Saturday, 01/02/2016
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
Set 1: Your Pet Cat, AC/DC Bag > NICU, It’s Ice > Horn > Divided Sky, Axilla > Maze, Train Song > Julius
Set 2: Tweezer > Sand > Limb By Limb > Suzy Greenberg > Harry Hood > You Enjoy Myself[1]
Encore: The Lizards, Tweezer Reprise
[1] Trey and Fish on drums.
Teases:
· Stash tease in Divided Sky
Notes: This show is being webcast via Live Phish. Trey teased Stash during Divided Sky. During YEM, Trey briefly joined Fish on the drums.
I can probably name about five songs in this setlist that I would have preferred not to hear at this show, but even those captured my attention and admiration. For whatever reason, this show was diamonds for me almost from start to finish, and I’m never sure it’s because they really played so much better, or that I was just so much more receptive.
Except for the Your Pet Cat opener, which even if I didn’t appreciate the music, the performance was a really fun way to open the show. The rest of the set was just wonderful. The DS was solid as the four songs before it, nothing outrageously jammed, but good consistent energy and technical acuity. Axilla, Train Song and Julius were also good.
Page was really hot during this performance as evident in his It’s Ice solo. But when Page and Trey were exchanging energies in the keyboard-to-guitar solo handoff in Maze, it just blew the roof off. I think they recognized it also, because Suzy and Lizards that would follow also had some great handoffs of this kind, all played better than I can remember.
I hand mixed feelings about the Tweezer, which started out as tight as the 2/28/03 Tweezer, which is my personal icon. And the first part of the jam really had me, but it went in directions that lost me along the way, but for me, that was the only low point in the rest of the show, so it didn’t matter. The Hood had a different jam, and I’m not saying it wasn’t great, I appreciate hearing those different approaches. It’s what I look for. What happened though, is that it strayed farther from the typical Hood progression and bringing it back to the ending outro seemed more forced than a smooth transition out of the jam.
But forget about the last three songs of the night. Each were great, and yet each exceeded energy and exceptional playing. Mike’s solo in the YEM was really off-the-hook, the exchanges and solos in Lizards gave me renewed appreciation of this song.
But this Tweeprise probably has my top stop for show closers, and this had to be one of my top three encores. I’ve held the 4/3/98 Antelope E Carini, Halleys, Tweeprise, as the best ending of any show I’ve seen, but this YEM E Lizards, Tweeprise just may nudge it out. This was some fine, fine music.
For someone looking for their newer songs, this show may have been a disappointment. This is easily a late 90s setlist, but for as many times as I’ve heard these songs (including one more time hearing a Hood, the song I’ve heard more than any other at shows), I was not bored or disappointed in hearing them once again, at least not the way they were played at this show.
For the statistically minded, I’d probably rate this show 8.5-9.5 depending on how one views the songs in the setlist. But the energy and proficiency of the playing was well into the 8.9-9.3 range. Nice show indeed.
I thought the setlist was inspired.
Tweezer was very good, but I still need a second listen. There were parts if the jam that sounded like “The Very Long Fuse.”
Hood went in an unusual direction, which eventually led them off a cliff. Very shakey transition back to "you can feel good. "
It seems that 4 nights of shows caught up with Trey, because it seemed like he was fighting with his guitar all night. But overall I thought it was a great show.