Phish continued their trek through the western states Tuesday night by musically blazing the night away in Tahoe. As a sold-out show that was available for pay-per-view live streaming, Phish picked up where they left at the Gorge and recovered from their Hollywood Bowl issues of complete jamming and thoughtless turns. Opening with the quirky 'Party Time', the band released a quick torrent of oldies such as 'The Oh Kee Pah Ceremony', 'AC/DC Bag', the cover of 'Mellow Mood', and 'Rift'. The highlight of the first set is unquestionably the far-from-standard 'Punch You In the Eye', rare 'Meat' (cook that shit!), and a great low to high 'David Bowie', a tune that almost brought Nevada to near silence. After an awkward pause of uncertainty, Fishman drove the band into an uneasy 'Bouncing Around the Room' but the foursome made it work and fit in 'Horn' and 'Water in the Sky' before capping it all off with '46 Days'.

After welcoming phans back from break and a rather weird mid-stream game show for folks afar, Phish started up with the first second set 'Gotta Jibboo' opener since April 6th, 2004 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. As they tore through the second set, arguably one of the most psychedelically impressive improvisational moments of August, one could not help but feel the nod to late Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia who we all were celebrating the 16th anniversary of his death. After the highlight nugget of 'Light', the Jerry tribute seemed even more sensible as 'Chalk Dust Torture', 'Slave to the Traffic Light', and 'Free' were all played flawlessly and serenely. If one could not feel the tension - yet little release - flowing last night, then listen again as some of the more delicately woven jams of summer finally made it through as shining examples of Phish 3.0. When Gordon told Trey to keep 'Free' down low, Trey obliged instead of making it the classic rock force it has become after the nostalgic late 90s. A particularly awing moment came when the lights revealed Page would since a new cover song. While the signs pointed at another Jerry tribute, other signs pointed up to the sky - at the Rocket Man. Like an awkward birthday gift, it was the thought that counts but the band needs more practice if they ever want to pull it off again. Saved by a good, peakless, 'Harry Hood', the set took a direction for the interesting as it was capped by an enormous 'Walls of the Cave' The duel encore of 'Bug' and 'The Squirming Coil' was as appropriate as ever, leaving fans in the midsummer Nevada desert heat begging for more.

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My wife was wearing a "Timber Ho" shirt on this evening. Whilst standing in the porta-potty line behind a couple of guys, the guy in front says to the other, "Why don't we let The Timber Ho go?"

If you haven't heard it, don't hesitate to seek out this Light/Chalkdust/Slave combo. Since the return, Light has unquestionably been the band's most promising jam vehicle, never less than an adrenalized jam tune and on several occasions (e.g. Gorge 8/7/09, Festival 8, 12/2/09 MSG, Gorge 8/7/10, Super Ball IX, UIC 8/15/11, et al.) a springboard to thrilling experimental playing. This is the most abstract of them all, devolving from impossibly dense wall-of-rock textures to futuristic factory floor noise - for full flavour, pair it with the mindblowing DJ Shadow-like Rock'n'Roll > Meatstick > Boogie On from the previous weekend. But don't sleep on the Chalkdust! It's an unusual rendition, not an all-time classic by any stretch but a special treat given how rarely Chalkdust gets weird.

The rest of the show is standard Summer '11 fun, as I recall. Oh, and/but: 46 Days is a *smoker.*

Well, I am not sure this review will be about the music as much as it was about my experience. I drove up from the bowl leaving LA at about 11pm and making a sleep stop in kettleman city, the first problem was the on ramp back on to the hwy was closed and it took me literally a full hour to get back on the hwy, adding to an already long drive. The last 60 or so miles also into Tahoe proved to be a slow crawl on lazy back country one way roads... but when finally arriving around 4pm I was able to chill a bit in the room. Wow, I have been going to concerts since I saw queen in 1979. What is so special about this place? When you can crawl from the Harvey's hotel to the show in 5 minutes and be back in your room again 5 minutes after the without having to drive, allows for some tremendous recreation freedoms if you get my drift, make a 450 mile slog drive well worth it. I can summerize this show and the simply: Phish Tahoe 2011 is the new Grateful Dead Frost Cal Expo 1985-6. It was just so laid back, you could easily walk to the side front and be very very close to the stage. The stands in this place scared the shit out of me, I was comfortable sitting in the back stands when the show started and the entire structure was moving so hard I just could not stand it and quickly found my way to the floor. Having the entire seating area moving massively just lifted up my paranoia about it crashing down and I am never a fear based guy.. I saw all these people with lime green phishies on sticks walking around and I felt left out, where is my lime green phishy on a stick? what was the point of them aways I wondered ??? This venue was just beautiful, tall trees and lovely sky.

