2021-07-30 Pelham, AL

 Onwards to 7/30/21, known best for the 25 minute monster Carini and the weird setlist choices. But let's not get ahead of ourselves!

7/30/21 Pelham, AL

Set 1

The Moma Dance - Love Moma. Of all the "overplayed first set songs", this is probably the one I'm most down to hear. I am always down for Moma. Freaking awesome version with Trey just ripping it up all over the place. Hell, he almost plays more in the Moma than he did in the entirety of 7/28!!! And the crowd just eats it up!! Terrific way to start the show and get the party going!!! I tell you what, "Moma is just Moma", but Moma is ALWAYS awesome!

Sigma Oasis - In slot 2 tonight, no sign yet of the monster it would became shortly down the line (I sure as hell didn't see it's evolution coming!). Awesome version, good enough to be considered "album ready". And in the context of the "comeback" vibe of this tour, the song feels like it contains extra poignancy tonight. Great version!

Back On the Train - Terrific Type I version. Must-hear Page shredding on the keys. Then a pretty hot solo from Trey that sees Page linking up with him in spots and the two of them kinda "soloing together". Pretty sick stuff. Ok, maybe this isn't a must-hear version, but it's a cut above "Joe Average First Set BOTT", ya know? The final minute or two build to an aboslutely raging peak with Trey and Page dueling it out. Terrific!!!!!

Dirt - Ooh....very nice call!! My favorite ballad after Waste. First one since the version I got in Charleston 2019 Gorgeous reading of the song that sounds even more "minimalist" than usual. Page is really laying out on this one, giving a nice push-and-pull when he does decide to join in more.

The Final Hurrah - "Tryin' to remember this one. Haven't played it in a while. Ya know, had stuff....goin' on." - Trey. Sounds great right off the bat!!! Sounds like they never stopped playing it! Fishman is killing it on this one, playing all the fills he can. The guys sound like they are having an absolute blast and I'm sure the place was close to liftoff from everyone dancing around the joint. The guys take their sweet-ass time building this one like Moma. It eventually ends up reaching a climactic, raging peak for a good long while. Terrific Type I!!!!

Funky B - For the sake of not highlighting everything (which I'm doing a bad job of already...), I'll sacrifice this one to the highlights-list gods. Terrific Funky B, same as every other one. It's Funky B, it kicks major tail.

Ghost - Oooh, a 14 minute, first-set Ghost! Immediately around the 4 minute mark the jam begins with the guys taking the song into a dark direction. Fishman is using his damn laughing samples. It's atrocious to listen to, but I can just see Trey grinning his ass off at them The guys are riding the Ghost "wave", just vamping it out, if you will, very nicely and patiently!!! Check out Page's ultra-saturated keyboard tone! Around 5:30 Trey starts to begin introducing lead lines. Throughout all this, Page, Mike AND Trey are all playing "together" very well. At 6 minutes, Trey gives us a "squiggle" and then hits a gloriously perfect feedback note for 10 amazing seconds. And with that, we are off to the races. The jam is cookin'! This is like some "late-night" Ghost vibes. But right at 7 minutes, like clockwork, someone hits upon a major note/chord and the whole mood instantly shifts to bliss like they flipped a lightswitch. Insane how they can change the whole feel of the jam INSTANTLY like that without a hint of hesitation. By 8 minutes, Trey is picking away melodically and Page has started to layer in droning synths on top of his piano/keys. Fishman increases the beat and the jam gets a "driving" feel to it. The jam is now picking up major steam like a truck rolling down the road. By 9 minutes Trey and Page are doing some upbeat melodic motifs together, both "in sync" for the most part, playing together like lock-step. Trey does a motif and Page answers it, etc. Gooey synthesizer funk bliss. By 10:30 Trey is in "trill land" and this sounds like a blissful rocketship lifting off, heading for the bright, feel-good vibes of the sun. Fishman keeps raising the tempo slowly and the whole thing sounds like it could go off the rails at any moment. At 11 minutes Page returns to the piano, pounding away, giving a more serious feel to the jam, turning another corner, if you will. Trey begins playing with backwards-guitar FX but the jam somehow "dies" out of nowhere and immediately they all sync back up onto the main Ghost theme, slowly reducing the tempo until the song concludes....Wow....I'm not gonna say that was an all-timer, but that felt like one of the best "warm up" kind of jams you could want!!! They did a ton in that 10 minutes of jamming. It wasn't entirely successful on the whole - it definitely leaves you wanting more, but as a "teaser" of, perhaps, the Carini to come? I'll take it!!! NICE!!

