we
get a perfect pick me up. Much better compositionally for Trey than
Reba was (and Reba wasn't even that bad or anything!). As the song
builds, you come to realize that it's a downright EXCEPTIONAL rendition!
The '97 cow funk invades every nook and cranny of YEM tonight, making
this one of the most infectiously funky and party-tastic readings of all
time .Just 10/10 in every way for me. Outstanding. There's nothing to
say, just go listen to it!!!!
Character Zero - Is C Zero. Kills.
All in all....I think the word to describe this show is OVERKILL!!!!
Ya know how I've described Phish 1.0 as being like that sugary,
excessively sweet cake frosting that you love but is also just "too
much" in the best way? Yea, this show is basically that.
I definitely "prefer" set 1 as a listen, but set 2 is just as good, if
not BETTER! The guys perfect the art of going "out there" while
maintaining a good set flow for the most part (can we stop with third
quarter ballads/slow songs, PLEASE?!).
And when they do go out there it's next-level. Very little in the way of
ambience tonight. It's all "volcanic eruption molten lava comet
explosion FIRE"
Picture the pure rock and roll HEAT of 12/6/97 (sorry to reference it
constantly, it's a go-to for me) combined with the perfect amount of
that funky vamping they perfected.
I hesitate to call this a "perfect" show or anything because it felt
very UNIQUE!!! This didn't feel like a "normal" show!!! It felt special
for sure!!!!
Wow, just....I mean, you don't need me to tell you to go listen to this beast....
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