FINALLY finishing up summer tour with the immediately legendary SPAC3...
7 27 25 Saratoga
Set 1
Always a great sign to get a Buried Alive opener! Aside from the
atrocious sound mix, it's the perfect high energy opener we love and
expect.
Immediately subverting all possible expectations of the universe, they
do that Phishy kind of thing not only Phish does, and they launch into
Twee....prise?? And its 13 minutes?!?! What in the love of x Factor magic! Obviously
you must hear jam, this will take you by surprise like someone smashed
me across the face unexpectedly. Again, 13 minutes, the jam going "as
expected" until about the 7-minute mark. There it shifts into the
eventually expected major key Bliss Rock. Eventually at 10 minutes or so
it shifts back into the first section of the jam slowly getting
stranger and wackier winding itself up into a robotic type 2 meltdown.. dude.....
And straight into Reba! 
And that was a genuine segue as well. Very cool! And its an excellent one! Technically it's tight and FLAWLESS. Seriously,
they effing NAIL it!! The insanity continues when, during the slow
build to a peak during the solo, Trey begins heavily teasing the
ascending Tweeprise riff! They catch on and shift back into a full blown
Tweeprise jam once more!!
Tweeprise>Reba>Tweeprise - how 'bout them apples, eh?
Tweeprise gets nice and filthy again for several minutes before shifting
on a dime once again, this time into a burning Funky B. Probably must
hear, this is just pure fire, even by Funky B standards.
As if all that wasnt enough, up next is a 17 minute Roses are Free!!!!! What in the love of what the hell is happenning?!?! Longest since....Big Cypress??!! Up
tempo and high energy, the jam immediately goes type 2 around 4:30. The
band shift into this stomping kind of shuffle beat (not sure what else
to call it) with Trey and Page playing melodically on top. Around 8
minutes it returns to a more standard groove, with the mood getting very
laid back, but still truckin right along. Slowly becoming a more
atmospheric and slightly darker groove, synths and loopers begin to
subtly make their entrances. They are building this sloooowwwww and
sssstteeeaaadddyyty. This is so dang sick. This feel like a late
90s 1.0 jam where they are just sunk into the music, letting
floooooowwwww patiently and organically. By 11:30, the energy
has ramped up significantly. Trey jumps on the wah and proceeds to solo
it up nicely above the funky groove machine beneath.
Around 13 minutes, Trey is properly beginning so slowly set up the peak
conclusion. After a good while everybody syncs up on this little
rhythmic motif. The jam is slamming on like a steamroller and builds to
the expected energetic finale, finishing with ANOTHER Tweeprise!!!!!! Holy
moly what is this set?!? That was awesome! It wasnt jam of the year,
but it was proper type 2, totally in the zone, flowing and connected as
hell....killer....must hear!!!!
Without a single second to catch their breath, its straight into a disgustingly filthy 46
Days!!! Absolute chaos, its extremely heavy on the down and dirty. Out
of nowhere around 4:30 they shift into a soaring round of powerfully
majest bliss rocking, sounding straight out of Prince Caspian or
something. Dang!!! After about a minute, like a sledgehammer to the face, it
smoothly morphs straight back into the filth. Must hear, X Factor all
over this sucker. This show just keeps getting better, holy cow!!! And then of course we get the most screaming from the skyz hose annihilation explosion to finish.....damn...
The third to final song of the set is an absolutely bonkers About
to Run. Always a burner, this is a rare next-level face melter that
will make you sit up and take notice. If there aren't so many other
highlights of the I would say it's must hear for sure!
The set ends with a 13 min Melt intow, what else, Tweeprise. 
As with everything else this set, Melt is absolutely insane and one of
the most wackily destructive readings since the universe bending 7/28/23
rendition. Holy moly for real though, that Melt!!! It's not the typical slow robo
deconstruction meltdown that most modern versions feature. Instead, it's
something entirely unique. Very slowly it morphs into this extremely
hazy and dark psychedelic kind of cloud. Just this explosive dark haze. Was Page using a freaking chanting monk chorus vocal sample throughout?!??? Dude
...
Eventually it's slowly begins to reach its conclusion and instead of
finishing the song they launched back into Tweepris once again to send
us out....
I cannot say enough good things about this Melt. Definitely add this to the true all timer renditions list. Seriously
And of course we get Tweeprise to close
Man, throw every other set of the year out the window. That was
the first set of the Year possibly the decade. What in the love of x
Factor magic did they do. Honestly probably the best first set since
Chula Vista 21. Literally pretty much the entire thing is must hear. Just one big round of endless Insanity after another.
The Reba sandwich, 46 Days, Melt and Roses are among the finest pieces
of music laid down this year. Of course we know how set to plays out but
if this were any other show I'd be going how in the hell can they
possibly top this.