Driver - Great set call! A nice rarity and the chillout mood is so perfect after the raging peak of that Ghost. Not gonna highlight because, well, it's just Driver (no offense) and feels more like an interlude than anything in the killer set. Great version and very welcome though!

The Wedge - NICE! Really great setlist call once more (they are nailing that so far in 2021, lol). Instead of just bursting into something crazy, they brought us down nicely with Driver and are slowly "rebuilding" to another peak by choosing Wedge. You get what I mean. Again, for the sake of not highlighting everything (in a set where everything IS worth a listen!), I'll refrain from it. The Wedge is The Wedge. As with Funky B, it is terrific, but it also sounds like every other version for the most part. Awesome version though!

Walls of the Cave - The opening piano section happens and then we get a "Yea...." sample from Fishman. Oh boy, what am I in for? By 6 minutes we are in full flight. Check out the interesting cymbal pattern Fishman is playing - I feel like I've never heard that before!! The song builds to a raging hot, quasi psychedelic conclusion as expected. Killer stuff. Feels shorter than it is!!!


All in all, an absolutely FIRE set!!!! EVERYTHING was worth hearing and there wasn't a single "poor" rendition in sight. A crazy 180 from the uncertainty of 7/28!!! How did they do that in the space of only one show?! I would say Moma, Train, Final Hurrah and Ghost are the major must-hears of the set. WOW!!!! KILLER!!!!

Also, I just gotta say, the sound mix/recording/whatever is TERRIFIC tonight!!! This is one of the best Phish recordings I can recall listening to! The sound quality is just fantastic!!!!!

 

 Set 2

Evening Song - I prefer to begin with a bang, but I remember Trey talking about this song and saying he likes to open with a whisper and build to the peaks instead. Fair enough! And the song is so short anyways, so it doesn't really matter. I tell you what though, this is infinitely better than when I got "The Connection" to open a 2nd set....holy hell that was NOT a good call that night in Charleston! Page's keys sound terrific, like a lovely lullabye, rocking you gently in it's arms, letting you know everything will be alright! Also, this is the last version until Summer 2022, so points for rarity. Good stuff!

