@hova1 said:

@LightsWentOut said:

I have a sense that the shorter jams we are seeing are being interpreted as being "safe". I don't see it that way. Long jams, even when performed by Phish, can be masturbatory and aren't always called for. There is a time and place. While I can marvel at an hour long Runaway Jim, in the end, it usually only stands out because it is an hour long. The band's move to more self-editing is the 3.0 version of risk taking. Look at the negative response this has been getting among some of the more heady wooks - especially recently. The first sign of a significant change in anything is the backlash it gets from the people it affects and risk, almost by definition, is a change. Risk is happening. Some of us just aren't seeing it as such. Some of us are blind to it because it isn't the kind of risk we want.

I think this a great point.

I am not sure I agree with this much at all. What is "risk taking" about muscling through songs and not taking chances? Change does not equal risk when they aren't challenging themselves. I think it would be different if it was apparent that they were practicing and simply nailing the composed sections -- that would be a trade-off for them closing their eyes and going "out there." But that does not seem to be happening.

I will say that the aborting of Harry Hood for What's the Use? was much more fluid last evening than the jarring forcing into Light at Bonnaroo. It's just unfortunate that WtU? was followed by Wading In the Velvet Sea, Possum. Maybe *that* was risky. Maybe the Ha Ha Ha in the first set was a sign of how they would end the second.

[There is mention of 14-minute songs. Looking at Live Phish, it appears as though there have been only three songs over 14 minutes that aren't written to be that length - one Ghost (by 30 seconds), one Down With Disease, and one Birds of a Feather. (The other two were Divided Sky and Fluffhead.)]