I just received my CDs and played the first set of 4.2:
The 1st set didn’t really pick up until the last 5 minutes of “Stash”…very melodic and spacey jam that dissolved into “Horn.” Now normally I skip “Waste” on most listens, but I listened to this one to get the full Island Tour experience. I wasn’t disappointed; gorgeous Trey soloing at the end. “Simple” was beautiful as gregradiohead pointed out (and contained some really really good Mike in the jam), and “Chalkdust,” despite a minor flub heading back into the lyrics, was ALL Page.
Great first set, still need to hear the 2nd set as well as the other 3 shows!!!
There are very, very few songs that Phish have performed where I can name my absolute favorite version off the top of my head every time (same version, of course).
This isn’t one of them, but I enjoy all the ones mentioned, plus 9/10/99.
I never noticed that it was only played twice in '98. That is odd.
I forgot to mention that I heard the 9/26/99 version for the first time the other day and thought it contained a very good jam. Not spacey or ambient, just a straight-up raging jam.