A very nice audience recording of this show exists, and everyone in the band is evenly distributed which is nice considering the past couple shows I listened to.
It starts off right away with Quinn the Eskimo, and Trey is very lively with his lyrics. A pretty great jam is played, and it quickly segues into Have Mercy, which Trey mentions is for their friend “Cam” I think. After the first set of lyrics, Page dominates his solo, and really drives the entire song. Trey really takes a step back to allow the rest of the group the foreground. The reggae vibe of Have Mercy flows beautifully into Harry Hood, which is performed superbly. The Mr Minor section is incredibly mellow.
The setlists are a bit mixed up here I think, as The Pendulum comes tearing out of the Hood. This hard rocker features some reggae/rap type sounding lyrics sung by someone from South Africa. Trey takes a fantastic solo, before the lyrics start up again, and turn incredibly aggressive. Lots of war imagery, and “which side are you on?” is repeated at an almost nauseating amount. Then this segues into Dave’s Energy Guide, and I must admit, I really liked this version. Without a doubt the best one to date, it was very high energy.
A short jam follows which is led by Page, and the “Jam” is what contains the Bob Dylan Band comments. Pretty funny stuff.
Trey mentions the next song is written by one of his favorite bands, “Sneeze Blood Eyeball.” This included a lot of rambling, and was performed perfectly. Just as it ends Trey mentions the next song is for Peter From Washington, and they kick into…
You Enjoy Myself. A really great run-through, with only one minor flub to mention before the lyrical section. The vocal jam begins while they are still playing their instruments, and is once again heavily focused around WUDMTF. There was however much more madness during this one, including Fishman screaming inbetween “verses”. This lasted a little bit longer than a minute. Afterwards Trey mentioned they are “going to take a short bake, and be right out.”
Set two begins with Help on the Way with Trey on lyrics. Mike is continuously rocking the bass, while Trey takes a very subdued solo. The segues perfectly, as should be expected, into Slipknot!, and the jam is on. This starts off with a lot of distortion, which soon leads to an incredibly hectic jam between the two guitars. Very impressive on Jeff’s part. The Slipknot! them returned at the end of this almost nine minute jam, and segued into AC/DC Bag, which started off with a short musical section not included in “usual” versions of either song. Bag was pretty straight forward, yet solid, and with hardly a jam to speak of.
McGrupp starts up, and the jam quickly builds and builds before heading quickly into Alumni Blues. The segue into this song was amazing, and this Alumni has to be considered one of the best to date. Letter to Jimmy Page is included again, before heading off into the first recorded Dear Mrs. Reagan. I really like this song, and this is a nice and simple version.
A handful of friends, and members of The Joneses are called up on stage to join Phish for a sing-a-long. Jeff mentions they are creating a Guitar Army, with “18 guitars and three drums.” Free Bird teases can be heard while everyone is tuning up, before jumping into Not Fade Away. Sounded like a real fun version, which was unfortunately cut short after only a couple of minutes.
Highlight for me was the Quinn>Have Mercy>Harry Hood, while the lowlight was Not Fade Away being cut short.
All in all, one of the top shows to date.