Carini - Ah yes, THE MONSTER! LET'S GO!!! "Approach the night with caution..." and then BAM!!!!! LAUNCHED INTO CARINI!!!! And immediately during the song Trey is already playing around excessively with his Whammy pedal and FX. You know this is gonna be good.....The tempo feels slightly faster than most tonight and it definitely imbues the song/jam with a bit more energy, I feel. Right at 3 minutes, the jam begins....Trey starts off by immediately kicking on his backwards-guitar sound for some psychedelic shredding. Fishman is over there riding the cymbals, just keeping this thing chugging along. For several minutes, Trey returns to good old-fashioned "Type I" soloing, with Page hammering it out on the piano. No synths in sight yet. As with any Carini though, there is a glorious, brooding intensity that is just so perfectly pervasive.
But then, immediately as I type that, right at the 6 minute mark on the dot, they shift perfectly into an upbeat, feel-good, funk jam!!! Out of nowhere like in Ghost! DUDE. HOW ARE Y'ALL SO IN SYNC WITH EACH OTHER. ITS AMAZING!!! Watery synths abound......Around 7:30, swimming in the ocean, Trey starts "chording" it up before returning to melodic soloing. Page is doing some really wonderful soloing while Trey figures out what exactly he wants to do. But then at 8:30 Page hits his THX synthesizer from hell on top of this blissful jamming and the crowd ROAR their approval. It's pretty awesome and comes totally out of left field. It's perfect. The jam was verring into "noodle" town and Page was like, "nah son, we gonna keep going deeper!".
From here we seem to turn another corner. By 9:30 things have gotten exceptionally funky. The "watery bliss" from before is turning into straight up heat, ala an uptempo Moma Dance rage-fest or something. Everyone is just tearing it up in the best way. This is some "early 70s funk bliss" jamming or something. I don't think I've ever heard such a "positive" Carini!!! Where is the darkness? At 11:30, Page senses us drifting into complacency again and introduces some more synths, leading to yet another section. Trey is "soloing along" with Page, the two going back and forth with repeated motifs and themes. This whole time, Fishman has kept the uptempo, driving rhythm going. This is like a psychedelic rock and roll machine or something.
By 12:30, Page busts out his "Styx" keyboards (as I'm going to call them) and he and Trey are still just in sync, motif-ing away to their hearts' content!!! But then around 13:20 Fishman starts "amping up" the beat and the jam begins ascending!!!!! We are achieving liftoff!!! Shuffle-laden drum fills, repeating guitar delay loops, and crazy synthesizers all enter the arena!!!!! After a definite "peak" around 14:10, things shift a bit darker, finally. Everyone is in sync once again, doing a cool rhythmic pattern, and the jam gets jungly! If you like your Trey with lots of FX, this is the jam for you!!! Spacey synthesizers, "honky" FX for Trey, Gordo laying it down thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.....
Then around 15:30 Trey decides to return to the light, opting out of his FX for some more upbeat funk jamming. Gordo is still keeping it down thick, but Trey is playing with plinko-esque delay patterns, meanwhile Page is trying to "solo along" with Trey. Very cool. A definite new "section". This jam is awesome so far!!! Very "organic" for the most part. Not so much in the way of "ripcording to the next theme" yet. Then at 17:17 Trey hits his "Soul Planet" delay and things get whacky!!! Vibrato infused darkness ensues. Brooding synthesizers bubbling up from underneath, dark enough to give you a panic attack!!!
My chest is feeling tight Page and Trey are STILL playing together and it's gloriously perfect. Fishman is rocksteady as ever, keeping the tempo but introducing a stop-start kind of feel to the rhythm. Open high-hat stuff. Etc. Around 19 minutes we are deep into the swampy murk. Trey begins another "ascending" motif. He tries to intoduce a more upbeat feel once more and Page echoes this by jumping onto the piano. Gordo was onto his weird FX as well for a few glorious seconds, but this was jettisoned in favor of the jam returning to more positive sounds.
By 20 minutes, this sounds straight out of a 2012 Light or something approaching the Camden 1999 Chalkdust - superblissful, upbeat, uptempo, reaching for the sky, Bird Song-style jamming. Etc. You know what I'm talking about. Freaking awesome moment at 21 minutes when Page hits the sustain pedal on the piano and the chords he is pounding out just HIT you in the face!
By 21:30 the band/Trey are peaking like a hot Chalkdust or something!!! Page and Trey hit upon a repeating pattern and play it out like this is a composed section! THIS IS FANTASTIC!!! THIS IS AWESOME!! MY CHEEKS ARE TINGLING!! THE HAIR ON MY NECK IS STANDING UP!!! IVE GOT GOOSEBUMPS ALL OVER!!!
Then at 22:20 Trey and Page solo the CRAP out this thing, literally shredding it up like it's a good Maze or something!! HOLY CRAP THIS IS THE PEAKIEST PEAK IVE EVER HEARD! THIS IS FREAKING AMAZING!!!! CARINI MY ASS!!! WHAT IS HAPPENNING! HOW DID WE GET HERE?!?!?!? IM LOSING MY MIND THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY AWESOME!!!!
Then at 23:30 Trey keeps shredding it up while the rest of the band are riding this wave of blissful insanity....But then he decides to hit some chords and sustain them out in a wonderful "fade out" moment around 24 minutes. And with that the band slowly drifts into ambience like we didn't just ascend to the peaks of Mt. Everest or something. Just another day at the office. Holy hell.

