So, I'll start off by saying that my wife and I weren't originally going to make it last night. However, it was just too good to resist, so we (she) caved and showed up in Hampton around 6:30 to grab a couple tickets. Well, it turns out we were right to go back to the Mothership for night 3. The two of us set up shop Mike-side further on up in the seats almost right above the stage. The energy in the building was, as anyone would assume, bubbling with excitement, the people in our section were pretty great, and we ended up all starting the "wave" that lasted a couple laps around the arena. On to set 1....

You knew Julius was coming at some point in the night, but I'm not sure anyone expected them to come out firing with it right out of the gate. Definitely got the crowd off to a good groove right off the bat, and continued with Funky Bitch and Back On the Train. You can tell Mike is still struggling with a little bit of a cold, but the guy was a champ and fought through his vocals. Now, I've always loved Roses, but like most, I definitely wish they would extend it more these days, and even turned to my wife right off the bat and said, "well, here's another standard 4 minute roses." I'm so glad I was wrong, because the nice extended jam on the end of it was a little foreshadowing for the rest of the night. Sample, Ginseng, and 46 Days follow and are all very well done and rocking. Divided Sky was definitely the highlight of the 1st set among 8 other wonderfully played songs. Trey really was on point and did a very good job(mostly) with the composed section, and the place went crazy of course during the "divided" part (it did look pretty great in there with all the lighters). If this was going to be our form of a "breather" I was not going to complain. Bold As Love capped off one of the best first sets I've seen.

Well, we DID all know Tweezer was coming, but what the band did at the beginning of the second set was a very pleasant surprise. Paul & Silas entered by sign/banner request, with the statement by Trey, "I'm NOT playing this for you. So don't enjoy it!" Then came the Tweezer that we were expecting. Well, sort of...while definitely not the Tahoe Tweezer, this one was definitely exploratory and spacy at points, with some dark rocking points as well. Golden Age really did step up to new levels, although I wish Trey would either re-learn the lyrics or just read the teleprompter sometimes. Piper was very solid, although I do miss the build-up to the vocals that seems to be absent in 3.0, but the highlight of Piper was really the jam that came out of it and the segue into a foundation-shaking Takin' Care of Business. The mothership was rockin hard and our favorite band was truly taking care of business. The 2001 that followed kept up the dance groove and was a little deeper than other versions of late. Sand definitely wasn't anything too out of the ordinary, in my opinion, but did its job of keeping up the groove. Slave was a real treat, as the four musicians on stage pulled at everyone's emotions. Before the show I called a "Sleeprise" encore, but instead were treated with an excellent Day in the Life before Tweeprise just about tore down the house.

The show felt like the perfect way to end an excellent weekend, and will hopefully be the model for the rest of the fall tour. The band really looks like they're having a great time, and of course would be remiss to not mention how in synch Kuroda is with them right now as well. Sorry for the long review, but this show definitely deserves some attention!