SPAC has a long and fruitful history with Phish as a venue where excellent shows have taken place during each era of the band. The 3.0-era, especially, has seen some multi-night runs that have produced fantastic jams and the venue continues to be a fan favorite.
Imagine my surprise when my wife, Gloria, and my friend, Marshall, both attending SPAC for the first time, expressed their displeasure with the place. Sure, it has its problems - the stage is not visible from the lawn, the venue can get quite crowded and the entrance and exit usually elicits a feeling of being herded like cattle - but still! This is SPAC, a magical place where great music consistently gets conjured up (their Twitter handle is even @MagicOfSPAC)!
Thank goodness the music made up for the venue's alleged shortcomings. We staked out a spot in the rear of the main lawn near some trees as the party got started with a debut opener from out of nowhere, the old Everly Brothers song, "Cathy's Clown" followed by the "Tweezer Reprise" we thought we would get in Camden - the rare first-set appearance of the latter hearkening back to that wacky time they opened and closed a show with it at SPAC in 2010 (after playing it twice at the previous show).
Things stayed pretty rocking for most of the set, with "Carini", "AC/DC Bag", "Home" (during which they nailed the harmonies) and a total rager of a "Bathtub Gin". "Theme From the Bottom" slowed things down and the usually reliable set-closer "Walls of the Cave" fell flat. But there was levity and laughter, too - when Jon Fishman came in before the modulation for his vocal on "The Moma Dance" and then almost aborted it (making me think for a brief moment that it would end up as its instrumental counterpart, "Black Eyed Katy"), and when Fish and Trey Anastasio continued cracking each other up with a strange "heee-hawww" lick that the former sang and the latter played on guitar (something they had been doing in Camden, too) during an extended "Meat".
The second set really packed a punch right out of the gate with the Kasvot Vaxt song "Cool Amber and Mercury" to open and back-to-back amazeballs jams in "Down With Disease" and "Scents and Subtle Sounds" (the latter including the rarely played intro section). The set then turned from straight-up rocking, with "Twist" and "Wilson", to romping fun with "Scent of a Mule", "Halley's Comet" and the rare oddball "Fuck Your Face" (not a dirty song, as one might suspect, but rather about a guitar that sounds so awesome it will do what the title suggests). A good (but not great) "Harry Hood" closed the set. Had that been the show closer, it might have been a little disappointing, but we had an encore to come.
The band came back onstage and played "Fee", which I predicted right away would involve Trey Anastasio messing up the lyrics. Not only was I correct, but the megaphone through which he sings the verses started conking out on him, too, leaving the whole thing a bit of a mess. But, hey, this is summer 2019, when encores have usually been at least two, sometimes three or four, songs, so there was room for redemption. And redemption we got with the absolutely gorgeous Ghosts of the Forest song "A Life Beyond the Dream" followed by a banging "First Tube" that got some numbnut in the audience so excited, he jumped onstage, ran past Trey and then around by Jon Fishman's drums before being escorted away.
It was a slamming end to a show that was not perfect, but had some excellent bits that are definitely worth a few repeated listens ("Cathy's Clown", "Bathtub Gin", "Disease" and "Scents", for sure). Not only that, but it was the fourth show in a row with no repeated songs, which is one of the big reasons I have kept coming back, especially to the magic of SPAC.
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