4 30 26
Las VegasThe Sphere #7
Set 1
An interesting choice of The Wedge to ease us into the show tonight. A strong but typical reading. Nothing special but good energy and enthusiasm and everyone is locked in. Good stuff.
A super fun NICU follows. It continues what The Wedge began, keeping up the "laid back but not sleepy" vibe. Another "not must hear but worth checking out" reading, Leo goes BONKERS! I can't say this version as a whole is must hear but his soloing definitely is! Lets get it!
Halfway to the Moon is up next. Now, 3rd song in a row, you're starting to think "Oh okay this is going to be one of those B+ nights, I gotcha....". The song itself kinda drags tonight, imo. But it reaches a light must hear level for me. The back section is just terrific, with Trey unleashing some absolutely top tier melodic soloing. It will definitely make you perk up! Basically it starts sleepy and then ends majestically.
.
If you're going to keep the down low vibe going what better choice to continue with than a 15-minute Leaves. And it's an absolutely fantastic reading! The jam begins upbeat like normal but within about 30 seconds Trey accidentally hits a wrong note and the jam shifts into a dark and minor key area. One of those"thank God!", happy accident kind of moments. Because otherwise we definitely would still be in the upbeat blissy whatever for a good while I am certain. But this immediately shoved the jam right into dark robo Godzilla stomp whatever territory. Dark and menacing slowly creeping across the stage like a nightcrawler on a mission. HOLY CRAP THIS IS WHAT A MONSTER SOUNDS LIKE. X FACTOR MAGIC OUT THE EFFING ASS. JUST A RIDICULOUS DARK PSYCHEDELIC MELTDOWN FOR THE AGES. No seriously this is Mexico 2024 Axilla tier - And considering everything that has come before in this run that is saying a crap ton.
Easily in League with Jones Beach 2022 as the greatest version ever played. And again, thats saying a lot. This version is astronomically out of the park. What in the love of Satan.... And the transition back into the song at the end is just so smoothly executed as to give you goosebumps. Oh my God, my head is in my hands What the hell....
After that legitimate all timer reading of Leaves, We get a gnarly and raging 555. It's nothing special but it definitely delivers the goods but unfortunately feels like it's over before it's begun.
Dropping back down immediately afterwards into Dirt. Okay this has to be intentional. This choice of songs in this order, giving the whole set a low key and laid-back feel. Trey knew what he was doing picking these songs for this set. If this wasn't intentional then this is one of the biggest "why?!" Experiences I've had with setlist construction with modern Phish. Anywho, its an absolutely lovely version played absolutely perfectly. Nothing to say, but its wonderful as always.
FINALLY, we get the FIRST TRUE ACTUAL BURST OF ENERGY THIS ENTIRE SET (besides the Leaves jam) with a dang 14 minute Punch!! Played very fast, I believe this is the longest one yet but I'm not certain. The song itself is played excellently though rather hesitantly by Trey. Zero flubbage but he also sounds cautious throughout. Basically I'm complaining about nothing. The jam is legitimately terrific and reaches the damn 8 minute mark. They've been getting longer with seemingly each version and I think this might actually be the longest to date. Some of the intro jams have felt like random meandering whatever while others have sounded like actual cohesive jam sections. This is very much the latter and I think it's my favorite yet. Great effects usage and interplay between Page and Trey. I'm calling this a must here version. It's killer. Definitely must hear!
This slightly oddball set comes to a close with a Golgi apparatus. Golgi is Golgi.
All in all, this was definitely an oddball set. If I had to pick one of the seven shows so far, Id call this the weakest first set most likely. But it definitely wasn't anything approaching a bad set, It was just one of those "these songs should not all be together in the same set" kind of sets.
Ballad/low key vibes heaviness gave it a very relaxed and mellow kind of feel. As I mentioned earlier in the set it almost felt intentional. The playing throughout was very good to excellent so I have no complaints on that front. This set was certainly no kind of abomination, it was simply chill. A STRONG B+ kinda set with two big, shining diamonds.
Punch and Leaves are true must hears, with Leaves being a legitimate all timer, in running for GOAT status, tied with or 2nd only to Jones Beach 2022 for my money. And shoutouts to Halfway as well.
Set 2
The 2nd half tonight opens with a 16.5 minute ASIHTOS. Always great in an opening slot! And the song Sound sounds genuinely excellent tonight. Oftentimes it sounds hesitant but tonight it sounds confident and full of spunk. The type 1 jamming starts promisingly enough for the first minute or so in that typical dark kind of underwater murkiness you love and hope for.
