@waxbanks said:

Sorry, to sum up my response to @hdorne which sorta got buried in a response to the thread in general:

Phish try every night to accomplish something that Wilco, on their best night, couldn't dream of (and I say this despite loving Nels Cline's improv w/MMW, and Tweedy's songwriting). On an off night, Phish aim for total musical synchronization and end up playing nothing more than Unprecedentedly Coherent Improvised Rock, which is still totally worth the ticket price as long as they don't completely butcher all the writtens, I think.

Now if they're having trouble syncing up, or are noticeably rusty, well -- that's frustrating, and embarrassing if they didn't put in the work to tighten up for tour. But if they're putting nose to grindstone and making interesting music with some technical errors, that seems a fair tradeoff. I wasn't there, haven't heard, don't know -- but that evaluative framework seems sensible to me for now.

I know exactly what you mean. I don't agree that Wilco "couldn't dream" of achieving what Phish can, because it's apples and oranges. On some nights, Wilco are a better Wilco than Phish are Phish, and vice versa. But I completely agree that the process is more important than the outcome when it comes to Phish. Some of my favorite shows have some rust and flubs. I love the cathartic jamming of 2.0 even though that era is rusty as hell. Sometimes they play perfectly "tight" shows that are rather boring to those of us who've been listening for years and know the transcendent heights of which they are capable. I see all of that as part of the process. I never got mad about the lack of jams early on in 3.0. They were getting their improvisational sea legs back, and I was just happy to have my favorite band back in action. I knew the glorious jams would eventually return, and I was right.

The thing I don't understand is the people who say that their truly bad shows are better than literally any other artist's best shows. There's sticking with your beloved band through thick and thin, and then there's just not knowing the difference between competently and incompetently performed music. "The band struggled to get it together all night and Trey butchered everything, but that's still better than any other band in the world." I don't get it.