Phish.Net Review Archive
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Here are the 15 most recent reviews submitted
Fishman gets the opener spot tonight with Lengthwise. This gives you the album feel of listening to Rift going into a rocking Maze. Mike was a little off and it seemed like they weren’t warmed up yet. Guelah also suffered a bit with sloppy playing and just was not as tight as it could’ve been. Poor Heart was good, maybe now they are warmed up? Nope, Trey fell off in the middle of Foam and I can’t think of a harder song to try to get back into after you fall off. Not the best Foam by any means. No Horse for the first time before a pretty good Silent, and this one has gotten consistently better over the course of this year. Nice transition going into Antelope, which was patient and pretty good overall. YaMar is getting better, as it has been recently introduced back into the set list. This one was fast and fun, though they almost blew the ending with Mike’s foreign guy rant. IDK brings Fish out with the washboard solo; funny stuff as usual. Melt also had some trouble spots from Trey and was just ok to my ears. Contact was nice to hear and pretty well played. Llama rocked as usual, no real problems here. Golgi was good, but nothing to special, just average.
Possum gets the encore spot tonight and was well played, but again, nothing too special.
I’m not sure what others are hearing, but again this is not four star playing by any means. There were way too many missed notes and sections for that to be true. Sorry folks, just my opinion. I’m going with three stars, because it wasn’t that bad.
Absolutely sick wolfman's - if you haven't heard it then do yourself a favor and do so.
Tweezer>2001>YEM wasn't too bad either.
It was fun to see Jeff on stage (almost made this one feel like the real 20th anniversary show), but he was a little rusty on his axe.
The second set just never really took off anywhere. Nothing going on in Carini. Tweezer is my favorite part of this set, just a solid rock jam. Non of the songs went anywhere after this. YEM was building up nicely but seemed peak short.
Oh well, this weekend run was a blast and the previous 2 shows were great. This venue sucks, and unfortunately the show never really took off.
Was happy to get a Mike's Song set 2 opener...doesn't happen much these days. Unfortunately it doesn't go into a bigger jam that I was hoping for, but it does pack a punch. Simple was short, would have loved for that to go on longer. Oh well, the Ghost has a pretty nice funk jam. To me it sounds like there is a Mind Left Body tease in it, never have seen any mention o that anywhere. Fee outro segued nicely into Makisupa Policeman. I thought the new song My Problem Right There was kinda goofy and fun. Then segue out of the Makisupa Reprise into Slave is nice, and the Slave is a good 3.0 version.
Overall a fun show in a small arena. Would love to go back if they return.
Sand and Light are pretty standard, nothing crazy. But the Waves is where the great stuff begins. First of all, some of the licks that Trey is laying down in the song before the jam begins shows us that he still can play like he used to. The actual jam was great, nice to see Trey work some of his pedals like he used to. Segues perfectly into Undermind (even though it sounded like Timber for a while). The jam out of Undermind is spacey and melodic. Steam was a welcome song out of the jam, a great newer song. The set ended with another blazing song, fire.
I'm not sure if it's just me but I didn't even notice that it was a short 2nd set, because they were playing so well and everyone was soaking it up. There was a comment made at the start of the encore, that made it seem like they were breaking curfew and going to continue to play (a la 12/30/97) but really the 2nd set is pretty short. Either way, the long encore was a great time, felt like a nice little mini set. Fantastic kick off to the UIC run, a fantastic show to be at, and one that is highly regarded by many.
When the band came out for the 2nd set, it felt like a different band. ASIHTOS has a nice jam, which featured some nice work from Fishman. The Drowned started off absolutely blazing, and Trey killed it. In an era of a harsh tone and not as dexterous as the past, he really shined. The rest of the set doesn't get out there, but it was a blast.
The two songs that really have any real replay value are the ASIHTOS->Drowned.
Also, the Johnny B. Goode reference in the first set, and the following night at Alpine I was beginning to think they were gonna bust that out by the end of the run. Oh well.
sure im "glad i got into the show" brah... but that doesnt mean im going to censor myself and act like it was a great run. phish pushes themselves because they know we, the fans, are paying attention... this whole site is devoted to the idea of critiquing the music. we all love it... when they play a run thats not great its not the end of the world or the end of the band,,, but we are going to talk about it... get over it. and btw... alaska? after midnight? really? if you all want to hold your tongue you can... but im going to be honest... thats a party killing song choice right there.


