, attached to 2021-08-08

Review by heathen

heathen Set 1: Really interesting Mike's Song. Page steps up to great effect in the latter third of the song while Trey holds back. The way they transition from the dark feel of Mike's, to the more major scale sound of the jam, then back into the darkness of Mike's is really good. My Soul and Weekapaug, by contrast, were unremarkable. Casual Enlightenment is boring. Not much more to be said. The beginning of David Bowie is tough to hear. Even by 3.0 standards Trey is really sloppy. The rest of this version is unredeeming. Overall a substandard first set with Mike's Song being the only high point.

Set 2/e: This is the first set of the tour I got excited about after seeing the setlist. That said, I'm judging by what I hear and not what's written on the setlist. Bathtub Gin was nothing special. Things don't get interesting until Ghost, which is good though brief. Jarring transition to Sneaking Sally. Unfortunately Sneaking Sally doesn't really amount to much, and Twenty Years Later feels like it kills any momentum they may have had. Waste feels like filler. The whole Twist/Makisupa sequence is fun, with some good musical moments as well. But then we get thrown into the paint by numbers dad rock of Most Events Aren't Planned and More. This set is a great example of the schizophrenia of 3.0 Phish. As a whole this set isn't all that great. There weren't quite enough great moments to make up for all the meh moments. The Twist/Makisupa sequence was definitely the best part. Nice old school encore with Contact (always fun to hear) and Slave. Pretty standard versions though.

Altogether I'd say this is an average show at best. It had some definite high points (Mike's Song and the Twist/Makisupa sequence) but the majority of the show is meh at best (poor song selection and I badly botched Bowie being definite low points). On balance it adds up to a so-so show overall.


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