-------Unfortunately around the four and a half minute mark it morphs into chill bliss rock. Gross. Thankfully it actually has a lot of character. Fishman takes total charge doing these cool rimshot patterns, the jam taking on a layered and atmospheric kind of ethereal vibe. Some background loops going on etc.
-------Very slowly and organically the power begins to build and the jam gets more rocking. It's a very cool slow build however and they sure take their time easing into it. This is actually extremely cool. It's like they are straddling that line between the dark and the light but not committing to either. It's in that gray area where could easily go in either direction. -------Eventually back in full type one rocking zone, Trey doing melodic sustained lines while Page echoes him with watery keys underneath. By the 10-minute mark we are fully back into the original dark aquatic kind of jam. Super murky. The flow and evolution of this jam is just unreal. There's no meandering and it's moving the entire time. Its just flowing like butter however, smooth like Steely Dan.
--------By the 11 minute mark Trey is on super dark and fiery wah pedal abuse and we are sinking into the abyss. My goodness this is just glorious, some definite X Factor all over this sucker.
--------Around the 12-minute mark, Fishman takes charge of the jam changing the beat into a more shuffling kind of rhythm. The band follows suit and you think something is going to happen similar to the Dick's 2024 Ruby waves or something. That level of insanity is avoided but the jam absolutely takes on a new character and enters a new kind of zone that is very rhythmic with lots of repeated chord slashing and fiery rhythms from Fish.
---------How in the world this wouldn't be jam-charted I have no clue because it's type 2 for sure and absolutely an amazing jam. I know there was online debate over this. If this isn't high quality and worthy of wider recognition then I don't know what is. This reminds me of the Mexico 2020 Carini. Just a slow transition into an amorphous blob of darkness.
--------Finally around the 15 minute mark we shift gears again and slowly transition into a more shuffling kind of rocking zone, bit by bit, leaving the abyss behind. The jam kind of dies a quick death out of nowhere and we move on into a 24 minute Wave of Hope....
That was a PHENOMENAL reading!!! Genuinely, I dont know how anyone couldnt see the quality of that. Absolutely jam chart worthy, imho. Not an all timer, but DAMN was it fantastic! Tight and gooey and heavy. Patience and flow and the wazoo.... I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW KILLER THAT WAS.
So Wave is up next. The song itself is a spectacular reading, just exploding with energy, all uptempo and blazing like a comet, if you will. Killer. Just loaded with extra headbanging spunk and pizazz. You can just tell this one is going to go somewhere special!
-------The song rages hard and fast to about the 7-minute mark where the jam begins in earnest. The jam enters this kind of really fast and upbeat but rocking rhythmic zone. Upbeat bliss rock but things are shifting. Fishman starts doing cool snare roll patterns and the synthesizers come out for some gooey background washing. Trey begins his ethereal melodic major key soloing and the late '90s haze starts to appear ever so slowly.
-------This goes until the 11 minute mark, whereupon Trey gets some staccato notes setting a background loop and the jam shifts into a dark area. Very cool, intense and still rocking but definitely dark. Unfortunately the darkness is all too brief and they quickly shift out into another cool section, this time heavily rocking a nice little up and down motif all together as one. And then just like that we are quickly back into upbeat bliss rocking like nothing ever happened lol. Dang it Trey!
--------It doesn't matter though because there's no meandering in this jam and it sounds inspired throughout, never losing a beat and always sounding on its way to somewhere. Upbeat Bliss rock with a purpose, if you will, similar to the Forest Hills 2025 Carini. The kind of thing I normally would bitch about but today I'm absolutely enthralled by.
-------By 14 minutes it sounds like they are slowly building the foundation for an upcoming peak section. The jam lifts off and Trey is just soaring. And around the 1430 Mark we do hit that peak nice and hard. Just blazing Sky High peakage to the face. Pure spine tingling Magic. Let's freaking go, this freaking rules!!!
-------Up and down the peak goes for what feels like several minutes, just refusing to die, blasting us in the face over and over and over and over reminding us who is the freaking greatest band in the entire universe! Just one sustained note after another. We are soaring through the multiverse, on a rocket heading towards the sun at a million miles an hour. We are approaching ludicrous speed!!!
