Couch - just wanted to add a few things. First set was probably very fun to be there dancing. I thought Brian and Robert, And free, sounded way too fast, but were pulled off pretty nicely. Yes, free had a bass solo but doesn't go anywhere. That's o.k. Bluegrass songs and things like golgi also don't go anywhere, But they're still fun. I don't think I ever saw it happen before but I like that trey have page the nod for heavy things and let him take the solo. Riggae was beautiful. I'm sure Mike thinks he was playing to many notes, But it suits that song wonderfully. Speaking of suits, wingsuit, though odd after Brian and Robert, was excellent. Yarmouth road was fun too.
I fully disagree with the ripchord comments in set 2. Ripchord to me is when a jam is heading somewhere special and then out of nowhere trey just starts playing something else entirely. This is not new - my worst two seen were spetctrum 97 bowie into possum and great woods 99 Reba into carini. Heartbreaking stuff there. What I've noticed about great set twos and jams is that typically, trey begins to back off, someone else hts on something fantastic, The jam takes off and trey jumps back into the drivers seat. Every time trey backed of last night, the band fizzled off into lackluster ambience, practically begging for trey to start something else. If the jam isn't really working, I'd prefer to see them move on to another song aa opposed to droning on and meandering aimlessly, a trend I saw many times in 98 through 2000. I thought nothing ended before it should have last night - each jam did something cool, then ready for what's next. And trey totally hit a riff from time turns elastic twice during twist. Then an exceptional hood with trey walking over to Mike while they both totally goofed off and got weird during the reggae intro. Very playful and fun, But a little too safe overall to make the show all together exceptional, But very concise and tight throughout.
The band trusts trey to be the leader for a reason. He is probably the best if them to judge when it's time to move on. We may disagree with his calls, but I guarantee you - he's better than me, and probably better than you, at making those decisions.