Hey everyone, it is SO awesome to finally find enlightened phans discussing our band. I was just reading the vile negativity on Livephish.com and got depressed for no good reason....

I listened to Junta in '98 and was immediately hooked. I didn't get to see my first show until '03 (Continental Airlines Arena, BB King sat in for almost the whole 1st set!!!)..... and I've been seeing them consistently ever since. That said, it drives me INSANE to hear so much negativity thrown at this band since they reunited. Most of the drivel can be found in the livephish.com comment section. I really don't see how hating on a band can coexist with loving a band.

Trust me, I'm dying to finally go to a show where the 2nd set consists of 1 epically long adventure off the musical cliff. 30-60 minute jams get me off. But I'm still consistently impressed by Trey's songwriting abilities. I almost cried watching the band play Billy Breathes to perfection at Bader night 1. Forget the jams for a minute, and appreciate how utterly rare it is for songwriters of any time period to produce such high quality material over such a long period of time. Trey doesn't get enough credit for his ability to craft songs as well as he does. What makes this band so much more enjoyable than every other jam band, and the reason they can be compared to the Dead, is that they actually have great SONGS! If they were just able to jam like gods but not write such great songs, they would still be popular, but they wouldn't be able to magnetically attract such a rabid fan base.

My point is......there is so much more to phish than the epic jam which has gone MIA in 3.0 era. These guys are national monuments. They are American History. And in my opinion, every now and then this band will spontaneously and singlehandedly discover a heretofore unknown realm of musical possibility --- and the last time they did this was during the Storage Jam at Superball. That jam sounds like the future distilled for an audience stuck in the present.

Long live Phish! I personally cannot wait for Phish 5.0 when the band will play their instruments while sitting in wheelchairs.