The Hood in this show is magic. Still my favourite Hood of all time. Trey packs so much emotion into this version, with Page working perfectly around the edges. I'll give this show a 4 based on the Hood alone, not to mention the Bowie, Colonel, and great Whipping Post.

IIRC, this was my first *tape* of a Phish show that I ever dubbed from a friend. I had enjoyed listening to Junta, and this was the only tape (sets 1&2) that my buddy had from this era. I was studying jazz guitar and knew "A-Train" and "All Blues", and was just getting into Zappa, so I was interested to hear their version of "Peaches En Regalia". But "Suzy Greenberg", then "The Curtain" into "Wilson"... who was this band that had a catalog of unreleased original material that was this good? And the band was clearly having a good time, chatting with the audience between songs, goofing around during the YEM vocal jam and "I Didn't Know", while ripping apart covers like "La Grange" and "On Your Way Down"... they had chops, they had fans, the tape sounded like they were playing in my local college bar, but the music sounded like they were playing for thousands instead of hundreds...
Anyway, Sets I and II of this show was the first step on a long journey of joyous revelations. This show is not any more magical than any other from fall 88-spring 89, but it will always have a hallowed place in my memories.

Very solid show! Highlight for me include a very nice first set La Grange and YEM, All Blues > Sanity (fast version) to start set II, and strong versions of Hood and Whipping Post. Also, gotta love a Corrina. The Curtis Loew and David Bowie were a little shaky in parts, but nothing to get bent out of shape over. Still, I don't think there was anything that would get me excited enough to push this to four stars, so I'll go with a strong 3 star rating.