Great review Cotter, thanks for representing all the high school fans out there & appreciate you volunteering! Keep doing your thing. I always read the reviews but have never added to the dialogue so figured I’d do so now since I was in attendance this past weekend and left Sunday night more than satisfied. I'm also just generally excited about this tour - is it me, or do odd numbered years seem to be above average for Phish? Here is my lengthy commentary, of course please feel free to ignore my (relatively) pointless banter…

MPP2 was my 70th show, all 3.0 since I was in middle school as of 2004 (could that make me a “jaded noob”? Is there such a categorization? LOL). Though I haven’t yet listened back, I thought Sunday was fantastic and have zero complaints about any of the songs or set flow. To me, the first 40-minutes (Carini > My Soul > Rift, Gumbo, It’s Ice) represent what I love about Phish – an eclectic mix of genres & pace changes, technicality and jamming (a slight flub here and there but otherwise pretty darn good). Winterqueen came next (only other that I’ve seen was @ Randall’s) and at this point of the show I thought a slow-down was appropriate given the energy from the previous 5-songs (just my opinion though). I look forward to listening back to this version. Yarmouth Road’s silly lyrics provided for some fun people watching from my post against the front lawn rail (quite entertaining to see people of all ages “hang with the bees and buzz in the honeycomb” on the cement pathway below), and Shade was a nice surprise for my fiancé, providing an opportunity for us to embrace each other in slow-dance (there are thousands of different preferences at every show, so there’s gotta be something for everyone!). The details of Sunday's Halfway Home is a bit of a blur for me, though I will say – again my opinion – that I personally like the GOTF additions more than previous non-Phish song additions including certain of the Kasvot Vaxt & Thrilling Chilling Sounds songs. Many likely disagree (perhaps strongly, in fact is it taboo for me to say that or do others agree?) … GOTF is certainly not for everyone, and can be a little dismal but in general a welcome addition in my book.

I will need to listen back to the show in its entirety to offer a more precise evaluation but overall I thought The Wedge>Antelope, the entire second set and encore were excellent. Maybe I was having too much fun or was too far from sober to critique the show as much as I inevitably will during my second listen-through, but I guess that’s good right? Having recently moved back to the west coast (after 8-years in NYC) I’m still adapting to life with Phish being significantly less accessible than before. Unless I attend Mexico, these will be the only 2 shows I’ll see until next summer (and were the only 2 I caught since attempting to attend Curveball) which doesn’t quite reach my preferred quota. Songs like Yarmouth Road used to warrant a grumble or two from me, but not so much nowadays. The comedic, yet emotional and unpredictable nature of each Phish show is like traveling internationally … you never know what you might see, hear or experience. Even Waste – albeit on the slower side – was a beautiful addition to the encore, especially since my friend had bartered a “Come waste your time with me” pin for a cigarette prior to them starting Maze. Funny how things work out – the value of that pin appreciated 400% in just 2 songs (jk)! Might be the same with the hot/cold juxtaposition mentioned above – just a “coincidence” – which I believe is likely given the expansiveness of the band’s repertoire and the post-diction interpretations you could offer from any set list, but you (certainly not I) never know the extent to which those things are planned. Phish is no coincidence, but rather all the energies perfectly colliding in space and time.

I love that this exists. Thank you all for contributing to one of the most special things in the world.