@lumpblockclod said:

"But there's just no getting around the balance of 2016 being underwhelming IMO. Yes, things began to improve at the Gorge, though let's not forget, 3 of the 6 second sets from that run were either lackluster (Gorge2) or about as unexciting as Phish gets (BGCA3 & Forum)."

I suppose, but a) that's not uncommon of literally any tour, ever, and b) you've still got the first BGCA shows, Gorge 1, and Chula to deal with. I'll get back to that in a second.

"That inconsistency continued into the Fall (I'm still trying to figure out what happened in Dallas),"

People are gonna talk about that show for the next decade like it's Phish's version of the JFK assassination, and I don't quite know what happened there either (especially since Dallas 1 is a nice show). But, yeah, again, not every show is a jewel.

"but it wasn't just inconsistency, it was also the peaks of 2016 not matching the peaks of other years. Compare Randalls CDT>Light>Tweezer, Mann Fuego and Miami Ghost>Theme>Cities, OTOH, with, let's say, Dicks NMINML, ATL DWD, and BGCA Sally. It's not a fair fight from my standpoint."

And that's where the "IMO" is nice, because I*M*O if you stack up, say, the Vegas Golden Age/Piper/DWD/BOAF, Nashville Hood, SPAC Moma/CDT, Wrigley (fill in the blank), and Dick's C&P/Piper/NMIMNL (you don't like that jam that much? Really?) against the aforementioned other jams, I think it becomes more of a fair fight.

"Fall 2013 is every bit on the level as 2015, so I'm not sure 2016 will make out favorably in that comparison either."

I love Fall 2013 to death (as the posts I've made around this here forum bear out), but this is the tour of 10/18-10/19, Rochester (Rochester!), and Worcester 1, a damn lovely show that shrinks a bit considering how much stronger the modern era has gotten since. Fall 2016 (which, I assume, is the comparison point - I note no mention of Summer 2013 here) may not make out favorably, but it's hardly a shrinking violet in that regard.

"Anyway, you're free to disagree with all of the above. Phish opinions are just that."

That's what I keep telling people.

"But most of us who continue to call this year subpar aren't doing so because we're focused only on one stretch of shows or due to a lack of historical perspective. We're doing it because we think it's underwhelming."

And that's fair, and all I'll say is this - Fall 1999 is one of my favorite tours, and it's *insanely* inconsistent and has some shows that would probably struggle to garner a favorable rating *today*, and in the context of (say) December 1999, which people love because of Cypress (even though it's more inconsistent than the Fall is), or December 1995, or Fall 1997, yes, it can seem underwhelming. But nobody gives a crap about the bad shows of Fall 1999, just as nobody gives a crap about the bad shows of any tour, because it's not the bad shows of a tour you judge a tour on. We don't judge Fall '97 on 12/8, we judge it on 11/22. And, all told, I think that no matter how inconsistent you think the tour is or how bad you think the bad shows are (I won't even argue there are more bad, or "bad", really, shows this tour), at the end of the day I think you have to judge it on its best, and I think there's more than enough "best" here to be happy with the year. IMO.