-----Finally around the 17 minute mark the peak subsides and morphs into this really cool but unsettling and abstract rhythmic kind of stop start pattern. Slowly the jam kind of winds its way to a natural conclusion point and you think it's going to end. Thankfully Trey pushes through and eggs them on and they continue jamming!!! Around the 19-minute mark, by this point the jam has slowly morphed into full-blown dark ambience. Fishman keeps popping in and out of the jam rattling his drums and symbols, dropping out, then coming back in again.
-------The jam sounds like a swirling mess of chaos, akin to the dying groans and grinds of some robotic android. Not quite as ridiculous as a Melt jam, but something sounding very similar to say a late '80s Grateful Dead space section or something. That's the best way I can put it. It's like a slow but steady deconstruction into an abstract strangeness that's hard to explain. A hazy cloud of ethereal avant-garde noise scape creation. Actually you know what it sounds a lot like?? That late night, blip bloop, strange kind of fade out whatever sleepy jam in the Big Cypress version of Sand. You know, super late into the jam when it gets the quadrophonic toppling thing going and Trey is on the pitch shifter and it gets all weird. That's what it sounds like but on a more angsty level. Lots of Zappa type vocal sound effects and robo blips and blops accented by fishman's ratat symbols. And it just winds itself to a true clothes from here....
Hot damn, some amazing X Factor on that one!!! Absolutely a must-hear piece of music they go far out into the multiverse as deep as you can take a Space Jam. And the Bliss rocking was incredible and adventurous throughout with a spectacular peak that should have your jaw on the floor. This was an absolutely incredible reading up there with the very best ever played in my humble opinion. Hot damn.
And absolutely perfectly we segue out with one of the smoothest transitions of all time into Prince Caspian. And damn if that's not the most welcome Prince Caspian I've heard in a hot minute, landing us back on Earth after that alien outer space adventure. And oh. My. Freaking. Sweet Sally in the Alley. They drop the mother effing HYDROGEN bomb. Yes Caspian is always hot and it's been on a definite bender the last couple years just slaying left and right, but even by that metric this one is just loaded with magic!!!! Purely type 1 they shred this to absolute oblivion raging it as hard as is humanly possible.
The 2nd half tonight opens with a 16.5 minute ASIHTOS. Always great in an opening slot! And the song Sound sounds genuinely excellent tonight. Oftentimes it sounds hesitant but tonight it sounds confident and full of spunk. The type 1 jamming starts promisingly enough for the first minute or so in that typical dark kind of underwater murkiness you love and hope for.
-------Unfortunately around the four and a half minute mark it morphs into chill bliss rock. Gross. Thankfully it actually has a lot of character. Fishman takes total charge doing these cool rimshot patterns, the jam taking on a layered and atmospheric kind of ethereal vibe. Some background loops going on etc.
-------Very slowly and organically the power begins to build and the jam gets more rocking. It's a very cool slow build however and they sure take their time easing into it. This is actually extremely cool. It's like they are straddling that line between the dark and the light but not committing to either. It's in that gray area where could easily go in either direction. -------Eventually back in full type one rocking zone, Trey doing melodic sustained lines while Page echoes him with watery keys underneath. By the 10-minute mark we are fully back into the original dark aquatic kind of jam. Super murky. The flow and evolution of this jam is just unreal. There's no meandering and it's moving the entire time. Its just flowing like butter however, smooth like Steely Dan.
--------By the 11 minute mark Trey is on super dark and fiery wah pedal abuse and we are sinking into the abyss. My goodness this is just glorious, some definite X Factor all over this sucker.
--------Around the 12-minute mark, Fishman takes charge of the jam changing the beat into a more shuffling kind of rhythm. The band follows suit and you think something is going to happen similar to the Dick's 2024 Ruby waves or something. That level of insanity is avoided but the jam absolutely takes on a new character and enters a new kind of zone that is very rhythmic with lots of repeated chord slashing and fiery rhythms from Fish.
---------How in the world this wouldn't be jam-charted I have no clue because it's type 2 for sure and absolutely an amazing jam. I know there was online debate over this. If this isn't high quality and worthy of wider recognition then I don't know what is. This reminds me of the Mexico 2020 Carini. Just a slow transition into an amorphous blob of darkness.
--------Finally around the 15 minute mark we shift gears again and slowly transition into a more shuffling kind of rocking zone, bit by bit, leaving the abyss behind. The jam kind of dies a quick death out of nowhere and we move on into a 24 minute Wave of Hope....
