The show started with The Moma Dance, which was funky punch in the face! And a punch that I wanted! I secretly was hopping for a Moma but I was actually hoping that the Moma would happen in the second set so the jams could be longer. And Moma jams are awesome! With that funky tone set, the boys then transitioned into AC/DC Bag, which kept the funk alive. Then there was a transition into 555. Now with this transition we had more of the groove move into a “dark/spacey” jam style, which marks of a lot the songs from the album Fuego. 555 also slowed down the pace a bit, which was nice set up for WAN (this song on my wish list before the show ☺). Heavy Things came next which brought back up the energy. A nice little happy birthday song and then a 46 Days. Now up to this point there had been no crazing jams yet but overall I particularly like all of these first songs because the boys diffidently brought the funk to this show, which I did not see in St. Paul.

With the entrance of IDK, I saw the boys return back to earlier Phish years. And actually for the rest of the first set the boys were playing like they did in the 80s and early 90s. To describe early Phish would be to combine “weird/jammy/unpredictable/funny” feel into a giant ball of jamband rock that is what the rest of the songs in the set had. Also with Fishman coming out with the vacuum also told the crowd that the boys were bring us back to their younger years. Next song was a long and hearty Divided Sky and then a Cavern both songs again bringing out the old Phish sound. And then Led Zeppelin. E-P-I-C. Cavern moved in into an explosion of Good Times Bad Times. It really capped off the high energy, which was what the boys wanted to create in this show. Now I would have put this cover as the favorite song of this show because when the boys were playing this song I was getting shivers from the level of passion and intensity put into this song. Wild, rare, strong and beautiful, Good Times Bad Times was a mighty cry the boys wanted to crowd to here. They wanted to make an emphatic statement that this tour was going to be crazing, awesome with that Phishiness we all love.

The hits just came coming. Carini opens the second set and it is hard, mean and slimly sick which actually had a Zeppelin like feel which was a carry off from the first set. This show was not your happy go lucky bouncy, Grateful Dead, 60 hippie feel. This was hard Rock! So lets get rocking! Carini transitioned into….the one…the only…TWEEZER. The crowd went wild, the type of wild like that would come from the Cubs winning a playoff series. My brother and I had Tweezer on the top of our wish list before the show so we were going crazy when the boys started to bust it out. And then the second song I had on my wish list was transitioned into: Fluffhead. It was beautiful because after the boys have chilled the crowd down with the Tweezer jam we then heard the signature first notes of Fluffhead rang through Wrigley and I was in utter awe and love. I would have never imaged that this combination was going to be played. It showed this beautiful combine of a “slimly/hard-rock/funky” jam with old school Phish. The two songs of Tweezer and Fluffhead and their jam combination was my favorite “song” of the night.

Fluffhead slipped into to Piper which moved the set into more a spacey style jam of the show. It gave me a new respect of Piper for it really has a crazy/spacy sound. Piper actually moved into probably the best jam transition of the night, which was Steam. The energy and vibe had mellowed and chilled into nice funky groove to sooth the night at Wrigley. Steam went into WITVS, which was a nice calm touching song to end this 6 song jam session. After a small break the boys started up with Harry Hood or in our case at Wrigley “Harry Carry”. When the boys sang Harry instead of the crowd saying Hood we sang Carry. It was amazing that they played this song but it was a great gift for the Phish Phan’s at the home of the Cubbies. Harry then grooved its way into Tweezer Reprise, which was amazingly strong. Again, again, again the mighty Phish roared and again, again, again I was in awe by how powerful this show was. The second set like the first ended off with great strength and power of a hard rock jam energy.

The encore was a special treat, a crazy Beatles cover. There has been a special affinity to The Beatles this tour and to cover I am The Walrus was good statement about how this show took some of that crazy style of The Fab Four.

And in many ways this harder feel is somewhat impossible for Phish in 2016. The boys have been playing and giving us the groove for over 30 years and lets be honest, the boys could have given us a strong harder jammy feel in the 80’s or 90’s but now as Trey, Mike, Page and Jon have all crossed the age of 50, they do not have that same level of energy. But that is ok. The boys know how to redesign their sound that can still have the spirit of that hard jam from years past. In all, Wrigley was a powerful show and the type of power unique to our 2016 Phish.