I think this show suffers in some people's minds because of the quality of the tour. This show was better in musicianship and jam than the 2011 MPP shows, and competes with the 2013 MPPs (tho 7/14/13 S1 may top). This show has something that hadn't really come before, a depth and nuance within the songs. It's like my 3 year old, who is still the same person, in terms of personality, as when she was 2, but has added a lot more depth to it in how she expresses herself.

I've heard that with Phish this tour, including this show. Sure, jams get cut off at times, but honestly, a lot of them run about the same length as those hallowed days when they would burn a good 3-5 minutes looking for a jam. They don't really look anymore, they get right to it. That Sally would have been more like 11-12 mins, if you tack that on. Instead, we got about 3 mins of song and 4 of jam, sans the search that can often just be filler till they find. Throw in that 3-5 mins in a couple more S2 songs, and you have a set people would have been a lot more excited about in 99 or 03. Maybe even earlier, given that their jams weren't usually as sustained back then in terms of this level of complexity, which was the norm this summer.

I'm intrigued by this theory about the lawn lights. They were unusually bad for MPP. That adds a nice touch. Also, it's hard to think it is coincidence that so many of Gehr's top songs showed up, given that Trey talked about the list. I think these things could disrupt or alter the focus. Phish has so many styles of shows, and this we got a double meta show. It made for a more subtle show, as opposed to the in your face jam throwdown the night before.

I think the jams also ran into a little Mike punking in S2. He led a number of them, and it seemed like he was deliberately making himself difficult to follow, which I found interesting. There are some unique nuggets in there.

Slave was wonderful, and I love the placement. Light was great, if short. Fuego was well placed, I like that slot. Great for S2 energy. And I thought the middle was more interesting than usual, a bit more in there. But yeah, cut short. That Sally. Talk about 15 min Sally's all you want, but I got the 4 mins out of it I wanted and keep listening to. And YEM was one of the better ones I've heard of 3.0 for volume of funkatron, plus a vocal jam I actually enjoyed, thanks to Fishman.

Lest we forget S1 had nice moments. Golgi opener was really nice. Stash Bowie Possum is a great finish. Remember how many times we've complained about the set closer trifectas, where we'd get three of them in a row to close set? Bowie and Possum had some pretty lively moments, taboot.

I guess we've just seen how high the bar is now thanks to this tour, and feelings on this show. It doesn't take down the tier ones from '15. But they also didn't take the night off. Because I've seen mediocre shows, and this one blew those out.