2022-07-26 Wantagh, NY

 7 26 22 Wantagh

The jammed out Leaves show!

Set 1

A fantastic opening tonight with the double whammy of The Curtain>SANTOS. The Curtain is surprisingly well played - high energy, tightly executed. Its a wonderful version that will take you by surprise! So much energy!

And even though many will lament the lack of With in favor of SANTOS, it worked perfectly out of Curtain and kept the momentum going big time. Raging hot, its a burner.

The first must-hear of the night comes with a nearly 10 minute STFTFP. The song is hot, but it quickly deviates completely, spending most of its time in magical, soaring kind of melodic bliss rock. X Factor all over this sucker. I would call this going Type 2 - it definitely hits a point where you would have no clue this was Stealing Time if you didn't hear it from the start.

Holy crap this show is killing so far!

The fun continues with a perfectly executed slide out of the jam and into NICU. Hell yea! NICU is really excellent. Terrific high energy version!

After a stunning Roggae we get a perfect Pebbles and Marbles. Definitely practiced, its about as good as a type 1 Pebble could ever be in 2022.

Following that, we get a dang 14 minute Gin. Gin is terrific, total X Factor. It goes type 2 quickly and shift through several different sections. Definitely must hear, this is SICK!

Even sicker is the Maze that follows! Not much to say, its a 10/10 rager that just goes nuclear. Definitely not typical 2022 fare! I would call this must hear!!

The set concludes with, again, an excellent Coil. Tight and passionate abd and just killer.

All in all, WHERE DID THIS SET COME FROM?! WHERE HAS THIS PHISH BEEN ALL YEAR?!?! This is easily the best first set of the summer so far by a wide margin, imo. Nothing is less than base level excellent. Maze, Gin and STFTFP are all must hear and the rest is all excellent!

An absolute stunner of a first set!!! 

Set 2

The 2nd half opens with the double whammy of a 16 minute type 2 INNYLTB into a 17 minute type 2 Leaves.

INNYLTB rocks hard but the jam, despite trying very hard, just isnt very good at all. It never reaches proper liftoff and Trey sounds lost for what to do for much of it. Bummer.

Leaves, however, is one of the greatest jams ever played in the history of Phish. Holy mother X Factor MAGIC!!!! All timer for any era alert!!!! Imagine if Phil Spector produced a jam for Phish. This is a ridiculous magical wall of sound psychedelic explosion of a jam featuring several distinct sections and nothing but utter magic from start to finish. My god. No, seriously, this is 8/6/21 Simple level or better. JOTY right here. Close up shop.

Everythings Right is good and starts to jam darkly but then Trey segues them out into Mango instead. Disappointing, but I cant be mad about getting Mango!

Mango sounds great. Not much to say. From here, the rest of the set is a string of excellent type 1 readings - MEAP and Chalkdust are both GREAT readings and Julius gets the job done.

A must hear Hood for the encore. Its tight, energetic and gets stretched good, going type 2 for a minute or two. Genuinely terrific version.

All in all, set 2 floundered a little once they laid down Leaves. It really needed, like, one more good improv to really push it over the edge. As it is, everything was strong, but it feels more like a first set than a 2nd, and that is the main flaw.

That being said, most of the actual music played was very strong across the board, so this is all nitpicking.

Grab Hood and Leaves and check out Chalkdust!!!

Awesome show overall!