If you’ve been a fan for a minute, you’ve heard of “festival Phish.”

It’s the mostly pejorative term for a set that’s preciously curated for non-fans who really rolled up to see Bruce Springsteen, Matt & Kim, or some craft yoga emo battalion with seven snare drummers, five fiddles, and three artisanal washboards—but decided to stick it out and finally, passively, see what Phish is all about. These dilute sets nearly always seem to include a “Moma Dance,” a “Down With Disease,” a “Joy,” and a generous helping of unapologetic ripcords.

Having scratched my scalp through Phish’s recent thud at the Forum in Los Angeles—and after being thoroughly befuddled by the often listless nature of most of the summer tour shows—I mostly expected Phish to play things safe and disposable at their inaugural Lockn’ performance.

Then I watched Ween’s set, which brought the blessed monsoon thunder. These ragged, pasty, schvitzing pirate-bastards leaned in hard, and set an example by defying the idea that you need to file down your sharp corners to satisfy a festival crowd.

That’s when I started to feel cynical for cramming down my Phish expectations so far. Maybe what Phish saw of Ween’s set from the wings in Arrington raised their bar. Maybe Ween—whose reunion was publicly commissioned by none other than Trey himself—inspired Phish to properly sex this festival in a way they’ve sexed literally no other.

The headliners begin by inserting a deliberate half-hour-or-so pause between Ween’s set and their own, as if to create a sense of separation between the day’s events and what is to come. A strange call, but okay.

The “Wilson” opener is promising. It’s actually quite sloppy, but the looseness feels like a feature, perhaps even Ween-inspired. That same looseness turns a little buggy in the “Down With Disease” intro. After this tidy “Disease,” the band stumbles down the stairs as they try to land “Free,” with Mike moving to the B-flat before Trey (who’s not yet mentally present).

The first genuine spark of the night fires at the beginning of the “Wolfman’s Brother” jam segment, when Page takes command on the Clavinet and instigates a staccato riot between his bandmates. Trey is suddenly awakened, and his own solo climaxes with an extended note that feels like a door opening.

“Tube” maintains this upward trajectory. With this version we are witness to not just a zero show gap, but the second extended version in a row (the 7/23 Chula Vista version is a must-hear). It’s hard to find songs that have had a banner year in 2016, but “Tube” must now be counted among them.

By this time it’s clear that Page is the MVP of this set, guiding the direction of jams and asserting himself in ways we didn’t see all summer. He keeps the funk rolling through “555” as well, and stays feisty through a hot jam in “It’s Ice.”

Respectable versions of “Wingsuit,” “Simple,” and “Space Oddity” bring this set home solidly. During the short break, we speculate about the possibility of a Mickey Melchiondo sit-in as he posts a Facebook photo of himself strumming one of Trey’s Languedocs backstage.

The second stanza begins with a haggard take on “Punch You in the Eye” in which Trey forgets to take his second solo, and there’s little Page can do to rescue this version, gamely as he may try. “Blaze On” feels like an appropriate call for the sun-stroked festival crowd, and though it only noses up to the 11-minute mark, it does achieve a kind of low-earth orbit for a few minutes before Page yet again points his bandmates in their next direction.

This time it’s “Fuego.” This tune has managed to survive as one of my favorite Phish anthems despite its omnipresence. It has a ton of horsepower for a song about a car with so little. This “Fuego” is nothing special in a relative sense, but it conflagrates nicely toward the end of the jam in a way that feels almost (dare I say it) brown.

There’s an awkward segue next into “Ghost” as Fish struggles to lock down the groove, but all is quickly forgotten and forgiven as the band charges headlong into a confident, versatile rendition that sounds rather different from the start. Fish, for his part, seems intent to redeem his earlier stumble and begins to push the tempo, briefly and playfully adding cowbell to the sonic mix. A few minutes in, you can hear the full band complete the circuit and start to improvise as a unit, in a settled way, collectively imagining possible paths forward. Trey, now fully activated, answers with a majestic major key hose-down of uncommon power, and leaves jaws dangling open for a good few minutes before the jam’s woo-infused denouement.

Awesome. This blissful “Ghost” takes its place among the finest of 3.0, and by this point it’s abundantly clear that Phish is performing like the headliners they are tonight.

“Bathtub Gin” refuses to surrender any yardage, either, as it quickly disembarks from home, propelled forward this time by Mike, who insistently establishes the minor. A perfect companion piece to the “Ghost” that preceded it, this “Gin” is a laser dogfight meant to melt your face. This warp-drive “Gin” puts the notion of “festival Phish” under its boot heel and grinds it into dust. Statement made and acknowledged.

The expected dose of fourth quarter dynamic arrives in the form of “Backwards Down the Number Line,” which retreats into a sweet, contemplative space and takes its rural Virginia time building back to a nice little peak. The “You Enjoy Myself” that closes this set proves perplexing, as Trey forgets to take his Marimba Lumina solo and instead decides to play his guitar.

I’m snarking, of course. This, to me, is what “YEM” should sound like. I’m not sure what got into Trey tonight; maybe he was afraid that if he put down his guitar, Deaner might pick it up and play it better. Or toss the Marimba Lumina into a fucking bonfire. Whatever the case, me likey.

“Character Zero,” while not anybody’s dream encore, goes big-n-brown nevertheless. Trey grabs the reins and pulls hard, bending the tempo backward. Fish responds, smiling back, with a plastic beat. So it goes for a few minutes as the tension builds and then finally releases into the big finish.

Don’t call it a comeback. There’s life in 2016 Phish yet—in places you might least expect it.

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