2021-08-04 Nashville, TN

 After an 8 day listening break (terrible week - sun poisoning recovery took FIVE days....) in which I've had no time to get down with the Phish, I return to 2021 with the next show.


8/4/21 Nashville, TN

Set 1

Evolve - First of 4 versions (to date). This is excellent! Trey's playing is really on point and the song sounds very well-rehearsed. Not my pick for show opener (too chill for my taste) but by the end of it, you can't help but smile and go "that was actually really nice!!!" Really, really excellent soloing throughout and I loved the whole band singing together by the end of it!

Free - A pretty chill-sounding Free is up next. The intro almost sounds like the studio version where it's pretty quiet and then erupts. Check out Gordo thumping it up. A+ on the sound mix tonight! At first this doesn't sound like a special version, but then the expected jam kicks in and the energy launches skywards about 10 notches. Trey tearing it up, Mike thumping it up, Page ripping up the piano....Nothing you haven't heard done better, but at the same time this was still an absolutely exceptional 10 minutes of Type I, balls-to-the-wall fury!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!! If you need a Trey fix, hit this one up!!!

"Thank you. We're so happy to be here, you have no idea." - Trey

Ocelot - THAT BASS!!!! Holy crap. Good golly Miss Molly this Ocelot is chiller than a cup of ice. Very nice, very smooth in the best way. This kitty cat is lazing on the beach sipping colored drinks, let's put it like that. Trey's solo starts very nicely around 4:30 with some Hendrix-sounding stuff going on. Single-coil sound to me. Around 4:45 the guys "stumble" together into a rhythm and the jam starts to spread its wings. This is absolutely wonderful - you can single out each member and just listen to them and get all kinds of enjoyment out of it. A surprisingly fantastic Ocelot!!!!

My Sweet One - Is MSO. Is great.

Cool Amber and Mercury - So much fun! Get us up and dancing! Perfectly fits the laid-buck-but-not-sleepy feeling of the set so far. Right at 3 minutes, Trey does some cool delay ascensions before hitting on his wah for a bit. He quickly ditches that for his normal clean lead tone again. The jam is Type I but you can feel intent building underneath. Fishman is slowly changing up the pattern in fun ways, everyone's playing is getting that "we are slowly stretching out" thing like the transition jam between a China>Rider or something. Basically, it's terrific Type I and the guys are milking it for all it's worth. Really awesome dance party!!!

Halfway to the Moon - Didn't see this was on the setlist and this was unexpected. I love this song but for some reason rarely find myself being excited when one comes on. Great intro on this one - really played very well!!! This is hands-down one of the best version I've heard! Check out Page's absolutely spectacular piano soloing. Holy mother of crap that dude knows what's up!!!! In all seriousness, HTTM often sounds underrehearsed (like, let's be honest, most Page/Mike songs), but this one sounds very practiced and is completely excellent. Trey is hesitant in his soloing, but on the whole this is seriously one ass-kicking HTTM!!!!!! DONT SLEEP ON THIS!!!

Water In the Sky - Awesome fun. Always a treat to hear. Page's keyboard solo is Tropic Island Paradise. Not much to say! It's terrific!

Theme From the Bottom - Mike signals it with his bass, then everyone else plays catch up. A really great version. Nothing you haven't heard elsewhere, but still a totally excellent Type I Theme. Basically it's like the Free was earlier in the set. You'll probably never seek this one out in particular, but good lord is this fantastic in the moment!!! A really, REALLY KICK ASS Theme!!!

Suzy Greenberg - Is Suzy. Kicks ass but Trey flubs lots of lyrics and at the end of the day, you've heard a million others as good or better. PLAY IT LEO, HOLY HELL

Fluffhead - Suzy felt like the natural set closer as usual, but, probably because we were only at 63 minutes, Trey decides, hey, why not a Fluff to send us out? Compositionally, the main portions of the song are as good as any recent renditions. It's not perfect, but it's damn close to it with nary an actual flub in sight!! Really great! For this point in 3.0, this is damn good. Fishman is MVP for me on this one - how the hell he holds this protracted masterpiece together during some of the more "zany" parts is just crazy. The outro jamming is terrific. Lasts several minutes and peaks like a mother. This has gotta be one of the best recent Fluffs out there. Just A+ all the way around and an absolute beast of a set closer. Great stuff!!



All in all..wow!!! Based on reviews, I was prepared for this to be a "sleepy" set! It was anything but! Hell, Ocelot was the sleepiest thing here and even that built to a rousing peak! Nothing here is less than excellent and the highlighted tracks are all worth at least one listen. If we are getting nitty-gritty, I'd say Ocelot, Cool Amber, Halfway to the Moon and Fluffhead are the real major hust-hears, but on the whole this set absolute delivers!!!! Also, it had really great flow as well! None of the songs felt out of place and they all seemed to go together in some way.

KILLER SET!
 

