With all due respect to @phish123, I’m not sure that there’s a way to make some kind of perfect rating system possible. For someone like me, who didn’t start seeing Phish until 3.0, but has now seen 87 shows - last night was perfect, and one of the 2-3 best shows I’ve seen. It’s not fair to expect every person who’s on this site to be 250+ show, 20+ year vets, so unfortunately, in 2018 you’re going to have to respect the opinions of people who don’t “know” Phish as well as you, and realize that the ratings aren’t going to be perfect. I wasn’t at NYE ‘95, or Gorge ‘98, so no matter how amazing those recordings are, it’ll never be the same as being there. I can’t help but be biased by being inside the world’s greatest arena during last night’s show and being surrounded by 19,000 other people, 99% of whom were having a 5.0 experience.

As mentioned before, when the piss break song of set 1 is Corinna, and the cool-down section of set 2 is No Quarter, I just don’t know what more you can ask for in 2018. How many times have we seen 3.0 second sets that seem destined for greatness and then derail with an Alaska, Twenty Years Later, or Show of Life, etc? To me, this is as good as it’s gonna get in the present day, and that should matter in rating the show.

That said, these things have a way of taking care of themselves over time - 16 of the top 20 rated shows here are still ‘93-2000 shows.