Opening with “What’s the Use?” and burning through a super energetic first set was enough to give goose bumps to any phan that had patiently waited six months for a new Phish show. It certainly had my head spinning - especially that “Wolfman’s Brother”; and the second set kept the high-octane sizzle coming with a “Your Pet Cat -> Golden Age -> Your Pet Cat” sandwich that was as awesome as it was odd.
Things started to slip at the end of that first show, with a bungled “Shine a Light” and a dull, lackluster “Julius”. My friend aLi and I were recently talking about how every “Julius” used to always be the “best ‘Julius’ ever!” and now it was like a bad lay – it makes you wonder who is getting any pleasure out of it and why. When “Golgi Apparatus” landed with a thud in the encore, I worried that the initial promise of the show was going to sour quickly.
That worry only got worse in the first set of Saturday’s show. It seemed like it was impossible for the four guys on stage to get hooked up. There were a few highlights, like “Halfway to the Moon” and “Martian Monster” (which is always a gimme), but when “Party Time” even fails to ignite a fire, things are going badly. The climax of “Wingsuit” offered some powerful redemption, but even I cannot defend the “Bouncing Around the Room” that came next. Somehow, “More” managed to close the set with at least some dignity, if not full triumph.
The second set was something else altogether. Suddenly, the band snapped back into place with a monstrous “Simple” jam for the ages that dovetailed into sequence of “Winterqueen > Light -> Scents and Subtle Sounds -> Cities” that demands several re-listens. It was the kind of set that truly reminds us why we love Phish.
And, boy, we do love Phish, do we not? How else can one explain why we can go from a limp first set to a killer second set and back to a subpar first set the next night and still manage to keep our sanity (or at least keep wanting to experience this bipolar insanity)? Because Sunday night’s first half was right back to the doghouse. Sure, we got some good songs, and I am never one to complain when there is a “Lawn Boy” involved, but not even the “Stash” jam could truly take off. “Birds of a Feather” was decent and “Run Like an Antelope” offered a good enough climax, but this was hardly the band that brought the thunder in the second set on Saturday.
Good thing that schizophrenia continued because a blowout “Carini” jam set the stage for another amazing second set – one in which even “Twenty Years Later” soared. And I defy you to find a better version of “2001”. Seriously. Clearly Trey wanted to rock out hard, because an encore (albeit a bit sloppy) of “Wilson > Character Zero” can only mean that he intended to bring down the house to close the three-night stand in Chicago.
I watched Tuesday’s show from Dayton, Ohio, on the free webcast with Gloria and aLi, and though we were having fun socializing, we also enjoyed a decent first set. But once again, it was set II that knocked us out. Though aLi had to leave and Gloria went to bed, I continued to be amazed at the quality of jamming in “Ghost” and “Chalk Dust Torture”, and the surprise turns of the “Wombat” jam.
That brings us to Wednesday night, which was almost the breaking point for my brain, as it contained the worst first set of the run so far. Their voices were so flat and creaky that even “Home” the standout Page McConnell track from ‘Big Boat’ seemed to die a thousand deaths. And then, from the ashes, the best “Prince Caspian” since Magnaball, coming close to being as amazing.
And here we went again into a second set that brought the first “Mr. Completely” since its epic Phish debut in 2003 with a jam that rivaled it. If that wasn’t enough, one of my favorite newer tunes, “Mercury” followed and segued right into a new song “Rise/Come Together”. And with a super slinky “Steam” to back it up, the (finally) excellent closer of “Backwards Down the Line” was that much better.
It is important to note, as most phans have been doing, that there have been a total of 93 songs played thus far and exactly no repeats. Will they reset that count for the Baker’s Dozen? Will this insanity of flaccid first sets followed by killer second sets continue?
We shall see.
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