Onward to 12/4/19 Pittsburgh
ON PAPER, this looks like a "weak" show, so Im feeling trepidatious about this one, lol
Set 1 begins, shockingly, with 555!!! And its a GREAT one!! Excellent all around , they tear it up! Great start
After a solidly excellent Bag, we get a MUST HEAR Cars, Trucks, Buses.
Trey rips this one a new one and its molten hot if you can believe it!
Oddly enough, Water In The Sky follows that perfectly, offering the perfect cooldown. Terrific!
Sample In a Jar is pretty must hear tonight. As with CTB, Trey goes all
scorched earth and just razes the building. Holy moly this version
SMOKES!
Theme is decent but a definite letdown after that Sample. Good as ever but not particularly great.
Thankfully, the next THREE songs turn in must hear versions!! Funky B is
even hotter than normal, with extended organ soloing and Trey soloing
that seems to last thrice as long and as hot as usual. Spectacular Funky
B!!
Then, Wolfman turns in a low key funk jam that slowly morphs into a
stupendous kind of "hose bliss" finale, not unlike the KDF from 12/3.
Pretty sick.
And finally Halleys Comet gives is an all too short uptempo funk jam
that is just killer. Unfortunately its completely ripcorded by Trey into
Circus, which, pretty much kills the set in its tracks, good version or
not.
UGH! SHAME ON YOU TREY!
The set comes to a good close with the debut of Mike song Victim. Not amazing, but Id welcome another version!
Antelope is solid.
All in all, a very good set that is better than it looks. 555,
CTB, Wolfman and probably Funky B are what you need. This is definitely a
"lesser" feeling set but its still totally enjoyable while its playing.
Hard to explain. The energy is HIGH and Trey is just blazing tonight -
that helps a LOT!
Kinda weird though - just has a "less than" vibe despite the high
quality of the playing. Hard to describe. Feels like a 2011 first set 8
years out of place or something.
Set 2
Set 2 begins old school with a freshly placed Cavern. A terrific 14
minute Runaway Jim takes things to another level - the jam immediately
descends into a darkly aquatic kind zone. Think uptempo No Quarter, if
you will. Trey doing Leslie vamping over Pages watery keys. Fantastic.
Very quickly, the whole band sync up in a SICK moment of full-band
rhythmic syncopation, moving into strange rhythm and out again like
clockwork! Wow!!!
Then Trey takes the lead with a nice melodic lead atop Pages watery
keys. The darkness begins to lift and the bliss signals its arrival.
Very quickly, Page and Trey lock in togethe into a swirling mess of
glorious sunshine.
Trey then hits the Leslie once more and the jam shifts again, though
still remaining in that blissful area. The crowd roars (apparently for a
large banner saying 'CL1T', lol).
The roaring crowd eggs them on and Page dives into his dark synths,
Gordo bumping along heavily on the bass, Trey soloing melodically. With
Page doing ambient synth sustains, Trey follows suit and we enter the
strange ether!!
FULL BLOWN TYPE 2, BABY!
Quickly, Trey starts vamping once more and Fishman begins playing around
while Page noodles with the synths, are dark and creepy-like.
And the jam comes to a close....
Wow! How about that?! That was pretty sick! Not sure if that tops
the insane Charlotte version from the summer, but its in the same
wheelhouse! They took it for a RIDE!!!!
....and Jim ends in a wash of dark ambience, slowly fading, perfectly, into the Phish debut of Ghosts of the Forest!
THAT SEGUE WAS FRIGGIN PHENOMENAL!!!!! The setup with the dark mood of
the jam winding down and the slow build into the intro of the song -
segues dont get any more perfect than that!
And Ghosts sounds great!!! Not sure if I want it in the Phish
repertoire, but this sounds tightly played and well rehearsed, Trey
gives great soloing.... definitely not shakey or sloppy!! I could see
jam potential - maybe this deserved at least a COUPLE more airings with
Phish, no? It was a SPECTACULAR "landing pad" out of that Jim!!!!!!
Keeping the dark mood going perfectly, thry end Ghosts and launch right
into ASIHTOS!!!! Talk about maintaining a mood! This one is short -
barely 7 minutes - but covers a lot of ground. Excellent playing in the
song itself, they lay into hard, Trey especially taking his time
building his solos. Soon it moves into some almost-bliss before diving
back down into some murky dark-funk. Excellent stuff. Just as quickly,
they revert back, seamlessly I might add, to the chirpy, upbeat bliss
with a nice peak section to round it out.
Good lord they know how to navigate a piece of music!
Trey leads them out with some nicely placed strums of Prince Caspian and
the guys make the transition smoothe than you might expect. Good stuff.
And Caspian DESTROYS!!! Exceptional! Must hear!!!!
Following that killer Caspian we get a terrific Fuego - song portion is
standard, but we get a really, really great 3 or 4 minutes on the end of
super dark type 2 strangeness. Must hear!!! Killer jam!!!!
An excellent YEM and GTBT close the set before a fun encore of HYHU>Terrapin and Julius sends us home
So set one was enjoyably good but felt a little lacking. Set 2 was
strong from the first note to the last with a very dark feel permeating
much of it, very much like set 2 of 12/29/23!!!
Jim through Fuego is all must hear. An excellent set with excellent
jams. I feel this one is likely underrated/forgotten about. Go revisit
it - its a great set!!!!
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