 

Set 2

Mr. Completely - A 20 minute version to kick open the set? YES PLEASE! Trey railroads into the main lick (woulda been "smoother" with a few more drum fills) but thankfully does it precisely, unlike the odd butcher job of the intro of the Charleston 2019 version. Good tempo from the get go, this one has a driving feel to it. The guys take several minutes at the start of the jam, tentatively deciding what they feel like doing. I'd say it begins somewhere around the 4 minute mark with Trey playing with delay chord stabs and Page accentuating him on bubbly synths. The jamming has a decidedly dark feeling about it. Around 6 minutes the robot guitar begins to make itself heard. Page starts swirling it up on the keys while Trey is honking it up with the robots. The jam is driving onwards in some kind of swirly mess....It's not exactly "cohesive" yet but at least the tempo is going. Around 7 minutes Fishman starts shaking up the rhythm while Trey continues to try to figure out what the heck he wants to do. But then at 7:35 we shift unexpectedly into Aquatic Synth Land. Out of nowhere! The jam immediately begins to lighten up. Trey almost finds his footing and begins to play with more ethereal effects - reverbs and delays. For several minutes, things get extremely nice and blissful. By 9:30 Trey is noodling it up melodically, and Page start inserting his 1999/2000 synth sirens at opportune moments. Right about 10 minutes, the boys seem to latch onto a melodic motif and start noodling around it together. Great stuff - the "mess" has finally subsided! This lasts awhile. Around 11 minutes, Fishman does something cool and introduces the Mr. Completely drum riff into the jam, keeping the whole thing chugging along with that cool rhythm underlining it all. Very cool. By 12:45 the jam takes a turn and the guys start doing the "let's build to a rock and roll peak" thing. Fishman lays off the drum riff finally and the band starts rocking onwards!!! Let's go! At 13:45 while the train is full steam ahead, Trey starts inserting his Soul Planet delay slashes, giving a cool vibe and keeping this from being overtly "standard". He continues onwards to play with his delay, even kicking on his Leslie, I think! Everyone is raging down the highway, with Trey noodling around on delay spectacularly. This is getting SUPER FUNKY AND AWESOME!!!! At 15 minutes, Gordo kicks on his FX, Page jumps onto the Clav (or whatever) and Trey is doing bubbly delay. THIS IS FREAKING AWESOME!!! At 15:50, with Trey's honky delays underlining Page's return to piano, the jam gets a little quieter. The tempo is still fast, but things have become more of a spastic funk freakout than anything resembling a rock and roll peak!!! At first I was getting ready to write this jam off, but this just keeps getting better by the minute!!! By 17 minutes this jam is a swirling, dark, murky, swampy mess of funky noise!!! Swirling delay repeats! Swirling delay repeats everywhere! The swamp subsides a bit at 17 minutes - Trey returns to his clean tone and Fishman takes the chance to perfectly reintroduces the Mr. Completely lick, though at a much cooler, more laid-back vibe! The tempo is up be he is playing it "quietly"!!!!! THIS IS FRICKING COOL!!!! By 19 minutes the jam is descending QUICKLY into dark space ambience, Trey's guitar ringing out and Page doing spacey synthscapes. Fishman tapping the cymbals....and then....

>Birds of a Feather - After a quick countoff by Trey, we launch into a perfectly placed BOAF. When the jam comes to erupt, we go somewhere else entirely and the guys begin it with a glorious whisper. Trey is noodling the F out of this in the best possible way. Latin vibes on this one, yo. And don't forget Page right behind him, swirling it up!!!! Dynamic is the word for this version! The guys keep this jam chill and swanky, eventually building to the raging peak you expect. A short and Type I BOAF all the way, but it does exactly what you want it to, and with aplomb.

>Ghost - "THEY ATTACK!" And into Ghost we go! Great thick reading of the song itself. As with BOAF, the jam immediately starts off in "quiet" mode. And it's glorious!!! Trey is playing with some tremolo effects or something before turning to the Leslie!!!! Tons of space in this version for Gordo to lay it down THICK! Trey is doing awesome, textural stuff with the Leslie, Page is doing textural chords on the keys, and this is Late Night Jazz Club Ghost Supreme. Seriously, this is as close to some chill 1.0 versions of Ghost as I've heard 3.0 do. This is really, really fantastic. SPACE!!! ROOM!!! BREATHE IT IN! Also, around 6 minutes, Fishman subtly starts doing a variation on the Mr. Completely riff again and keeps it going for a while!!! THIS JAM IS MOTHER EFFING INCREDIBLE!!! ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE BEST JAMS OF THE SUMMER SO FAR!!!! Organically dynamic and loose in the best way. Just get lost in the sound and let it wash over you....Relaxed like the album version but powerful like steam engine at the same time. At 8 minutes the guys latch onto a different drum pattern and we leave the funk behind. Trey starts trilling it up and we are headed for uptempo bliss peaking. At 10 minutes, with Page squiggling away on synth, Trey slowly reintroduces the Mr. Completely guitar lick for a bit before Fishman finds his place and fully reintroduces the drum pattern. But as soon as we re-enter Mr. Completely, Trey lays off the lick, leaving Fishman to fend for himself with the pattern. The jam abandons the bliss it was heading towards and starts reverting to darker kind of funkiness. The driving nature of Mr. Completely returns and I'd almost say you could call this a genuine Ghost>Mr. Completely Reprise or something. This is more than just teasing, come on now. By 11:45 Trey is honking it up and the jam just continues to kick ass. I cannot emphasize enough how much you need this jam in your life. It is mind-meltingly spectacular. I will take this over the Alpharetta Chalkdust or Tweezer. Every day of the damn year. By 12:45 Gordo has his FX on, Trey has his FX on...hell it's FX Land and the guys are jamming up that Mr. Completely reprise jam, haha.

