10/31/16 - THE RISE AND FALL OF TREY ANASTASIO AND THE PHISH VERMONT

First, a few thoughts on the costume:
The costume, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars by the recently deceased David Bowie, was revealed an hour or two before the show started, and I liked the choice, mainly because it was just such a beautiful gesture and tribute. I had never heard it in full, but I knew and loved Moonage Daydream, Starman and Suffragette City. I then listened to it for the first time in full on Spotify, and thought it was good and cohesive, but not great, at least upon first listen. But of course, said listens can be deceiving.

Phish took the stage a while later and overall, their rendition was incredibly solid, and then some. It's obvious they practiced the living hell out of it and the arrangements (complete with backup singers and strings) were tight as shit. The band nailed all of their respective parts, both vocally and instrumentally, with a hell of a lot of passion, though they occasionally stumbled on the former, seeing as Bowie's parts on the album are very high; even getting out of Page's range every now and again.

A few highlights:

- Starman, with Mike on vox and the soaring strings, was just fantastic and damn near brought me to tears.

- Trey awkwardly strutting around the stage like Jay-Z during ''It Ain't Easy'' was hilariously confusing.

- The rest was just really solid. There was pretty much no jamming, which I didn't like all that much. I guess this was because of the abundance of extra musicians, but it still felt strange for every song to be so by the book, but that said, it felt so loose that it didn't really occur to me until later.

- Trey straight up fucking killed Rock and Roll Suicide vocally.

OVERALL (on the costume set): Incredibly solid and well performed, Phish's performance was a straight up triumph. The lack of jamming was far superseded by just how perfectly it was performed, including all the string and backup vocal parts. Not sure where exactly it ranks on the list of costumes, but it's definitely in the top five.

SET III:
Sand had a damn nice jam. After some great rhythmic jamming, Page moved to the Lil' Pumpkin and everything became more and more melodic. Trey then began soloing beautifully with Page and Mike backing him up up very melodically. Trey kept this going for a few more minutes while Page slowly but surely developed a beautiful progression. After a while, the jam became a tad quieter, eventually fading out before >'ing into Twist. But the rest (with the exception of a pretty good 2001) was fairly pedestrian.

The encore was, of course, Space Oddity. Maybe it's just me, but it felt like resolution. Maybe not acceptance, but at least, some kind of closure, for them and maybe me.

We love you David.

HIGHLIGHTS: Five Years, Moonage Daydream, Starman, Suffragette City, Rock 'n' Roll Suicide, Sand.