@Icculus

Can we get an old school, surgical review of the jams from Dick's maybe? I'd be very interested in getting your take on those and it might be kind of fun to do.

Anyway, the corner was turned at Dick's. While I applaud your even-keeled approach, I'd be lying if I said this New Year's run wasn't a bit of a let down. If they happened in the June segment of the tour, I'd be raving about it but given what just happened it seems to be a step backward. Probably my own fault for having my expectations set so high.

Certainly, 12/28 and 12/30 are above average shows, but 12/29 and 12/31 were just bad. Really bad. I guess I need to put things in perspective here and recognize that the Dick's run was a watershed moment in 3.0 phish history...but the question still remains: is the Dick's run the aberration or is the New Year's run the aberration? Can we expect the band to hit the commitment to jamming of Dick's at least somewhat regularly or is the New Year's run a more likely standard?

I'm really hoping that the truth is somewhere in the middle. That say, 12/29 and 8/31 represent the extremes of the spectrum, where the occasional (like twice a tour) 12/29 is followed by standardly strong shows like 12/28 with a few 8/31's (or 9/1+9/2) sprinkled in. The mere fact that they raised the bar to break through with such consistent, quality, and sustained jamming at Dick's means that they may just drop that at any show from now on. That's got me extremely excited and planning to hit more shows than I was ever able to before. The hard part is not expecting that to happen at every show. It does seem like every year in 3.0 was better than the last, so bring on 2013.