, attached to 2000-06-29

Review by n00b100

n00b100 Set 1 (which is pretty short by Phish standards) gets off to a reasonable start with Funky Bitch and a pretty good Wilson, then shifts to another level with a very good Limb by Limb that climbs the (Type I) jamming ladder and hits a huge peak at the 8:30 mark, cools back down, then peaks again at the 11:30 mark before returning to the main theme. Then comes the set's big moment - a Drowned that gallops along before hitting a quiet, repetitive groove, almost like the jam is gathering itself, before launching into a major-chord jam that, like the jamming chart says, will remind you of the more pumped-up Gins in Phish's history (although one wonders about the fact that they played a very similar type of jam in, yep, a Gin the previous night). Still, it's a fine jam worth hearing, and the jam segues very easily into Rock & Roll, which is a strong way to close a very good 1st set.

The Birds that starts Set 2 zips along for a couple minutes before Trey leads things into a more relaxed range (I *guess* it sounds like "Acknowledgment" from A Love Supreme, but the resemblance is pretty slight, and I say that as somebody that thinks it's there in the 6/3/11 DWD), then the jam briefly heads into major-key ground again before getting dark and grimy, Trey adding some interesting effects with either his guitar or (more likely) his keyboard, Mike taking over the jam and walking his basslines through the electronic muck. The band then rolls into Catapult, keeping the darkness going while Trey builds some loops, then Page steps to the forefront as the jam starts dying out before Trey starts up one last loop...which serves as the bridge to Heavy Things. Heavy Things is fine, but that bridge between the songs is pretty neat.

Sand then brings things back to a darker zone; a good chunk of the jam is pretty boring, Trey dicking around with his keyboard while the groove just goes on and on to the point where it sounds like a backing track, but then Trey gets back on the guitar and piles on some nasty noise to save things a little. I do like this style of jamming a good deal, and I like Sand as a vehicle for that kind of jamming, but this Sand didn't hit my sweet spot (compare it to the 12/8/99 version, which explores a lot of the same areas, but at least the whole time the band, specifically Trey, is *doing something*, and the jam builds pretty well - here, the jam just goes, and then it's back to the main theme). Meatstick is Meatstick - I could just be a bad fan, but they ALL sound the same - and I find myself losing interest, but Cities and Walk Away perk me back up, and then comes a peppy Antelope, played with late-90s minimalism but at mid-90s speed (I do love Page's Antelope piano playing); it's a reasonably good Antelope, if not in my personal pantheon or anything. The rest of the show is standard stuff.

Final thoughts...gosh. The first set is probably the best set of the 6/28-29 run. The second set has a very good jam, a nice Antelope, and everything in between is just not that great IMO. Still, the first set is enough for me to rate this show higher than the day before's. Drowned/R&R is available in SBD, so seek that out at the very least.


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