After going to Dallas for the Grand Prairie shows, it would have been very hard for me to make it to all 4 nights in Vegas. So I decided to Kamikaze Halloween night and fly in from Philly for just the night. As rumored over the last couple months, Phish decided to cover David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. This was my 4th Halloween show with Phish and anyone who's been to any of them knows the feeling when they hand you the Phishbill walking in the door. There was a lot of excitement in the air. We went in early on the floor and got a nice spot on the front right side. We had a good size crew to hold down some real estate until the show started.

Set 1

After opening the last few nights with highlight songs from the 14 Vegas Halloween, it was obvious that Your Pet Cat was going to open the night. In standard Phish tradition, they open with the Carini curveball and then play Your Pet Cat... There was nothing over the top about the first set, besides for the "On Point" song selection. It was the hit list, over and over again. Even Petrichor was ok because they played 10 solid songs in a row before it. The Antelope was a nice send off before the costume set.

Set 2

Being up front and watching the orchestra set up was really cool. The band took the stage and everyone had chills. You could feel the band's passion for the album in the way they played. It really was a great tribute to Bowie. Each song had the vocals changing hands between the band members, and the Hartswick back up crew was a nice addition to fill some tone gaps. When Page came out and sang Ziggy Stardust with Trey, the floor went nuts. Overall I thought they did a great job with the album. The set up with the orchestra and back up vocalists, the blend of acoustic and electric guitars, and the changing of lead vocals all showed that the band really put a lot of thought into making the album as genuine as possible. Mr Bowie would have been proud.

Set 3

The band comes out swinging with 46 Days. Nothing crazy, but slowly fades into a ripping Sand. When Twist starts, I glanced around at the smiles all over the floor. They continue to play the hits.. Trey hops off the guitar onto the Marimba, which I'm not the biggest fan of. (I hired you to play guitar) But this was actually pretty cool. And almost in a mocking fashion, the rest of the band hops on Fishman's drum kit. The drum jam was pretty cool, but I felt like Fishman really got Ass Handed on that one. Meatstick was decent and then it rolled into 2001. This 2001 was soo cool. Please give it a listen. The back section of it had this stormy jam that really resonated with me. Similar to the first set, they play their typical BDTNL 2nd to last. Once again, no one really cared because of the setlist before it. It was a nice time to chat with friends and smile about the evening so far. Slave closes out the 3rd set as it probably should. Nothing crazy, just a solid rendition in perfect placement. The encore, as to be expected, Space Oddity. The crowd really tried to will them into one more song, but I believe they felt like the way it ended was another fitting tribute to Mr Bowie.

Overall it was another fantastic night of Phish. I stayed up in the casino hanging with friends until 5am when I cabbed it to the airport to fly home at 7am. A successful kamikaze mission for sure!!! Bring on MSG!!!