I gotta say, I’m surprised at the responses so far. I had no idea there was so much love for the '98 show.
Here’s how I rank 'em:
Best First Set: The '95 show. Come on. Icculus and Harpua in the same set?? A great '95 style Free?? A fucking insane Antelope?? You guys seem to love the '98 first set, but there’s nothing Halloween-y about it. The other three first sets trump it for that reason.
Best ‘Musical Costume’: This ends up as a race between the Loaded and Remain In Light covers, because honestly the other two were well done but mostly rote. Anyway, I give the '96 performance the nod. While I like how Phish-ized the '98 one is, I think '96 strikes a perfect balance between faithful-ness and ‘taking liberties with the material.’ Once they get cooking on the first song, they never look back, and the slow segue into ‘Seen and Not Seen’ is incredible.
Best Third Set: I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the '98 third set is the best. It’s such a bizarre, experimental set…I find it endlessly fascinating and one of the most unique and bizarre things the band ever did. Truthfully I think the '94 third set is the weakest because you can almost feel the fatigue in the band. The '95 third set has that thrilling YEM and the '96 third set has some thrilling full band improv…but '98 is the most appropriately Halloween-y to me for how ‘spooky’ and out there it is.