the show:
I love having a party time opener. It just sets the perfect mood !
I am not a song by song critical analysis guy in fact on some of it seems to stick long in my mind but I can say I was not bored at all at any of these shows, that is saying a lot because I am 46 and have seen soooo many concerts that I do easily lose interest. I loved the mellow mood and punch you in the was a blast. I dont really care so much for ac/dc but it was fine.. meat I have not heard before so that was cool and the bowie bouncing was fun as hell, the horn had nice audience participation but water - 46 days was great stuff. During the break I scored me a lime green phishy on a stick and was happily bringing it with me...
Second set.. Gotta Jibboo was really smokin and we were dancin up a storm, I dont know what the hell it means to Jibbo but I think I was doing it... the light was no where near what it was when I first heard it at the Greek last summer, but it was fine.. I was really happy to hear slave, I just love this complex tune... Then it happened, all those lime green phishies... turned out to be a rocket man !!! they simply had to turned upward heeheh.... Im a rocket man indeed... I love any hood, I just do.. Please dont slam the bug encores ... bug is a cool tune and the coil is without a doubt the finest testimony to the band's love of early genesis, this song just sounds right out of a steve hackett guitar clinic.

I have to say that trey was just SHREDDING !!! the band was epic ! and this show and next was a complete success in my book (in case you still read books -hehe)

My second Phish show ever! After the Hollywood Bowl one-off, I was very prepared for a 2-nighter. I was very pleased with the people here, the performance, and the surrounding trees/mountain/lake. One of the highest times of my years!

in terms of venue, harvey’s in stateline was the polar opposite of the gorge. stuck in-between a few huge hotels in the middle of a gambling town, the stage set up basically in a parking lot that doubled as an “arena”, the venue couldn’t compare with the gorge in terms of visuals. of course, i had an amazing two days winding my way down the coast towards tahoe after the gorge shows, and had camped in the mountains west of stateline the night before the show, so i’m not really complaining. on top of that, the sound was pretty amazing, and i likely won’t ever get another chance to see phish with only what must have been 6,000 or 7,000 people (even if most of those people seemed more interested in getting wasted and accidentally knocking me on my ass over and over again).

so. night one.

appropriately for tahoe, phish opened with party time. i like this tune a lot, and there was, as they say, a bit of extra mustard on the solo at the end. they didn’t come roaring out of the gates, exactly, like they had at the gorge, but then the tahoe shows in general would go on to be more well-paced but less peak-y than the gorge shows. depends, i guess, on what you prefer in a phish show whether the gorge run or tahoe run was better.

rift is the song that got me listening to phish in the first place, but i cringed when it started up because, try as they might, the boys don’t seem to be able to do it justice lately. this version, however, was…well, let’s call it “well-played”. it certainly didn’t capture the energy of an early version, but it didn’t derail the way a lot of recent versions have.

the next two songs were classics with a little extra tacked on to appreciate. the AC/DC bag ended with a neat little guitar loop that might well have been a mistake or a missed segue, but worked nonetheless. pyite saw the band extending the middle section: again, not taking it anywhere totally new, but little details like these peppered the first set of this show, spicing up what was otherwise a pretty straightforward list of songs. i was near the front during this set (though i guess we all were, relatively), and it looked a bit like there were some coherence problems; as in everyone seemed to want to jam these songs out a bit more, to go for a sort of “gorge part three” thing, but the coherence that had been there at the gorge was gone. it wasn’t bad, or really obvious in the music, but there were a lot of junctures where transitions and segues seemed awkward.

