2025-07-13 North Charleston, SC (I was SUPPOSED to be there! :( )

 7 13 25 Charleston

Set 1

A nice Jim opener. Woulda been my 2nd....if only. Solid enough. Incredibly unincredible, it does its job but that's about it.

Like its 1994, they move right into Foam. Heck yes! Foam is absolutely killer. They nail the sucker, its loaded with energy and it just plain kills. I don't understand all these people I see online saying foam hasn't been good in recent years. That is some grade A b.s. They've obviously practiced the crap out of it in recent times and this is another perfect example of it. Honestly? Im gonna maybe call this must hear!

And into a 15 minute Wolfman we continue. And this version is a FIREBALL!!! Extra thumpin from the get go, it actually spends most of its time in a vampy kind of full band jam. Very little actual quote unquote soloing, if you will. It gets kind of chill for a while which is pretty cool, and then slowly builds to a nuclear bomb finale. Is it unique? Not really? Is it must hear? Probably not, but it's definitely worth mentioning and deserve some recognition. Awesome version.

Up next is....Thread!!!! Oh and its a KILLER version! Tight and rehearsed, this mega rarity finally jumps out there with a jammed out 11 minute reading. It bas spends most of its time in a Melt-esque robo deconstruction kind of psych jam. Or whatever. Definitely must hear!!!

Even better , if you can believe that, is Stash! An 11 minute type 1 reading, the song is tight, but EXTREMELY POWERFUL!!! This is a Kaiju power, Godzilla stomp reading with the most explosive nuclear bomb finale section I may have ever heard from this song. Absolutely nuclear. And it just goes on and on and on and on in the best way. MUST HEAR! Some definite X Factor on this bad boy!!!

Following a fine 555, the rarities continue with a lengthy and expectedly explosive version of Walk Away. Hell freaking yes, lets friggin go!!!! Its WA. It rips. Its rare. Im calling it must hear.

This ass kicking set concludes with perennial favorite Drift. Theres a reason this closes sets, as much as folks hate to admit it - its a killer climax for a set, much like a good Hood (of course not in the same realm, haha). This version is energetic, but kinda rusty in spots from Trey, but not too bad. The reggae section is extra relaxed but not dragging. Very nice stuff! From here, it proceeds to deliver a really excellent peak finale ala a good Hood. It's not must hear but it's definitely excellent. Great ending to the set!


All in all, this set kicked total butt!!! Id say Foam, Thread, Stash and Walk Away are all must hear, with a shoutout to Wolfman and that KILLER Drift finale!. There isnt THAT much to say - it was just a really great first set on the whole

THAT STASH!

Killer set overall even if not 100 percent perfect (ignore my ridiculous nitpicking). Total energy throughout, strong song selection, placement and playing. Wonderful! UGH WHY DID I HAVE TO MISS THIS - I HAD FLOORS FOR IT!!!!!!!

 

Set 2

Opening proceedings, we get a 17 minute Set Your Soul Free! Man, another song I was dying to hear since my first. Unfortunately it ends up being a big nothing burger of a jam...its very disconnected, with everybody unsure what diection to go and nobody taking any lead. It begins with a LONG sectíon of this low key kinda vibe with nothing really happening. Forever. After a long time, Trey has enough and kicks on the robo wah for a brief minute or two up some funky action. Unfortunately it's not to be and they go for broke and do the tried and true raging finale peak instead. It's not very long but it's pretty decent enough but unfortunately Trey ruins it with a clumsy ripcord back into the song proper to close. Yea, I dont like this jam. At all. Nuff said. YMMV.

