Hmmm - Four full days later and still no review for this seminal night. Maybe that's because @laudanum and @scissortail summed it up nicely in the blog reviews for Nights 3 & 4. This show/seismic event found itself worthy of discussion the next night by Trey himself in the lyrics to Chalk Dust Torture Reprise. And why not? The first set is loosey goosey yet still finds moments to dive into the effects laden jamming that will undoubtedly define this run and possibly the next year or more. 46 Days briefly divebombs into it but pulls up, KDF leans in hard for the last five minutes or so. Perhaps a harbinger for what is lurking after setbreak.

And eleven minutes into the Blaze On opener it feels like 2024 Evil Phish has arrived again - only to be ripchorded (ripriffed?) for CDT. And it is a glorious, multi-sectional CDT even BEFORE the earth opens up and swallows it at minute 22ish. Waves and waves of thick effects, pitch divebombs, growling rumble, synth corkscrews and tom rolling, cymbal crashing madness. And then.... well, if the video is still up, at 28:38 we reach sublime chaos at its apex and an inexplicable moment of musical hive mind. Trey mashes his expression pedal and what many folks have described as the "bubble effect" explodes into the Mexican night. It is out of left field, overbearing, and could have devolved the jam into ambient weirdness, but everyone adjusts - Trey starts a call/response with the effect, Fish finds the rhythm and mimics it with his China cymbal. It just shouldn't work, but of course it does, and it elevates the jam and sends it racing to a massive peak of power chording. At 30:00 in the video we humble viewers are presented with incontrovertible evidence that this new noise rock movement is here to stay - Trey's maniacal smile as he leans into that expression pedal over and over, bobbing his head, eyes cast to the floor.

The rest of the show? It was good/great Phishing - Hood has an excellent bliss peak and Zero never disappoints.

It looks like 2024 will be another titanic shift for the band - think '97 more groove/less peak meets the highlights of the oxy years ('04 SPAC Piper comes to mind) meets an expert command of a new cache of effects from both Trey and Page. I can't wait to see what CK5 can do with this new direction with the mother grid and his full lighting rig.