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>Bathtub Gin - Until we get one of the weirdest and most spectacular ridiculous segues of all time into Bathtub Gin!!! I AM SHOCKED THEY PULLED THAT OFF SO SMOOTHLY. WHAT IN THE HELL!!!??? And during the instrumental portions during the verses, Fishman continually inserts the Mr. Completely drum riff and Trey goes nuts with robot noises. This is the wackiest "Gin From Outer Space Hell". It's absolutely must-hear for the zaniness!!!! Trey is trying to keep it together, trying to keep from laughing his ass off. This is glorious!! And holy hell the new guitar and synth effects do wonders to breathe new life into the Gin melodies!!! Seriously, this is amazing!!! And we haven't even reached the jam yet!!!! This is like something that would happen in a random 1.0 show and be talked about forever as the "Robo Gin" or something. The jam starts surprisingly ordinarily compared to the song. It's just wonderful. It starts with everyone reverting to their "normal" sounds - Trey noodling away, Page on piano, etc, but all the while Fishman refuses to let Mr. Completely die. Around 6 minutes the drums get a funkier kind of shuffle to them and Gordo really starts laying it down noticeably beneath Page and Trey's "dual" soloing. All clean tones and rock and roll blissfulness. All throughout, Fishman keeps things interesting by constantly changing his beats, filling it up every time he gets the chance, yet still keeping things perfectly grounded. Spectacular. By 7 minutes we are reaching the "Type I Gin" peak zone, but the guys decide instead to lay off the gas and let it stretch out some. Page starts swirling around on the piano keys, but Trey returns to his Leslie and the jam takes a turn to more spastic, tension-filled areas. Gordo has some distortion going on the bass, Fishman has amped up the intensity, and the jam is slowly building some major heat. Trey starts rip it up and before you know it this Gin has gone from a slow sizzle to a raging, roaring boil!!! The organic nature of the jamming is something to behold - no "ripcording" of sections tonight. Everything feels very natural in the best way. The guys are riding a wave, all together. The guys build it to a raging peak, then Trey slowly reintroduces the Gin theme, giving everyone time to adjust back into the song instead of just ripcording it. Super smooth outro! This Gin has been all over the map, but somehow never felt lacking in direction like Mr. Completely did at first. It was always going somewhere and it is freaking OUTSTANDING. This is every bit as must hear as the MUST-HEAR Ghost preceding it. Holy mother of.....my mouth is on the floor you guys.....
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>2001 - Great choice to launch into this out of Gin. Slower, more heavy tempo on this one. Let's funk it the hell up! Fun version, Page gets in on the quoting action, doing the Gin theme on synth. Then around 3:20, Page and Trey drop out, leaving just Gordo and Mike to lay it down thicker than 20 coatings of FlexSeal! Seriously, this has gotta be one of the funkiest, murkiest versions out there. Good lord. At 4:45 Trey starts playing with his delays, doing some cool cascading waterfall effects while Page is tearing it up over on the organ. I'm used to 2001 being very "one dimensional". I haven't heard such an actual "jammed" version in lord knows when. This is terrific!!!

>Split Open and Melt - And just like that we are now into Melt. Too tired to try to go note-for-note on this, but it does the deep-space-falling-through-the-abyss thing better and more cohesively than my wretched 2019 Charleston version could ever hope for. This jam is all dark tension. Building and building and building. Just darkness and ugliness. If you tried to dance to this, I'm sorry but you're an idiot, haha. This is all Trey playing with effects, the band just riding this darkly suspenseful crashing wave of noisy....well, noise. And it's glorious.

Character Zero - Is CZ. Is great.


All in all.....holy mother of what in the hell did I just listen to! Set 1 was great as I mentioned, and then set 2 came along and just BLEW IT OUT OF THE EFFING WATER!!!!!

THAT WAS THE BEST SET OF 2021 SO FAR. HANDS DOWN. PERIOD. END OF STORY. THAT WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST SETS OF PHISH THESE EARS HAVE EVER HEARD.

That Mr. Completely>BOAF>Ghost>Bathtub Gin>2001>Split Open is MUST HEAR MUST HEAR MUST HEAR MUST HEAR MUST HEAR MUST HEAR MUST HEAR!!!!!

GIVE ME THAT GHOST>GIN OVER ANYTHING ELSE PLAYED THIS SUMMER SO FAR. THE ALPHARETTA TWEEZER AND CDT CAN SUCK IT. THEY GOT NOTHING ON THIS PAIR TONIGHT. THIS WAS OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD INCREDIBLE.

Did I make myself clear?