That was a PHENOMENAL reading!!! Genuinely, I dont know how anyone couldnt see the quality of that. Absolutely jam chart worthy, imho. Not an all timer, but DAMN was it fantastic! Tight and gooey and heavy. Patience and flow and the wazoo.... I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW KILLER THAT WAS.
So Wave is up next. The song itself is a spectacular reading, just exploding with energy, all uptempo and blazing like a comet, if you will. Killer. Just loaded with extra headbanging spunk and pizazz. You can just tell this one is going to go somewhere special!
-------The song rages hard and fast to about the 7-minute mark where the jam begins in earnest. The jam enters this kind of really fast and upbeat but rocking rhythmic zone. Upbeat bliss rock but things are shifting. Fishman starts doing cool snare roll patterns and the synthesizers come out for some gooey background washing. Trey begins his ethereal melodic major key soloing and the late '90s haze starts to appear ever so slowly.
-------This goes until the 11 minute mark, whereupon Trey gets some staccato notes setting a background loop and the jam shifts into a dark area. Very cool, intense and still rocking but definitely dark. Unfortunately the darkness is all too brief and they quickly shift out into another cool section, this time heavily rocking a nice little up and down motif all together as one. And then just like that we are quickly back into upbeat bliss rocking like nothing ever happened lol. Dang it Trey!
--------It doesn't matter though because there's no meandering in this jam and it sounds inspired throughout, never losing a beat and always sounding on its way to somewhere. Upbeat Bliss rock with a purpose, if you will, similar to the Forest Hills 2025 Carini. The kind of thing I normally would bitch about but today I'm absolutely enthralled by.
-------By 14 minutes it sounds like they are slowly building the foundation for an upcoming peak section. The jam lifts off and Trey is just soaring. And around the 1430 Mark we do hit that peak nice and hard. Just blazing Sky High peakage to the face. Pure spine tingling Magic. Let's freaking go, this freaking rules!!!
-------Up and down the peak goes for what feels like several minutes, just refusing to die, blasting us in the face over and over and over and over reminding us who is the freaking greatest band in the entire universe! Just one sustained note after another. We are soaring through the multiverse, on a rocket heading towards the sun at a million miles an hour. We are approaching ludicrous speed!!!
-----Finally around the 17 minute mark the peak subsides and morphs into this really cool but unsettling and abstract rhythmic kind of stop start pattern. Slowly the jam kind of winds its way to a natural conclusion point and you think it's going to end. Thankfully Trey pushes through and eggs them on and they continue jamming!!! Around the 19-minute mark, by this point the jam has slowly morphed into full-blown dark ambience. Fishman keeps popping in and out of the jam rattling his drums and symbols, dropping out, then coming back in again.
-------The jam sounds like a swirling mess of chaos, akin to the dying groans and grinds of some robotic android. Not quite as ridiculous as a Melt jam, but something sounding very similar to say a late '80s Grateful Dead space section or something. That's the best way I can put it. It's like a slow but steady deconstruction into an abstract strangeness that's hard to explain. A hazy cloud of ethereal avant-garde noise scape creation. Actually you know what it sounds a lot like?? That late night, blip bloop, strange kind of fade out whatever sleepy jam in the Big Cypress version of Sand. You know, super late into the jam when it gets the quadrophonic toppling thing going and Trey is on the pitch shifter and it gets all weird. That's what it sounds like but on a more angsty level. Lots of Zappa type vocal sound effects and robo blips and blops accented by fishman's ratat symbols. And it just winds itself to a true clothes from here....
Hot damn, some amazing X Factor on that one!!! Absolutely a must-hear piece of music they go far out into the multiverse as deep as you can take a Space Jam. And the Bliss rocking was incredible and adventurous throughout with a spectacular peak that should have your jaw on the floor. This was an absolutely incredible reading up there with the very best ever played in my humble opinion. Hot damn.
And absolutely perfectly we segue out with one of the smoothest transitions of all time into Prince Caspian. And damn if that's not the most welcome Prince Caspian I've heard in a hot minute, landing us back on Earth after that alien outer space adventure. And oh. My. Freaking. Sweet Sally in the Alley. They drop the mother effing HYDROGEN bomb. Yes Caspian is always hot and it's been on a definite bender the last couple years just slaying left and right, but even by that metric this one is just loaded with magic!!!! Purely type 1 they shred this to absolute oblivion raging it as hard as is humanly possible.
