Been 2 weeks since I paused my "no hurry" 1999 listen through. Resuming this morning on my neighborhood walk, lol
Up next was....
7/8/99 Virginia Beach
Odd - on the truck stereo this sounded pretty sub par but
listening through high-end in-ear earbuds it sounds TERRIFIC!!!
Strange!!!!
Anywho, set 1 gets off to a nice start with a standard hot Julius. Total fire as expected. Awesome.
Out of friggin nowhere, we get probably the first true "What in the love of God is even happenning?!?!?" moment of the tour when they follow Julius with....a nearly 22 minute gosh darn version of FEE. Not Free - FEE!!??!?!
!?!?!???!?!?!?
Fee itself sounds excellent coming out of Julius. Smooth transition and great set flow with that!
---The fun begins at the 5.5 minute mark when the song winds down into a
beautiful, kind of swirling piano outro, accented with Trey doing this
repeating motif over and over....
----This is absolutely gorgeous!!! This is like the aural equivalent of the sun peeking through the clouds after a rain storm or something....
---This initial phase persists all the way to the 9 minute mark,
whereupon the jam begins to increase in rhythm and intensity, slowly and
perfectly. What the absolute hell is going on. This is incredible!!!!!
---Over the next couple of minutes they slowly build the
jam ever skywards, quickly approximating something akin to a more
low-key version of "that" section of the Camden '99 Chalkdust!!!
---At the 12 minute mark Trey hits the pitch shifter and we ascend fully into the clouds!!! We
are soaring through the skies!! Twisting and turning and flying with
the birdies!!! This is incredible!!! X FACTOR MAGIC, BABY!!!! LETS
FRIGGIN GO!!!!!
-HOLY CRAP THIS IS ONE OF THE SICKEST THINGS IVE EVER HEARD!!!!!!!
---Sometime around the 17 minute mark the heatseeking
missile jam slowly begins to turn into a more ambient kind of beast.
Fishman keeping the rhythm super fast still, but everyone else is slowly
turning this into some kind of ridiculous, swirling, vortex of
psychedelic ridiculousness!!!!
-WHAT ON GODS GREEN EARTH IS GOING ON THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND!
--Around 20 minutes, 20 light years deep into outer space, the maelstrom
FINALLY reaches a sort of conclusion point. Fishman slows down to a
lower tempo kind of jungle beat and they end the jam unceremoniously at
the 21:30 mark......
The Virginia Beach "Fee", Ladies and Gentlemen.....
After an "Ok, thank you..." from Page (as if they didnt just take us to Neptune and back...), they launch into Guyuute! And
holy mother again...this Guyuute is FLAWLESS!!! Played at warpseed and
with extra mustard, there isnt a hint of flubbage from anybody. This is
Dream Theater-level execution on this one tonight. Holy CRAP!
A top tier Dirt is our first cool down of the night. Again, extra
mustard all over this one with everyone laying perfectly into their
fills and the dynamics of the piece. This sucker is delicate and its an absolute joy to behold. Honestly one of the best live versions Ive heard. Wow.....
A shockingly gorgeous Nellie Kane isnup next. Seriously, this one is actually must hear, imo. Its very nicely laid back and Page SHREDS so perfectly... totally unexpected!
The penultimate song of this nearly perfect set is a 14 minute Stash.
Considering the perfection of that Guyuute, its very surprising that
Trey is having very sticky fingers with Stash instead. Yucky, this sounds like 2019 Trey! Thankfully the jam more than redeems any flaws in the playing! When
I say this version goes dark, I mean.....it goes DARK!!! I mean, this
is basically what getting sucked into a black hole would sound like, Id
imagine (actually, itd likely be silent but you get my drift!).
Absolutely incredible jam once again and another true must hear piece of music. Wow...Evil Phish at its finest....
Set 1 closes unceremoniously with a fine Cavern. 
All in all, this set is absolutely RIDICULOUS!!! Honest to god, it
is almost flawless aside from the start of Stash. The X Factor Fee, the
all-timer Guyuute, Dirt and Nellie both being legitimately wond, that
black hole Stash .... Is this show regarded highly?? Because this is
just the first set and I cant imagine the 2nd will top it.
Also worth noting, that vague "drunkenness" or whatever that was going
on with the Charlotte gig ain't present tonight, so thats a huge plus!
Jeez......Phish 1.0, amirite???
Set 2
Set 2 begins with a fantastic 19 minute Birds of a Feather. The 7/23/99
Columbus rendition is my go-to, so I'm all about some '99 Birds! The
song has barely even entered the "type 1" portion of proceedings when
already, around the 4:45 mark, hints of "drifting" begin to appear. In other words, they are announcing they are subtly letting us know they will be taking it for a ride.
---Around the 6 minute mark, Trey and Mike begin to play more "in sync"
with each other in a more rhythmic kind of fashion. Around 7:30, just as
it sounds like they are going to drift off into the sky, Trey finally
manages to begin to solo properly for the first time since the song
began. Very interesting how he "delayed" his initial round of soloing
and instead focused on building the jam together with the boys. Great
stuff!
