2000 has a pretty weird halo effect around it IMO, as to my ears it's something of a step back from 1999, with the hiatus obviously on their minds (as it had to have been since Cypress) and some decidedly less than compelling shows scattered throughout both Summer and Fall. But every year has a plethora of great music, and this is what I consider one of the year's stronger shows.

The first set starts with Guyute and BOTT, both perfectly fine versions, before a pretty good Gin that stays away (mostly) from Classic Gin fare and offers up a more stripped-back jam that still gives Trey the opportunity to fire off some nifty solos. The rest of the set is fine, although there had to have been some kind of wager in place that the band couldn't play two of their most demanding compositions (Fluffhead and Curtain With) back to back for the one and only time in their career. Remarkably, both of them are pulled off without much of a hitch, which is surprising given how sloppy they got towards the end.

Set 2 starts with a Rock & Roll that builds up an unholy noise before finding a really nice and entirely typical of late-90s Phish musical realm. But that's not the highlight of the set - the Theme through Mango sequence is, as out of the typical Theme jam Mike starts thumping on his bass like he's about to play Maze, but the band slips into a relaxed groove instead, with Page really stepping up. This neat groove lasts for a few minutes, until they make a left turn into Dog Log, and then go into Mango. The actual Mango jam is fine, but then the band pushes into another Mike-led jam, and they drop into another groove, this one more mischievous and odd, laden with some Halloween Wolfman's-type spookiness. An extended Trey-showcasing Free closes the set (wowee, do they blow the vocals on the final verse), and it's always nice to hear Contact in any setting.

Final thoughts: everyone's mentioned the Theme -> Dog Log > Mango sequence for a listen. The rest of the show isn't totally essential, but that chunk alone make this bad boy definitely worth a download.