@zzyzx said:

"6/13/94 destroys -- utterly destroys -- anything Phish has played in 3.0."

No way. Just in the last show I saw - Mansfield, not exactly considered the best of the tour, the Divided Sky, the Rock and Roll jam (it would have freaked me out to hear Phish playing the VU in 1994, so it would have had to come out of another song obviously), or the high energy banteriffic Suzie would have been considered the highlight of 6/13/94.

Maybe I should listen to it again. What would be your highlight of the show? The Slave?

I definitely posted in haste. I'm not sure off the top of my head, and my Phish hard drives aren't at my work office. At a glance, I would say that 1994 was one of the best years for Reba. Maybe *the* best year. Even a pedestrian, unremarkable Reba for 1994 would be sublime. It pains me to hear them play it these days. The old dynamics just aren't there. These days, it seems like Phish is either on or off. Seems like Trey is either barely brushing the strings or he's hammering one or two high notes in a 3.0-style "shred." There's very little sense of melody

Again, my issues with this summer are not the repeats. Nobody who was around in 93 would say that. Remember when set II was either Tweezer YEM or Mike's Groove? And it's not the length of jams.

To be fair, it's been a long, long time since Phish has jammed on a blank slate. Even through the early-mid 90s, they (and Trey in particular) seemed to have a lot of stock themes that they used modular-style to build a particular jam. There was little that you'd never heard before, but it was very possible that you hadn't heard this particular way of building up Reba (for example). That element of creativity and originality seems to be gone.

Too long / didn't read version: If I'm honest with myself, maybe my difference of opinion is that I'm not okay with hearing the same "type I" rock-peak jam over and over again.