i want to offer a revision to my review of the soa melt from this show. i got a pm from .netter GitDown wanting some clarifications on my thoughts on this jam, so i had to give it a relisten. i wrote my initial review basically on memory from the live experience.

now, i would not say trey was completely lost. he started out pretty strong, but he did get bogged down in fiddling with delay loops and the damn mini keyboard. at around, the 9:30-10:30 minute mark, the jam is getting that '99 slow techno'ish/space groove sound, which at times i really like and at times, imo, just comes off as meandering and unfocused. well, i remember page looking slightly irked at the direction of this promising jam, and at about the 11-11:30 minute mark he just steps up and takes over. now, i remember at the show, page's playing just conquered the room, but it is not really conveyed properly in my aud recording. from what i remember, at that point, page was much much higher in the mix. either way, once page steps up, he really starts to control the direction of this jam with some damn interesting playing. when he is not sitting clearly in the driver's seat, he does provide some very cool undertones. trey spends most of this time in the ambient realm playing with a lot of loops. as this jam starts to run its course, trey does do a brilliant job SLOWLY AND PATIENTLY guiding this one back to the closing soa melt theme.

after listening to this one again, i certainly overstated that this was one of page's "rowdiest solos," considering his body of work, but if you are a page fan or just a soa melt fan, this is a must hear melt!

as mentioned in my review for the other night of this cincy run, there are some highlights in these nights, but there are some pretty low moments too. trey's off the stage, "life style" choices had become evident to me, at least, in this 2 night run.

as for this show, heavy things, which was still pretty new in the phish world, sounded pretty good. it was a nice perky choice to get the crowd bopping. simple sounded really nice. they went down a path similar to most simple's and eventually wound their way in to yamar. this song always sounds odd to me in indoor shows, but it was good to hear none the less. guyute followed. while it was not severely flobbed or anything, it seemed to lack some of the snap of the lat couple of years. tweezer was really strong. they explored some nice spacey realms and they eventually found themselves in a very dark jam. at the time, i thought it sounded a bit like the doors, "the end," but upon hearing it again, that is not so evident to me. either way, they worked its way into a nice little dirt. i was happy to see loving cup somewhere other than the encore slot. good closer.

down with disease started out promising but it petered out quickly and found its way into soa melt. trey was not with it during this song. in the jam, trey was completely lost, but page stepped up and laid down one of the nastiest solos i have seen him play. way to cover for your boy! the moma dance got trey back in the game, as he laid out some very simple but certainl funky guitar riffs. farmhouse.. blah. tmwsiy/ave/tmwsiy was a nice pleasant surprise, and it worked well here. cool to see it in an indoor venue. circus worked well into a less than stellar bowie. it was ok, just nothing to write home about. the julius>tweeprise enc was pretty predictable.

overall, i think i liked the 1st set better than the 2nd, which is very rare for me. trey just seeed to be out of it during key moments. i will say though, page was a warrior on this run, he covered trey's ass soooooo many times. on a scale of 1-10, i give this one a 5.5; if it weren't for page, it would be a 3.

Decent show, MUST HEAR Split Open and Melt. It's a dance party,1999 Phish style.

(And my high school friends and I saw Jerry Rice, Mike Gordon and Ricky Martin all while we were hanging out in Cincy before the show. Great times!)

Interesting to note on this SOAMelt, after hearing it in crystal clear quality on Livebait 7, I believe that the member of the band who picks up the slack and makes it interesting once Trey spaces out is actually Mike. He uses the effect that is evident in the 11-22-97 Hood intro, Tube Jam from Dayton, among others...it's a whammy pedal on some sort of variation setting - someone with more technological knowledge can explain it more in detail - but it creates a high pitched sound over the regular bass, which you can still hear being played. The term for this escapes me at the moment. Either way, I just wanted to say that this is Mike's House all the way.

This was my third time seeing Phish. After almost two years without seeing them, I really didn't know what to expect from them. When I saw them in Dec. 1997 at the Nutter Center in Dayton, I was expecting a lot of repeat songs from the first show I saw them do. I guess now with Phish, your not gonna get this at all, so I knew what to expect this time around. We were on the floor for this one about 15 to 20 rows back from the stage. I had never seen them do Heavy Things, which I really enjoyed going into Simple, Ya Mar and Guyute which were all good. Then came the first song I saw Phish do before in 1995, Tweezer. Not as good as the first time I saw them do it, but really good none the less. When you see them do a 19 minute version the first time around which was excellent, it's kinda hard to top it unless they would have done something really special. They went into Dirt which I like and finishing with a good Loving Cup which is one of my top ten songs that Phish plays. The first three songs of the second set (Down With Disease/Split Open and Melt/Moma Dance) got me going. I love all three and I was hoping this was gonna move things in a good direction and a great second half of the show, but I was wrong. Things kinda went the other way then when they played Farmhouse. I guess I expected Phish to keep things lively, but I was wrong. Things kinda went down hill at this point. They then went into TMWSIY/Avenu Malkenu/TMWSIY which are songs I don't really get into. There older songs I don't care that much for and really didn't want to hear them at this point. Things turned around a bit when they played When the Circus Comes to Town and finishing strong with a great David Bowie. Then they came out for the encore and did two songs, one of which I had seen them do back in 1995, Julius. I love this song, but was a little disappointed that it wasn't as good the first time I'd heard them do it, but was very decent. Finally came a Tweezer Reprise to end the show. There were ups and downs with this show. When you see Phish and kinda expect to see certain songs played or hope for them to do play certain songs and they don't do them, it's kind of a let down for me. Down the road for me, this will change, or at least it did for me. Now when ever I see Phish, no matter what they play, it's not a let down at all. You go with the flow and enjoy what they play no matter what it is. Its been that way since then......

10/11/12 - This show was replayed in thePhish room on Turntable.FM

Well the most talked about track from this show will undoubtedly by the SOAMelt. It is a big one and does live up to the hype, but it isn't the only moment of the show worth taking away. Simple > Ya Mar and Tweezer > Dirt are both awesome pairings, in the first set no less. The DWD before SOAMelt is your standard high-energy, 10 minute version... and I love these types of DWDs. In-your-face Phish.

Set Two doesn't really pick up again until the closer, which is a really nice and raging Bowie clocking in at 15 minutes. All of these tracks mentioned should definitely be listened to... don't just listen to the Melt!

This recording has been remastered, download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?hz4xkp7krm755
(The SOAMelt has been matrixed with the Live Bait SBD)