It is actually emotionally palpable in my opinion. This truly felt like a 1990s version where it slides out of a different song and just slaps you in the face, hitting you perfectly deep within. I know I've been saying all timer a lot, but throw this in the all-timer Hall of Fame regarding type 1 versions of Caspian. This is a version everybody should be raving about until the end of time up there with the very best ever played. 10 out of freaking 10 I cannot stress enough how ridiculous this reading is. Oh my god. What is even going on anymore.
They follow the last 48 minutes of destruction with a very welcome and needed Lonely Trip. Again, A+ on the set flow and construction this run. Man, that was immaculate. There's a cute moment of flubbage from Trey where he gets off-kilter for a moment. Immediately remedied with Pages soul punching piano soloing. Oh my freaking God. I'm not crying, You're crying! No actually I'm weeping.... This is too much.... This song always makes me cry..... A whopping 8 minutes long This has to be the longest version ever played no?!? I'm calling it must hear. It was emotional enough to make me literally have to pull over and start crying thinking about my own problems and things passed and regrets and the good times gone by there are no longer here.....
They lead us out of the the melancholy with a 15-minute Runaway Jim. Jim is absolutely incredible!!!. The run of must hear music continues. X Factor in spades, this one just annihilates, all the way until the 9-minute mark. Around the 9-minute mark it goes legitimately type two!!! Shifting randomly into a rhythmic kind of Scent of a Mule type whatever dark jam. That's the only way I can describe it. They spend four glorious minutes exploring this strange area with loops and robo wah and weird patterns. It doesn't go into black hole oblivion but it's reminiscent of the Pittsburgh 2019 version for sure.
They follow the last 48 minutes of destruction with a very welcome and needed Lonely Trip. Again, A+ on the set flow and construction this run. Man, that was immaculate. There's a cute moment of flubbage from Trey where he gets off-kilter for a moment. Immediately remedied with Pages soul punching piano soloing. Oh my freaking God. I'm not crying, You're crying! No actually I'm weeping.... This is too much.... This song always makes me cry..... A whopping 8 minutes long This has to be the longest version ever played no?!? I'm calling it must hear. It was emotional enough to make me literally have to pull over and start crying thinking about my own problems and things passed and regrets and the good times gone by there are no longer here.....
They lead us out of the the melancholy with a 15-minute Runaway Jim. Jim is absolutely incredible!!!. The run of must hear music continues. X Factor in spades, this one just annihilates, all the way until the 9-minute mark. Around the 9-minute mark it goes legitimately type two!!! Shifting randomly into a rhythmic kind of Scent of a Mule type whatever dark jam. That's the only way I can describe it. They spend four glorious minutes exploring this strange area with loops and robo wah and weird patterns. It doesn't go into black hole oblivion but it's reminiscent of the Pittsburgh 2019 version for sure.
They definitely go off the rails and it's incredible. It's this weird and unsettling kind of dark whatever. Again it's hard to explain unless you're listening to it. And the transition back into the song proper at the 13-minute mark is just mind-blowingly smooth. I mean you go "what the hell, How was that so smooth?!?!". Another 1.0 level version in my opinion. Stupendous stupendous stupendous. No seriously say it again it's stupendous. Just loaded with X Factor this is phenomenal. THIS JIM IS FRIGGIN RUNAWAY, LETD GO. HOLY CRAP THIS SET IS SMASHING!
Out of Jim and into a RIDICULOUSLY funky Sally. Yeah it's always funky and rocking but this one begins like that from the outset and is just loaded with extra vinegar throughout. An A+ reading with some terrific vocal scatting throughout. Everyone is on point and just crushing it. I'm calling this must hear again (No legitimately). F me..
Drift closes the set, unfortunately anticlimactically - damn it was almost a perfect set!!! This version is very good and energetic and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it but it's simply is not very impressive at the same time. That's all. It's just an average excellent middle of the road reading.
The encore begins splendidly with, honestly, what has to be the GOAT The Sloth. If such a thing can even exist. Red hot though a little bit sloppy, but nothing that's egregious. This one is absolutely exploding with red hot lava energy. No seriously it's headbanger Paradise. Around the 3-minute mark somehow they shift into type 1 jam mode and they go nuclear on it for several minutes.
Out of Jim and into a RIDICULOUSLY funky Sally. Yeah it's always funky and rocking but this one begins like that from the outset and is just loaded with extra vinegar throughout. An A+ reading with some terrific vocal scatting throughout. Everyone is on point and just crushing it. I'm calling this must hear again (No legitimately). F me..
