@meanpete said:

The backlash against the Tahoe Tweezer is unsurprising given it is the go to 3.0 jam, but it seems to be driven by that "I'm going to hate on whatever is successful right now" mentality that permeates the American sports mind. Tahoe Tweezer belongs in the first tier for a two simple reasons.

1. At 36+ minutes, it retains its focus and structural integrity for the entire jam. There are very few 30+ minute jams in the Phish canon that don't disintegrate into either dissonant chaos, a spacey ambient jam, or segue into another song. It is pretty much a half hour of blissful rock 'n roll.

2. It is viewed as a turning point of 3.0. Fair or unfair, this jam is viewed as the turning point of 3.0. Most of the best and most creative jamming of 3.0 came after Tahoe.

3. While not everybody's favorite Tweezer, I can't imagine there is anyone who straight up dislikes Tahoe. If we were to survey everyone's top 10 Tweezers, I assume Tahoe would appear on 90% - 95% of the lists. There are soooo many great Tweezers out there, but some of the greats don't appear to all ears (see Bangor, Fleezer, Bomb
Factory, etc.). The Tahoe Tweezer is as close to a consensus favorite as you get.

I respectfully, but strongly disagree with point #2.

IMO, the best year of 3.0 in 2012. I also like Fall 2013, but I think that 2012 is significantly better than 2013 and 2014, and that's without a fall tour.

So, what is the turning point of 3.0? I think there are quite a few inflection points, starting as early as Camden '09, but if I had to pin it on a show/a run of shows/a tour, I'd say Fall 2010. Funny enough, I didn't see a show on that tour. But there were quite a few powerful shows in a short period of time, and it led into MSG '10, where there were some major highlights. Summer '11 is not my favorite, but it had Chicago, Superball and Dick's, all of which kept momentum going. MSG '11 was a one-off dip, not sure what happened there, and then Worcester started '12 off right and it continued all the way through to the incredible 12/30 show (12/31 rarely does it for me, musically, it's more of a best-party-ever feeling than something I need to listen back to over and over again).