meat helped with this a bit. i hadn’t even remembered how much i liked this song until i heard it. with the excellent sound and the band nailing the complicated vocals, this is where things seemed like they were about to cohere, finally. then there was an uber-short, confusing and downright middle-of-the-road bowie. i suppose it’s a testament to this band’s skills that a song like this one, played like it was here, was disappointing, but it was. it was followed by bouncing and water in the sky: i described both as “nice” in my notes. the set closed with a bang in the form of 46 days. this is one that doesn’t really hold up that well on tape in the sense that you don’t get the experience of feeling how fucking loud it was and how much it riled the crowd up. it’s an all-out treyfest and i remember thinking at the time that it made up for whatever weaknesses the first set might have had. on tape, however, the whole set seems consistently average, with the highlights being meat and 46 days.

coming back for the second set, i was happy to hear jibboo kick things off. i’m a real sucker for those old 10-15 minute long versions of jibboo and heavy things. however, unlike the 46 days rocker, trey didn’t seem ready to compose any real interesting noodling here; instead, the song sort of chases itself around in a circle for a bit and then transitions into what is a honestly a really rough first few minutes of light. i love light as well, and i love this jam, but it was hard not to think of it as “gorge-lite”. even after listening to both ambient jams a few times in a row, this one sounds to me like the boys were super excited after the awesome rock and roll gorge jam and wanted to try something like it again, and this time it just didn’t click as well. this is a great jam, and it was easily one of the best moments of the tahoe run, but i also remember wondering at the time if the new ambient-space-rock phish was going to start pulling one of these space jams out every night, and hoping that they wouldn’t (maybe once every three shows or so, guys?).

all that said, the segue to chalkdust was PERFECT. this chalkdust was everything that the gorge one wasn’t (i.e., it was interesting). it was no brooklyn ‘04, of course, but still a great rocker out of the space-jam of light that didn’t just default to trey-shredding over substance.

despite the small amount of shows i’ve actually seen, i’ve gotten a few slaves, and they’ve all been at least great, if not incredible. the gorge ‘09 slave was one of the highlights of that weekend for me, and this slave was much, much better. it featured a nice, patient build and great lighting work during a beautiful tahoe night. i was happy to see free, as i also love this song, and it was better-played than usual, but as many others have pointed out elsewhere, the guys just can’t seem to nail the harmonies on this lately. with the vocals as up-front as they were at this show, the missed harmonies were cringe-worthy. but it was nice to see a second-set free.

rocket man seemed like a perfect page cover, but it sort of played out like they were learning it as they went. i’d like to hear this cover in the “ballad” slot again, but hopefully a little more solidly-played next time. page’s voice was great.

i thought hood was going to end the second set, especially as it opened excellently and continued straight into a great, slave-like jam. it seemed like the perfect, epic-sounding closer, but then the band went into walls of the cave. this is another song that doesn’t translate to tape. at the show, this walls was absolutely the loudest, fist-pumpingest bit of rock and roll i’ve ever jumped up and down to in all the concerts i’ve been to. really. on tape it might sound a bit flat, but it was an amazingly emphatic set closer. so good, in fact, that a pretty epic, rocking version of bug afterwards seemed like a bit of a letdown in comparison…

squirming coil, i’ve decided, is the perfect closer for the first night of a two night stand. it’s not really climactic enough for a night two closer, but it gives off that perfect “we’ll see you tomorrow” sort of feeling. phish also closed the blossom ‘10 show that i saw with this song (weirdly, i’ve seen 7 shows and only four different closers), but this version, as i was standing about 50 feet from page’s piano at that point, blew that other one out of the water.

this show was more consistent than either gorge show, but that consistency was a bit mediocre. there were some second-set heroics and enough of the high moments translated well enough when i was there in person that i went away thinking at the time that this show easily *bested* either gorge show (adrenaline, i guess), and i suppose it’s still better than most of ‘11 leg one, but it’s not my favorite of the four shows that i saw. in fact, it’s probably in fourth place.

Isn't that a "Star Wars Theme" tease starting at 4:52 in Chalkdust?

OOps, not Star Wars, shows what I know about Harry Potter. Oh well at least they're both John Williams.