this show landed exactly 15 years after phish's first show at deer creek back in 1995. that show was also mine and most of my friends that i was with's first show, so need less to say, we were hoping some of that 1995 mojo would creep back in tonight.

i had just driven in that morning from a relatively hot but straight forward burgettestown show. while the previous night was good, we were really hoping hoping they would get weird...

the first set never really got too weird. I was happy to bdntl out of the way early in the show. i knew that was going to pop up either at deer creek or alpine, and being one of my least favorite of the new songs, i wanted it early... like pulling a band aid. ac/dc bag was welcome, and i was surprised to see limb by limb so early in the set. the moma dance keep the crowd rocking as clouds started to move in. water in the sky was a touch premature, but not by much. now, this melt just fell apart. this jam was very disjointed, and i kept waiting for them to pull it together, but that moment never came. i figured lawn boy would be an alpine valley song, but it's good to catch this page crooner at the creek. this wedge seemed to stretch out a little bit longer than normal. this was a particularly strong version. i really like faulty plan. like many songs in the repertoire, i was not too stoked on this tne until i saw them play it. i could've done without the connection, but ocelot got the crowd back into it. then, oh sweet jesus, fluff head! there were some flubs scattered in this fluff, but all in all, it was very well executed. the real story here is the lightning show that went along with the fluff head. i had some pavillion seats for this and i spent about 1/3 of this song turned around looking at the sky. trey really buried the end of this song, and despite the shit storm looming and a mediocre first set, fluff head sent everyone into set break jazzed!

this was one long set break. deer creek has a 11pm curfew, and usually that is pretty strict. as the set break reached 10:30-11, i was seriously wondering how much more show we were going to get. finally the guys came out and blasted into song i heard the ocean sing. i was really thinking ghost here, but maybe that was just some columbus '99/rainy ghost memories. anyway, the crowd quickly got into asihtos. the jam on this one had a nice dark, dreary, percussive sound. i don't know if it was just where i was sitting, but trey was really really loud this whole set. i was having a littl trouble hearing gordon due to trey's volume. i have never had trouble hearing a member of the band at deer creek, but gadzoots, trey was loud. luckily, trey was also on fire, so it was not a terrible problem to have.

anyway, after rocking this ocean jam for a few minutes, they began to space out a bit. out of a no where, page starts a piano solo that quickly turns a corner and leads to drowned. this drowned was a real barn burner. trey was so wailing away on this one. fishman also was pretty damn hot on this jam. they kind of forced the transition to twist, but hey, after that drowned, who cares? i am not really a big twist fan, but this one was pretty interesting. it had a santana'esque jam toward the end. let me lie was a good chance to burn one. the tweezer was phenomenal. page and trey were in the zone, and they really soared on this take of tweezer. i really feel that now a days they are trying to keep their tweezer relatively short but very focused, and I felt this was exactly what they were striving for all suummer. this jam finally gave way to 2001. page was all of this one, and the rain gave the disco funky feel a little twist. i really thought suzy would close this one out, but they tacked on a nice little possum before sending us up to alpine valley. the encore was a little anticlimatic but hell, good set!

highlights:

set 1:

the wedge,fluff head

set 2:
ocean sing>drowned, tweezer>2001