Sometimes you need to see it from the band's perspective. Our seats for this show were caddy-corner behind Mike and Fishman. As I explained to my friend, there are two light shows: the light show Kuroda is composing for the audience, and the light show the band sees. Sitting behind you get the latter. And, fortunately, with the band's transition to a more sparse rig, there was very little in the way of watching from the bands perspective. Oh, and they played music.

Much like the previous night, the boys from Vermont launched into it for the first set with a screaming Carini...into a subdued Plasma, but (for the viewers at home's free first song) back into Carini to get the place absolutely bubbling with anticipation. Take a breath during Quadrophonic Toppling, and back into the set, head first with a song I've only seen once before in my 67 shows: The Curtain With. (Note: Rift, played the previous night and TCW, have the same chord structure, so I'm fully expecting Trey and the band to find time for a Squirming Coil which also shares this progression, albeit at a different speed.) Time for a drink with several standards like Bathtub Gin and NICU...both performed punctually. From there the band slowed things down with Evolve into Mountains In The Mist, which was so dreamy and the vocal harmonies were on point. Finally, a solid 1.0 Fluffhead...the crowd goes nuts and the first set is done.

Second set seemed to pick right up where the first left off with a solid Mike's Hurrah Groove? We got a wave of relaxation with a Wave of Hope into Twenty Years Later into Golden Age! They love this song by TV On The Radio and it was the only cover of the night. The clock hit 10:55pm and Trey was like, I'm not really done. Character Zero to finish out the set...Kuroda's lights screaming in the World's Most Famous Arena. The band took their bows and off before the encore. Of course we were wondering if they'd choose to come back with another cover like Loving Cup to quietly end the night...they were having none of it. Another 1.0 standard, Trey started the opening notes of The Lizards and caught the sound engineers off guard. Quickly they corrected and we were back at full blast. For some reason, this is one of their hardest songs, harder than Fluffhead. I've never seen it performed perfectly outside of Gamehenge in recent years. This was no exception. Mike missed a note, Trey missed a note. Fish flubbed a beat. The band rolled on...as if in an apologetic way, they finished the night with a song they couldn't not play perfectly: Possum. Its presence here means that the merch shirts were no indicator of the upcoming NYE stunt. Phish nailed this rock-a-billy standard to close the night and I was sated.

Was this the best show I've seen. No, but it was a solid B. Come for the Carini, stay for everything else. Can't wait to see what they do the rest of the run, and NYE!