@Chris Glushko, Well done. I thought your review was spot on. I agree with much of it.

For all you noobs (and I mean noob in a kind way ... we were all noobs once) ....

I absolutely cherished my first Phish show, The Great Went, also a festival. I never understood at the time why all my other friends who had seen Phish many times dating back to 94 where hating on 8/16/97 Set I. I liked it. It was fun, my first Phish set. [But it was 8/16 Set II & Set III and 8/17/97 Set II that got me hooked for life). But after you start seeing many shows over the years and listen to even more, you start to better differentiate what is truly great, what is average/great and what falls short. Listening to 7/2/11 Set I live on the stream, it felt to me what it must have felt to them in 97. And to quote Trey from Bittersweet Motel, "we just weren't hooked up". I could hear that plain as day. It was bad. As bad as 8/16/97 Set I in that regard. They should have played Monkey Man a good 4 or 5 songs earlier and walked off the stage, same as 8/16/97 set I. Took me a long time to "get" that 8/16/97 Set I was a bad set, but eventually I did. [And let me point out that a "bad" phish set, is pretty much better than most rock and rolls concerts anywheres]. I think many of you will come to find the same thing about 7/2/11 Set I as you progress in your phish obsession. The key as someone above pointed out is that if we as an online community on phish.net (or wherever) can't come together to discuss Phish without taking things as personal shots or whatever, we suck. Never used to be that way, doesn't have to, but it seems as every influx of noobs come in, we cannot avoid it. How I wish I could make it stop. I am truly glad to see so many of you had wonderful time at SBIX, some of you even life changing. That is so cool. But don't misunderstand mine or others critical reading of the music as trying to harsh on your mellow, cause nothing would be further from the truth. The Phish scene always needs new blood. Just as it always needs respecful, kind fans. Happy Phishing.