Drift closes the set, unfortunately anticlimactically - damn it was almost a perfect set!!! This version is very good and energetic and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it but it's simply is not very impressive at the same time. That's all. It's just an average excellent middle of the road reading.
The encore begins splendidly with, honestly, what has to be the GOAT The Sloth. If such a thing can even exist. Red hot though a little bit sloppy, but nothing that's egregious. This one is absolutely exploding with red hot lava energy. No seriously it's headbanger Paradise. Around the 3-minute mark somehow they shift into type 1 jam mode and they go nuclear on it for several minutes.
THEY LEGITIMATELY LITERALLY JAM SLOTH FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN 40 YEARS. WHAT IN THE LOVE OF GAMEHENDGE IS GOING ON. It's just a red hot type 1 rage fest sun explosion type of jam but it's so molten lava fantastic that's not even funny. And it's so volcanic that it even reaches a legitimate meltdown peak explosion which you can't fathom would even happen. The hype around this version is very real and very much deserved and anybody saying otherwise is just a negative hater. Holy moly 5,000 out of 10 rendition. There is no universe where it could get better than this unless they took it into outer space for 25 minutes or something.MUST HEAR AT ALL COSTS!!!
As if the second half of the show couldn't get any more perfect, It concludes appropriately with The Squirming Coil. Of course! And its absolutely immaculate, one of the best readings ive heard in a while. Super delicate and dynamic, very soft and quiet at all the perfect moments. Just fantastic, truly. Everything is on point and the emotion factor is high. And that ending piano solo of course.... I was blessed to experience it at Charleston 2019 and it's something everybody needs to witness once in their life. Beautiful. Good enough for a must hear, imo. And honestly, dead ass seriously, this made me cry once again. My God the emotion.
All in all, an outrageous 2nd set! LITERALLY I think EVERYTHING from ASIHTOS through Coil, minus Drifting, is must hear level. This set just refused to let up. X factor was shining in spades. Compared to other sets this run it didn't get as out there into the Netherworld but as a complete entire piece I actually think this might have one the award for best singular set of the whole run so far, if you can believe that!!!
For the most part the playing was super tight aside from a few moments from Trey, The flow was immaculate like melted, And it really gave me a late 90s Phish show vibe at times. The FLOW!! The set construction was just perfect I thought.
The 3.6 rating it has on.net is egregiously low. Yes ratings are subjective and don't mean anything blah blah blah. But if you're asking me I think this show is worthy of at least a strong and solid 4.0, maybe even a 4.1 based on the strength of set two. There was nothing wrong with that one it was just chill like Toronto 2019 or something. And even then it still had that damn Leaves and Punch!!!
Don't listen to the naysayers on this one This show is excellent and deserves far more love than it is receiving. Other shows this run had far higher highs but I don't think any have had the emotional impact and flow of this concert. I love it.
As if the second half of the show couldn't get any more perfect, It concludes appropriately with The Squirming Coil. Of course! And its absolutely immaculate, one of the best readings ive heard in a while. Super delicate and dynamic, very soft and quiet at all the perfect moments. Just fantastic, truly. Everything is on point and the emotion factor is high. And that ending piano solo of course.... I was blessed to experience it at Charleston 2019 and it's something everybody needs to witness once in their life. Beautiful. Good enough for a must hear, imo. And honestly, dead ass seriously, this made me cry once again. My God the emotion.
All in all, an outrageous 2nd set! LITERALLY I think EVERYTHING from ASIHTOS through Coil, minus Drifting, is must hear level. This set just refused to let up. X factor was shining in spades. Compared to other sets this run it didn't get as out there into the Netherworld but as a complete entire piece I actually think this might have one the award for best singular set of the whole run so far, if you can believe that!!!
For the most part the playing was super tight aside from a few moments from Trey, The flow was immaculate like melted, And it really gave me a late 90s Phish show vibe at times. The FLOW!! The set construction was just perfect I thought.
The 3.6 rating it has on.net is egregiously low. Yes ratings are subjective and don't mean anything blah blah blah. But if you're asking me I think this show is worthy of at least a strong and solid 4.0, maybe even a 4.1 based on the strength of set two. There was nothing wrong with that one it was just chill like Toronto 2019 or something. And even then it still had that damn Leaves and Punch!!!
Don't listen to the naysayers on this one This show is excellent and deserves far more love than it is receiving. Other shows this run had far higher highs but I don't think any have had the emotional impact and flow of this concert. I love it.
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