The first 15 minutes or so were highly enjoyable but not really "special", and then they switched into X Factor mode and just....they just friggin' went for it. Seriously, the last 5 or so minutes were some of the best Phish I've ever heard. Holy mother freaking hell....This MUST HEAR stuff. For real.

Holy crap....


>Martian Monster - An awesome segue into MM as Carini is fading out...I gotta say this works way better than you probably think it does!!! The mood set by Carini is the perfect launchpad for this to follow. Absolutely bonkers Fishman on this. "Yea...Yea...UGHUHGUGH!" samples abound. THIS IS A BLAST!!! Seriously, this is short, but this is absolutely terrific stuff. Holy crap this is AWESOME!!!

>Golden Age - I'm a little burnt out on Golden Age at the moment, but I do love the track and it IS usually a great time!!! Not sure how I feel about it coming out of Martian Monster like that, but it does kinda work in a "we've survived the adventure, let's return to reality and just dance and have a good time now" kind of way. Also, shoutouts to the perfectly placed "Yea" sample...That was so unexpected and perfect, I just about spit out the water I was sipping, lol. Can't believe Trey didn't crack up. Golden Age is very nice tonight. Noone's every gonna compare this to, what, Rosemont 2018, I think? But it's absolutely a highly enjoyable 11 minutes of Type I relief from the insanity before. Really awesome final few minutes where things start to go askew a little bit. Page is losing his mind on the piano and Trey is trying to play James Bond or something. It has the potential for Type II liftoff but instead they opt to fade us out into.....

>Mountains in the Mist - Slightly patchy in a "we haven't played this in a while" way, but not too bad once they get into the swing of it. It ends up being very nice. Very cool to get the trio of Farmhouse ballads tonight without having to "suffer" through the title track!!! I say that in jest This sucker gets gorgeous quickly. For lack of better comparison, this gets into "Stella Blue" territory. It's perfect. Just patient and measured and beautiful....sustained feedback notes followed by quick squiggles.....Wonderful....

>Blaze On - Yay....yanked back to reality with one of my least favorite songs ever....Killer Page piano shredding right at 1:45! I may hate this song, but dang it, ok, I admit the set placement was choice. Brought us out of our "emotions" and back to dancing our asses off. Builds to a red-hot head of steam, complete with tons of samples from Fishman. Freaking awesome rock and roll peaking on this one! RED HOT!

>Harry Hood - Great call! Holy hell listen to Gordo thicking it up. The crowd is going absolutely bananaz for this Hood! Absolutly GORGEOUS piano from Page from around 7 minutes. All in all, Hood is Hood. It's glorious, it's bombastically blissful, Trey holds a note for 10 minutes straight etc.....It's terrific.

Yarmouth Road - AWESOME! The encore song NOBODY wanted and NOBODY saw coming! Seriously, I'm sure the whole place was like, "wait, hold on, what?" Am I the only genuine fan of this song? Love it. Catchy chorus, love the wah bending motif from Trey, etc. One of my favorite Mike songs for sure. Great version on the whole, but what the hell made them decide to put this an encore?! Awesome wah-play from Trey, bass soloing from Mike and nice keyboard soloing from Page. Great stuff!!!!

Gumbo - PERFECT choice to follow Yarmouth Road! Both songs have the same kinda groove and vibe. Definitely birds of a feather, so to speak. Also, I'm not complaining, but when the hell was Gumbo ever an encore?!?!?? Great solo from Trey that is just delicately perfect. Page's piano sounds majestic as always. And of course Gordo is thumping it the hell up. Basically, Gumbo is Gumbo, but this one was great!!

Character Zero - See, The Wedge, Funky B, etc


All in all.....



Seriously though...wow! What a freaking MASSIVE step up from the already-pretty-good 7/28/21!!!!! Their wasn't ANYTHING approaching a "low" point, and the highlights were as big as they get. I'd say the 4.0 rating on .NET is pretty accurate, but I'd probably give it another point or two. This was a terrific Top-to-Bottom, FULL SHOW listen. Absolutely a killer gig!!!!