Set 2
The second half of the show begins with a giant 17 minute Kill Devil
Falls. Unfortunately, though others mileage may vary, I didn't think
this was a particularly great version. The song itself sounding kind of
ragged, and the jam was pretty unrewarding overall. Aside from a
terrifically strong peak, the majority of it is spent in meandering
bliss zone. Others will call it soundscaping but I will call it boring
and uneventful. Eh.
Thankfully the sonic torture comes to an end with a move into a 14
minute Twist. Right away it's apparent that the x Factor is back.
There's all kinds of extra and spirit in this version. Fishman is just
going nuts with all kinds of different accents and fills. It briefly
dives deep for a quick moment getting dark and bubbly before moving back
into the light. Ultimately, well it turns out to be one of the most
"typical type 1" readings in a while, I'd say it's still ends up being
must hear. It's an a++ reading, with explosive energy, taken out of
ferry up-tempo rock and roll clip just exploding with energy. This one
is like a 20 ton bomb. Fantastic. Must hear!
The craziness from set one finally resumes with Golden Age>23 minute Tweeprise. ?!?!?! (Is it actually or is it really just a Golden Age jam...you be the judge).
Either way, Tweeprise begins with extreme, hard funking like it's 1997.
As expected in oh so absolutely glorious. It rages the fiery power funk
until around 7 minutes, (IIRC, typing this an hour later), rocking hard
and powerful, moving out if the funk. After a splendid peak section
around 10 or 11 minutes. The jam shifts into a really cool kind of
ethereal bliss rock... something. Dont know what you would call it.
Extremely cool. Slowly getting more and more powerful, they ride this to
the 15 minute mark. In one of those magical "blink and youll miss it"
moments, in 1 second, outta nowhere, the jam DROPS into heavy darkness!
They spend the next 4 minutes in the black hole, exploring the same
territory as the Mex25 20 Years Later and Mex24 Chalkdust. Pure,
unadulterated, dark annihilation supreme. Trey absolutely melting faces
like it's the 1997 Tweezerbella again. Holy moly Christ on a cracker.
Get it!!! Suddenly, and completely organically, at the 19 minute
mark, Trey starts to slowly slide in the Tweeprise riff AGAIN, as if
hes slowly trolling us, lol. You KNOW he had to be greening like an idiot when he was doing that, haha. Classic Trey. From
here until the jam's conclusion at the 23 minute mark, they ramp it up
hotter and hotter and just explode this finale section in the way you
expect. Absolutely glorious.
And then in another ridiculous moment nobody saw, they shift supremely
smoothly into Boogie On outta nowhere! Actually you can hear them
setting it up but it sounds more like they are going to return to Golden
Age, so I was pretty shocked when they went to something else. And of
course you have to include this as part of the prior jam because it
flows straight into its seamlessly. An absolute scorching ripper as
expected full of the extra x Factor that has invaded this glorious show.
My God man what the hell is going on tonight this is mind
blowing!! Now that being said I do have one extreme nitpick with that
jam - it felt like a 35 minute multibeast compressed into 23. You got a
bit of a taste of pretty much every style of Phish, but it felt like as
soon as you were settling into the new zone they had reached they were
all of a sudden moving back out again into something else. But I mean
hell if that's my complaint that's the dumbest most nitpicky complaint
in history of the universe so just ignore me.
How better to follow all that then with YEM!! 17 minutes, so rather on
the short side, but, as with Reba, its played flawlessly and oh so
tight. Not must hear, but in the context of the show it definitely
crushes big time!!!
Following the vocal jam, they shift back into a brief bluesy bit before ANOTHER 4 minute Tweeprise to close the set. talk about a perfect set conclusion holy hell.
And of course in a show where they didn't play Tweezer, but instead
played the reprise the entire night, how is else can you end the show
and tour but with an actual version of the song itself, lol. 
Probably the shortest proper Tweezer since.....when? Good stuff and
pretty funny. And then of course Hood is the magical capper on one of
the strongest tours in the entirety of modern Phish.
Great Hood. Definitely above average but I wouldn't call it the best of
the year. Definitely gets the emotions running high though, and that's
all it needs to do!
All in all, this show absolutely lives up to the extreme hype!!
Chula Vista 2021 is always my benchmark for show quality to beat. I
definitely think this is at least on par if not stronger than that show.
This show is absolutely ridiculous, obviously.
What is there to say that hasn't already been said? How can you
accurately critique perfection? I mean you can try but it's kind of
pointless, haha. I will say that I think set one was stronger overall,
but the entire show was just.... What are you even say to this? What the
hell did I just listen to?
Phish in 2025. Thats what. And may we put to rest the what is a genuine
contender for the greatest tour of modern Phish, Fall 2021 being it's
only true rival (in my opinion).
THIS is what peaking looks like....
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