---Sometime around the 10 minute mark, Trey's soloing starts to go
mightily askew. He begins playing with feedback squeals and the whole
jam (still rocketing at 90mph, thank you) starts to get that crazy kind
of "falling apart" vibe going on. Gordo and Page soon link up with Trey
on a repeating back-and-forth motif (you'll know it when you hear it)
and the jam starts to move into another area slowly....
---By the 12 minute mark the jam begins to quickly quiet down bit by
bit. Fishman is still going nuts, but everyone else is playing as
quietly and delicately as possible. This is pretty disjointed! 
If only we could anticipate the ridiculousness about to hit us!!!
--- Trey very soon starts to play the "If I Only Had a Brain" melody
from the Wizard of Oz. He full on lays into it, playing it over and over
and over again, FOR OVER 5 FRIGGIN MINUTES, until even
Fishman gets in on the vocal action.... It's incredibly odd - the jam
basically proceeds to "deconstruct" istelf to the tune of "If I Only Had
a Brain" and ultimate concludes at the 19 minute mark....
Ok, all that being said, that was obviously must hear for the
strangeness factor. I wasn't blown away musically like I hoped I would
be though - honestly, that jam wasn't a patch on anything in the first
set and kinda just sounded like Trey got high during set break and
decided to play around, lol.
Your mileage may vary. Very fun but if I'm judging it's musical
"greatness"?.....Yea, it's cool but not really anything mindblowing.
So with that being said, the Wizard Of Oz comes to a close and Trey leads us perfectly into Caspian. This one DRAGS big time like they trying to haul a log up a hill while fighting sleep. Good lord, boys! What happenned?! Wake up! Thankfully
they lean into this excellently and Caspian has a wonderful outro solo
with a bluesy tinge to it. This Caspian is 10 minutes, but somehow
doesn't feel like it despite the tempo and feel. Just accept the vibe and sink down into it!
The bluesy outro solo of Caspian leads them to segue perfectly into a giant 12 minute Jesus Just Left Chicago! This sucker is MUST HEAR! Trey
absolutely goes OFF!!! This is pretty much one massive guitar solo
shredfest. Not much to say, it speaks for itself. Absolutely spectacular
version!!!!!
The oddball set choices continue when the show moves onwards with Saw It
Again. Not much to say at all, it stays type 1, doing it's gnarly,
destructive thing, Trey just melting faces and the whole thing coming
crashing down etc etc etc. Good stuff.
A very rare performance of Sleep gives us a nice cooldown afterwards. It
honestly fits very well with the vibe of this set and the flow into
felt great to me! Sounds good!
Up next is Meatstick. Hey, if we are just gonna throw caution to the wind with these song selections, why not Meatstick, eh? Trey
does his usual Summer '99 "Meatstick Dance Public Service Announcement"
as usual. Solid jamming, perfectly enjoyable, but nothing to freak out
about either.
This "perfectly-enjoyable-but-is-it-really-going-anywhere??" set picks up some WELL needed steam with it's final two numbers:
Tube is pretty solid with nicely slick jam, running about 6 and a half
minutes. Right away the jam dives into that "late-night" 1999-style of
playing. Trey sets his whale-siren looper and that sound appears.
Heck yes. Slowly and patiently they work their way through this thick
groovefest. Gordo and Fishman keeping that beat on LOCK while Trey
layers his vibrato notes atop. Just awesome. Unfortunately this is as
deep as they take it and around 5 minutes in, Trey begins vamping,
returning the song to the bluesy B section and out to finish. Up against the clock or something? That sucks! They were GOING FOR IT and then just "nah, no more jam". Bummer!
The set proper concludes with a very nice Simple. Very odd choice for
closer but it fits the "we don't know what to play" vibe of the set so,
hey, why not! The song proceeds beautifully as usual until around the 8
minute mark everybody slowly leaves the stage one by one until Page is
left alone by himself to play out the show as if this was a Squirming
Coil closer!!!!! Wonderful!!! 
The encore consists of the injoke of Terrapin (because they played
Terrapin Station HAHAHA at the 1998 show) with Character Zero to close.
All in all, this was certainly a highly enjoyable show. I one
hundred percent enjoyed the first set more in almost every way, but it's
not like set 2 was bad or anything, it just seemed to struggle to get
it together at times. The song placements/selections felt "grasping at
straws" and the jamming felt underwhelming, though still enjoyable. It's
as if.....let's say the second set felt enjoyable but a tad
undercooked. Whereas set 1 honestly felt like damn near perfection from
start to finish. That might have been the best set of the summer so
far!!!!
A very good show, definitely in the upper-tier of the 6 I've played so far!
Probably an underrated show on the whole. Obviously Fee, Stash, Birds
and that JJLC are all must hear. But seriously, that first set was just
PERFECT!
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