Realizing his errors, Trey decides to remedy things by launching us into a massive 30 minute Tweezer. The initial round of Tweezer funk jamming is unfortunately pretty uninspired and bland. Man, what is going on?! Thank God, at the 10 minute mark, things deviate finally. The jam turns into a different kind of bliss mode, but they slow the tempo down and it acquires a hefty weight about it. Soon The the synths come out and a heavy, majestic, ethereal soundscape flows forth. Now that's what I'm talking about! Around 12 minutes, they flow into a KILLER slow burn peak section. Trey is just SOARING like a bird into the sky! Absolutely spectacular!!! Somewhere around 14 minutes, the peakage subsides and is replaced with this really cool and nasty kind of hard rocking shuffle groove. It almost sounds like they are trying to set up for Izabella or something!!! THIS IS FREAKING AWESOME!! BRING ON THE X FACTOR!!! Riding this all the way to the 17 minute mark, at that point Trey steps on the wah pedal and its ON! (As if it already hadn't been!). Until the 21 minute mark, the boys gloriously spend 4 minutes laying it on thick just melting our faces like it's 1997 or something. X FACTOR FLOW STATE SUPREME. Finally at the 21 minute mark, it begins to shift again. Tray kicks on some Loopers and it starts to get a little bit more psychedelic and blissful. They ride this new robo bliss until the 23 minute mark. At that point they freaking floor it and it's off to the races with a nuclear bomb peak explosion section that is absolutely ridiculous, that includes Trey setting a loop of one of his held notes so it sounds like his sustain is never-ending. Around the 25 minute mark, that finally subsides. They spend the next 5 minutes or so, teasing in and out of the Tweezer theme/jam, assaulting us with terrific robo funk rocking. Eventually it reaches a point where robo Loopers start to appear once more. And just like that, they deliver the ever more increasingly rare (by modern Phish standards) GENUINE SEGUE!!!

This time into an 11 minute Ghost! My God, that segue was LEGIT! Ghost is killer, actually jamming for a change instead of being stuck in type 1 rock mode. IMMEDIATELY, the jam begins with them diving into this really cool laid back groove zone. Kinda hazy. They explore this nicely before they ramp the energy up. Once cookin again, Trey leads them into a full blown Set Your Soul Free jam that they ride for a good while. Holy mother of x Factor this is freaking awesome! Eventually this section morphs into the expected peak raging once more. 2023 style, they FLOOR the sucker! Off to the races AGAIN! Another must hear!!

Just when you think that was the conclusion to the set, they keep it going even harder with the ridiculous 16 minute Golden Age. GA is AWESOME!! Very unique in my opinion. It never really gets strange, but it definitely goes type 2. The majority of the jam is spent in this really really cool area where everybody is synced up doing nothing but motif jamming forever and ever. You get a motif! And you get a motif! Everybody gets themselves a motif!!! It's incredibly rhythmic and drumcentric. It is AWESOME! Honestly, you could almost call this Golden Age downright jazzy in a way! At a certain point, as with Ghost, they floor it once more. Like the one in Tweezer, this finale is just incredible. It's like a Catholic Mass - its stillllllll going on!! GOOD LORD SOMEBODY CALL AN AMBULANCE FOR ALL THE WASTE THEY HAVE LAIN UPON THE SOULS OF NORTH CHARLESTON COLISEUM!!!

The set concludes on a pretty good note, with the ballad duo of Life followed by Slave. A Life is pretty average for the most part, unfortunately not turning in a particularly great reading. Until that is the finale, where once again they absolutely just shred us to pieces.

The Slave that finishes the set is an absolute monster. Just crushing, they take their time building it just razing everything in sight. Sick.

Even sicker is one of the best encores of the year, with Meatstick, Turtle and Tweeprize finishing us out. Boy, that sure blows my 7/11 encore outta the damn water!!!

All in all, this was a pretty exceptional show for the most part. When it was clicking, which was more often than not, it was just out of this freaking world. The Tweezer>Ghost and Golden Age are up there with the best material of the summer played so far. Obviously if you take anything from the show it has to be those three pieces.

I'd say the 4.3 rating it has on .NET is pretty accurate. If there was a little more cohesion to some songs like Wolfman or that do-nothing SYSF, Id rate it even higher. The main jams were super inspired and this show was an overkill exercise in peak hose explosions, good lord.

Going out on a high note....