Summer Phish tour begins in Bangor, ME

The winter and spring months are long and slow to Phish fans these days. It is a good thing there is so much Phishtory to keep us busy until summer tour starts.

I spent the first half of 2013 celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 'Rift' album (listening to the original album and recent performances of the songs to see how they have evolved), converting my old spring 1993 tapes to digital files, and re-visiting the entirety of Winter 2003, the last winter tour they played.

But now the waiting is over. July 3 was the first show of 2013, in Bangor, ME. I did not attend, but I listened to the show the next day. It was a good, solid primer, though with nothing too memorable aside from an excellent "Golden Age" and two knockout punches at the end with a killer "Run Like an Antelope" to end Set II and a great "Harry Hood" encore.

I have a complaint, though.  I do not mind when Phish takes its time on songs and jams - long gone are the 1993 days of playing everything with fiery intensity and raucous speed - but "Weekapaug Groove" and the first half of "Harry Hood" seemed very slow.  Not dragging, but deliberately slow-moving.

Again, I understand that these guys are all pushing 50, but they have to remember that people want to dance to songs like "Weekapaug".  There are plenty of other songs that should be slow; the uptempo songs should stay that way.