preface: i streamed the show, wasn't there

blaze > plasma > blaze was a great way to start the show. Both the initial blaze jam and plasma jam had some heat right away, it immediately felt like they came to kill it tonight. Always down for a vultures, but who isn't? As far as stand alone songs go that don't have a typical jam, vultures is one of my favorites. Trey looking into fish's eyes during the drum solo part implied to me that they wanted to overpower the woo's, but eventually Trey was clearly egging them on. Steam as usual feels like a killer jam is about to happen but ends up being short and sweet, walls also felt a bit short but sweet.

Considering that (at least in most of 3.0) the highlights of the night usually seem to land somewhere in the 3rd quarter, first half of second set, it does bring up the question of what the function of the first set is. If you ask me, a 1st set doesn't need to have a monster jam to be a "perfect" first set. I love the idea of a first set that functions to just get you amped as fuck for the second set. A few nice moments, jams and song choices that set the tone for the rest of the night etc. During the actual improv sections of first set jams, you get a glimpse into how the band is feeling - how inspired they are. The improv sections of these first set jams were filled with ideas, no autopilot phish mode in sight. The ghost to end first set, I don't think you could possibly get me more amped for a second set than this ghost did. They kept the energy low but with high anticipation for most of this jam, with all four members just shitting out great ideas left and right. Real sneaky and grimy energy. If this jam was at the start of second set, I'd be thinking they're about to obliterate this venue. When they finally started to amp up the energy of this jam, they reached a really strong moment, I heard a sound come out of this band that I'd never heard before, for just a second. It was too powerful for them, started to lose control for a second but very quickly started making moves to just end the jam. This left me practically begging for more, as excited for a second set as I think you could possibly leave me.

WOH had mostly all you could ask for. The jam quickly found it's way into a mega deep zone, the type of textural effects soundscape stuff that's been getting more prevalent the past few years, but this one was a bit more ambient than usual. Fish was exercising some brand new techniques. He kept doing these insane snare patterns that I'd never quite heard before, but he was so slick with it that you'd think he'd been playing stuff like that for 30 years. Fish leveled up HARD for this show, but even with that it's hard to say whether fish or mike were the MVPs of this section, mike was constantly throwing in ideas that kept this jam at a consistent level of depth. A lot of jams that explore this newer brand of textural effects-laden heaven seem to operate in waves - depth > coasting > depth > coasting etc, but not this one, and I credit mike for keeping it so consistent. Eventually this jam led to a very very above average peak. There's been a lot of discussion in recent years about peaks, since for a while there they mostly did away with them, leading people to talk about how "peaks are easy for phish and therefor cheap", but when a jam can get really out and eventually lead to a strong peak, that shit is strong, and this peak was very strong. What I said before about the ideas the band puts out in the first set has implications about what you'll get in the second set, this WOH jam delivered what we were told to expect.

This golden age was remarkable. After a short few minutes of jamming in the first major key section of GA (containing a signature sound by Trey very reminiscent of the incredible rosemont '18 version), they quickly move onto the typically meatier minor key jam. Fish takes a big risk here and starts playing an atypical pattern, almost tribal sounding. It stands out a lot, the type of move where you either have to really lean into it and make it go somewhere, or else give up on it and let it exist as a weird choice that went nowhere, but fish absolutely did not give up on it. The band explores this space for a while, finding their footing with it and exploring ideas on top of it. Eventually it reaches a nice zone that solidifies the payoff for fish's experiment here. I always say that one of my favorite things about trey, is that he can "go over anything". You can give him the most bonkers backing track and he'll find a way to solo over that in a way that feels like he's specifically practiced it. Well here is one of those examples, once this fish experiment pays off trey quickly starts going over it in a big way. This ramps up the energy towards a more typical high energy second set phish zone, but fish does a great job of keeping this jam unique with yet again his brand new snare drum superpower. At one point after he's finally a few bars passed moving on from this experimental tribal pattern, he cleverly drops into a tresillo (think the common dancehall or reggaeton beat) for just a bar or two. This lands so strongly and feels like the climax of the jam, that is until for the big peak moment, trey turns on some straight up harsh noise shoegaze guitar effect just lets that build in intensity for the final bar. I love the noisey phish, and I love the shoegaze effects, and this moment basically made me cum. They get to a clear point of playing out the finishing bar of the jam, but when they land on the "1", fish is found softly playing that initial tribal pattern again for just a second. Slick as fuck. This jam actually rocked me. So many good ideas, so many new ideas, they stuck every landing. Very unique jam for phish, but at the same time the type of jam that only phish could pull off. I am very surprised that this jam is not mentioned on other reviews, don't miss this one.

Don't have much to say about the rest of the show really. After those jams they can do whatever they want, who cares. Play bouncing 5 times in a row, I got what I needed. Fluff encore diverged into a hyped bouncy minor key jam for just a minute before re-arriving at the typical triumphant jam it usually has. First set might have had better flow, second set had 2 unbelievable jams, I don't like rating shows with numbers so I don't know, but this show basically had everything I could ask for out of a phish show, and from memory this is the best tour opener in quite a long time. Multiple jams from mexico a few months ago that blew my mind, and now this insane opener. This year is really shaping up to be something special