The first set was perfectly good/great phish. Exploratory but concise jams in Jim and KDF, my first ever Tela, and my first Theme since 2017. A well above average Melt got me into the “WTF is happening” territory that I always crave at a Phish show. I left the first set feeling great and ready for a jammy second set!

The second set left me a little disappointed. Notably, they played the longest AC/DC Bag since 2004. Trey sounded great at the end of Bag but he ripcorded into Soul Planet. In the moment I thought: “Okay, this is fine, Soul Planet has proven itself to be a potent jam vehicle. Bring on the 20+ minute Soul Planet!” Once again, after some impressive jamming, Trey ripcords into Simple. This was a disappointing moment for me, as I felt the Soul Planet started off very well only to be cut short after 9 or 10 minutes. Simple ended up going somewhere great. The 15 minute jam had Trey taking a rhythmic role, and a funky and nebulous jam emerged. This is terrific stuff and reminded me of the dark Melt jam the set prior. The set ends with a nice Bowie that was a bit longer than normal, which I love to see in a 3.0/4.0 Bowie.

After the solid first set, I had a lot of hope for the rest of the show, but I was honestly a bit disappointed. The Simple and Bowie were excellent, but for the rest of the set it seemed like Trey was off. The rest of the guys seemed ready to blast off into space, but Trey frequently pulled the plug on promising jams.

As many have said, Phish on an off night is better than almost any other band on their best night. I still had a wonderful experience that could never be replicated. Spending 9 hours in the car will always be worth it to see the best band on earth.