I invited several of my former co-workers to join me for this show, and two of them actually managed to show up. This was their first show and had stars in their eyes walking the lot. I smiled to myself thinking about the lot at Dicks and my first shakedown at Deer Creek in ’03. A quick 3 hour drive put me into Grand Prairie and I was excited to see the boys after what had happened through the last four shows.

The lights go out and I am thrilled to hear the opening notes of No Men in No Man’s land. At the same time my expectations are very high after the last two time is had seen this song live: Dicks night one ’16 and NYE with the hourglass. This was a solid version and got everybody moving right off the bat, but did not live up to the standout versions I had been treated to. Next came Breath and Burning which kind of took things back to square one. Poor heart was a good injection of energy, and was obviously welcome in north Texas. Yee haw.

Wolfman’s was awesome and funky and very welcome at this point in the show. The jam, while energetic, never really broke out of Type I. Water in the Sky was painfully slow and My Soul was My Soul. NICU got my friends to notice Page, maybe for the first time.

This was my MJ show, number 23, and I had never seen It’s Ice. Lately is seems like the band has struggled to make the most of this classic, so I was elated and nervous at the same time when they started. There were some hiccups through the first main composed section, but things tightened up. By the time the jam started the boys were locked in and this was my highlight of the show up to this point. Ocelot was also pretty slow, but developed nicely.

Fuck Your Face was dubbed, “The second greatest Phish song of all time” by Trey. After a pause, he added that they were about to play the best song, which obviously was Ass Handed. Then Fish commented that Ass Handed was the greatest according to Trey, but the next song was the greatest according to him. Saw It Again! I have to side with Fishman on this one because I love this tune and it did not disappoint.

When Running Out of Time started, I was nervous that people would start talking. This did not happen. Everyone in the crowd went silent except for the occasional cheer or woot of appreciation. From this point on I felt a shift in the room. It was like everyone realized that this was an almost intimate show of only around 3,000 people who all really wanted to be there on a Monday night. David Bowie closed out the first set.

The second set started with Dog Faced Boy, but I missed it due to what felt like a very short set break. I came in during the opening notes of Seven Below, assumed this was the set opener, and was very pleased with the choice I thought the band had made to start this set. I love this song, and this version was tons of fun

Petrichor was in my opinion played as well or better than the versions we’ve heard in every city so far during fall terr. I like this song, but I wonder to myself if it could be shortened in sort a “Curtain With” situation where in they would sometimes play the full version and sometimes just skip the first few minutes. Especially at this point in the set, it just feels out of place.

For centuries, the Maze vs Bowie debate has raged on. Well tonight every one wins because they played them both. Except the thing is that Maze always wins, and tonight was an excellent example of how much harder Maze rages face than Bowie. Maze was my favorite song tonight and reached amazing peaks in just over nine minutes.

Dirt brought another wave of quiet appreciation to make for a beautiful moment between the band and the audience. I can’t express enough how impressed I was by this crowd’s respect for the music of our favorite band. By this time most people knew that this was not going to be a jam fest of a night, but we still have Tuesday, and this is special.

I Always Wanted It This was sounds like a Vida Blue song. I felt sorry for Fishman during this one because he has a very repetitive part and it didn’t seem like he, Trey, or Mike were really too invested in the writing of the song. Things got spacey and started really taking off, so naturally Trey ran over to the Marimba Lumina to play some nonsense. I’m not a fan. He did it all three nights at Dick’s, and it felt as awkward tonight, as it did all three of those times. Fishman doesn’t need help playing the cowbell. Page and Gordon find a groove and i’m dying for Trey to run back up and grab his guitar and destroy, but it doesn’t happen. He even threw the beat off so bad Fish had to join the wreckage long enough to make it seem intentional before masterfully resetting thing right back where they were. When Trey finally does go back to the guitar I thought they were segueing into Also Sprach Zarathustra but it never happened.

Piper was solid and ended up sounding like a Birds of a Feather jam. Bug brought us more high energy Type I playing from the whole band but surprised me to be the set closer. This set felt very short, clocking in around 78 minutes, and the fact that it ended at 11:25 led me to believe we would be treated to a lengthy encore ( see UIC 8-15-2011 ). By 11:35 we had arrived at the jam for Rock and Roll and I was ready for blast off, but in just a few more minutes it was all over.

Best day of my life.

Speaking of UIC, I don’t think its any coincidence that the first year Phish played at Wrigley Field the Cubs are in the World Series. I do however hope that by bringing this up I can somehow jinx them into losing to whoever it is that they are playing. I don’t really care….Phish is playing tomorrow night again in a venue that they seem to enjoy. See you wooks on the floor.