lmao charlie! why didn't someone think of the tripartite review sooner? like all good ideas it seems so obvious once someone does it. didn't we see this performance coming though? i mean, to go to the festy for other bands and phish as a bonus would make sense, but unless you live in the area traveling solely to see this show seems ill-advised. after the past glories of uic, only indoor shows, 3-night stand, etc, it seemed to me as if they were not out to destroy anything the last 2 shows in order to lay it down hard in chicago. maybe this is obvious and im definitely biased here as a chicagoan but, ironically, i couldn't be happier about the lack of fire in the shows leading up to uic.
i remember being on top of the world when i heard they threw down dark side a week before 98 uic run. back then, if they hit us with a 20 min 1st set tube adventure, the next show would be a half hour ghost or bag. maybe this belongs in the jaded vet category of review, but this sense of them somehow unfathomably topping themselves show after show is not the phish of this era. in 3.0, AND I LOVE THREE POINT ZERO, they're more like an animal stalking its prey waiting to envelop with feigned inertia. could they have dismantled outside lands causing decidedly uncool mind-melting panic among the indie hipsters? yes. easily. was it likely to go down? hardly. and that bodes very, very, well for the bookends to the gorge's exploration--UIC '11.